Encountering the Messiah: Transforming Lives and Worship

Speaker A: 00:00:08

The Deep Waters Way — Episode 9 Transcript

John 4:1–42

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And with the inauguration of the kingdom, worship is not about a place. It's about a person. It's about the Father.

The Deep Waters Way. Where scripture, theology, and transformation meet.

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Hello, I'm Ray Cooper and I want to welcome you once again to The Deep Waters Way. Thank you for joining me today.

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Today we're going to be looking at John 4, verses 1 through 42, and how a single encounter can change untold lives. So let's jump right in.

It's time to slip the moorings and head for the deep waters.

Have you ever had an unexpected encounter that radically changed your life?

What if such an encounter could not only transform your life, but ripple out to change the lives of those around you?

And what if, in the midst of your own brokenness and pain, you could become the catalyst for that kind of change?

That's exactly what happened one ordinary day at a well in Samaria.

One aspect that we sometimes lose sight of when we read stories like this in the Bible is the reality of them. Throughout Scripture we are presented with a variety of types of stories. Some are parables, like we see Jesus using in the Gospels, some are allegory, and some are even poetic. But many of them are stories — narrations, if you will — of real events in real places involving real people.

In John 4, John gives us just such a story — a real event involving real people in a real place. And he gives us very specific details about that event that had to have been given to him afterwards by one of the participants.

I'm not going to be reading this whole passage because it is so long, but I will use specific verses out of it and I'll summarize what I don't actually read.

John starts by telling us that Jesus' ministry is starting to attract the attention of the Pharisees. And as a result, Jesus decides to leave Judea and return to Galilee. And then in verse 4, John says, "And he had to pass through Samaria."

Now, if you look at a map of Israel, you find Judea in the south and Galilee in the north. And right in the middle is Samaria. Now this presents a problem, because in Jesus' day, faithful Jews wanted nothing to do with Samaritans.

The Samaritans were the descendants of Israelites who were left in the land when Assyria conquered the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th century BC. Part of Assyrian policy was to resettle conquered people — primarily craftsmen and nobles — into other lands to help control the population and prevent uprisings. In the land of the northern kingdom of Israel, this meant that those who were left behind intermarried with the people brought in from other lands. Their descendants are the ones who came to be known as the Samaritans.

The Samaritans kept their already syncretic religion of blended Yahweh and pagan worship and added to it even more with the people brought into the land. So religiously, culturally, and socially, their descendants by Jesus' day were despised and looked down on by the Jewish people.

And John says Jesus had to go through Samaria. Now, again when you look at a map, that does seem to be the case. But it wasn't necessary. Because of their attitudes toward the Samaritans, many Jews would have taken a much longer route around Samaria while traveling between Judea and Galilee.

So what's going on? Does Jesus have to go through Samaria or not? Strictly speaking, no, he does not. But this is a case of divine necessity. Jesus had to go through Samaria not because of geography, but because of need. There was something there he needed to do. There was someone there who needed an encounter with him.

John goes on to tell us that as Jesus and his disciples came near to a town called Sychar, there was a well. And not just any well — Jacob's well. This detail fills in the real place aspect of this story. Sychar is associated with the modern town of Askar, which sits on the lower slope of Mount Ebal, about a half mile from Jacob's well and the ancient city of Shechem, which features prominently in the Old Testament. Across the valley the well lies in is Mount Gerizim, and these two mountains also figure into Israel's history. But we'll come back to that.

Sychar sits about 30 miles north of Jerusalem. And while John doesn't tell us how many days they've been traveling, he does say that they arrive at the well at about the sixth hour. More than likely this means six hours from sunrise, so about noon. And he says that because he was weary from the journey, Jesus sat down to rest at the well while the disciples went into town to buy food.

This is a small detail, and it's something we could easily gloss over and miss. But catch what John is doing here. Whether he does it intentionally or not, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, John points to Jesus' humanity, just like Mark does. In Mark chapter 4, which we looked at back in episode 4, John shows us that Jesus is physically tired.

So we have Jesus — hot, tired, weary, resting at the well. And John picks up in verses 7 through 10:

"A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink.' For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, 'How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?' For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.'"

And here that old tension begins to surface. A Samaritan woman and a Jewish rabbi meet at a well. That almost sounds like the start of a really bad joke, but there's something serious taking place here. Remember — we're at a real place, and now we have real people. Jesus asks for a drink of water, and the woman gets defensive. She immediately questions what Jesus is doing. This is simply not something that is done, and she's suspicious of his motives.

Jesus responds by telling her that if she really knew who he was, she would have asked him for a drink. And then he begins to talk about living water — that is, water from a spring, not a well. At least that's how the woman understands it. But Jesus is doing here the same thing he did in chapter 3 when Nicodemus came to visit. He's using a common, ordinary term for something physical and applying it to the spiritual. But he's doing it in a way that someone who knew the Old Testament prophets would catch. Living water was often a prophetic metaphor used to describe the Holy Spirit.

And part of the reason the woman doesn't catch what Jesus is doing is she has an incomplete understanding of Scripture. The Samaritans, in their watered-down version of Yahweh worship, only accepted the Pentateuch — the first five books of the Old Testament. So she is not familiar with the prophetic writings and focuses solely on the physical meaning of Jesus' words.

Their discussion continues with her still focused on physical water and Jesus saying that anyone who drinks of the water he offers — that is, whoever receives the gift of the Holy Spirit — not only will never thirst again, but will have a spring of water within that flows into eternal life.

And at this point the woman asks Jesus for this water he offers, but she's still stuck on the physical. She asks so that she will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. Now, granted, Jesus said this water would prevent a person from being thirsty. But we need to think of this in terms of Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount, and hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

And it's here that Jesus moves to the real heart of the issue. Much like when Jesus asks a question, his response to the woman pushes past all barriers and shines the light on her real need. In verses 16 through 18 we read:

"Jesus said to her, 'Go, call your husband, and come here.' The woman answered him, 'I have no husband.' Jesus said to her, 'You are right in saying, I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.'"

We often read this couple of verses and begin to make moral judgments about the woman. We notice the "have had five husbands" and the issue of a sixth man who is not her husband but apparently fills that role. And we begin to look down on her. We look at the time of day she's coming to the well and think, oh, she must be ostracized by the village. We immediately start drawing conclusions about her life. Certainly her current living arrangement would be seen as immoral. We look at the five previous husbands and immediately think adultery.

Yet there are other reasons for multiple husbands. The reality of the culture is that a woman living by herself would have had little to no support, meaning marriage was almost a necessity. And it's very possible that one or more of her husbands could have died. And that raises the possibility that one or even more of these marriages could have followed the levirate custom of men marrying the childless widow of their brothers. My point here is we often make value judgments about people without knowing or even really thinking about all the facts or possibilities.

But notice what Jesus does. He doesn't condemn her. He doesn't berate her. He simply and gently reveals the truth about her life. And we need to understand that truth contains trauma. Regardless of the reasons for the serial marriage and current arrangement, this woman has lived — weddings, death of a spouse, and divorce all rank high on the Life Change Index scale. And this woman has gone through some combination of those three things five times. And financial circumstances rank fairly high as well. And that's also something that would be involved in this woman's life.

This woman doesn't need condemnation. She needs compassion. And that's what Jesus quietly gives her. Compassion doesn't mean we gloss over issues. It doesn't mean we massage the truth. Rather, we treat a person's situation with gentleness and honesty.

Jesus speaks to her current situation without putting himself above her, without looking down on her. And notice what else he does — he demonstrates his divine nature. If the being weary and his needing rest shows his humanity, this simple declaration of truth and the recognition of a trauma-filled life of someone he's never met shows Jesus' divinity. He is indeed the God who sees.

And the woman's eyes begin to open to the reality in front of her. She calls him a prophet and begins to ask about worship. She points to the tradition that calls Mount Gerizim the mountain of worship and contrasts it with the Jewish position that worship is to take place at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

This tradition regarding Mount Gerizim goes all the way back to Deuteronomy and Moses' instructions to Joshua regarding the conquest of Canaan. And then we actually see it played out in the book of Joshua. Once they had entered the land, the Israelites were together in the valley between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal — here at Jacob's well — and held a covenant renewal ceremony. As a part of that ceremony, the blessings of the covenant were to be read from Mount Gerizim. Then the curses of the covenant were to be read from Mount Ebal. This, in part, is the tradition this woman is leaning toward.

There's quite a bit more to it, but it gets into some pretty technical areas of biblical research and there's a lot of debate around some of these points. So rather than go into that here, I'm going to include links to a few different articles discussing these issues in the show notes for those who are interested in exploring that particular rabbit hole.

That said, the woman has a point. Mount Gerizim, which overlooks Jacob's well, has been tied to worship since the days of Joshua. And her statement implies a pointed question: who's right? You are a prophet — where should we worship God?

Jesus responds by telling her that the Samaritans worship that which they don't know. This sounds very similar to the point Paul makes much later in Athens after observing all the altars there, including one to an unknown God. Jesus is saying, though your worship is based on tradition, it has been seriously compromised by the insertion of pagan ideas.

David Guzik writes, "The Samaritans are wrong, not only as to the place, but the whole grounds and nature of their worship."

In contrast, Jesus points to the knowledge of the Jews, saying they worship what they know and that salvation comes from the Jews. Now, this doesn't mean that only Jews can be saved. Rather, it means that the true author of salvation would come from the Jews — the Messiah is to be a descendant of David.

And then Jesus continues in verses 23 through 26:

"But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming — he who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he."

In short, Jesus says that something has changed which will change all of worship. Too often we focus just on "a day is coming." But notice he also says "and is now here." What Jesus is saying is consistent with his declarations that the kingdom of God is at hand. And with the inauguration of the kingdom, worship is not about a place. It's about a person. It's about the Father.

This, in fact, has really always been the case. And it's why God tells his people to not be like the pagan nations building shrines on every mountain, but to only worship on the mountain he chooses. This isn't about limiting what people do or even about controlling worship. It ties worship with obedience and says that if we are to truly worship the one who is greater than we are, then we must do it his way and not how we choose.

Recently, the brother of my seminary advisor and systematic theology professor made a Facebook post where he dealt with the idea of moving away from thinking about the commands of God and toward the God who commands. I think the same thing applies here in regard to worship. The Samaritan woman is thinking about and is focused on the worship of God. And too often we do the same thing — we get focused on a place or a time or a procedure for worship. Jesus provides a gentle correction for her and us. Instead of worrying about the worship of God, we need to focus on the God we worship.

And when we do that, it frees our worship from the box that we put it in, and all of life becomes an act of worship toward the Most High God. And as Jesus states, that is not just something for a nebulous future. It is something that is a reality now. We are the kingdom, and everything we do is to be directed toward the King.

ief straight from Deuteronomy: 18:18

She's looking, she's hoping, and the light is finally starting to break through. And now that she reveals a desire for the coming of the Messiah, Jesus reveals himself to be the one she seeks. Unfortunately, in that moment we don't get her response because the disciples return.

Now, let me do something a little different here. So far, we have just been looking at the events as John records them — of what happened in a particular place with particular people involved, what we called earlier a real story or narration of real events. But John does something here with this story that crops up repeatedly in his Gospel, so much so that it appears to not be random or accidental.

Indeed, it seems that John has a habit of constructing narratives about real events in such a way as to be able to draw deeper meaning from them. This is a literary tool known as typology, and it is to be contrasted with allegory. The primary difference is that typology generally involves real stories about real people and real events, while allegory is usually seen as personifying abstract concepts such as wisdom or love. Allegory can be seen in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, and Paul uses it as well in his linking of Hagar and Sarah to the old and new covenants.

So what then is the typology that can be seen in John's narrative of this event? There is actually quite a bit, and this is not new readings of the passage. It's not even reading something into the passage that's not there. These ideas go back at least as far as the 2nd century AD.

I want to briefly touch on a few of them, and I'm aware that this may not be all of them, but it makes my point. I think the first here is the well motif. Throughout the Old Testament, we see wells being the place that servants or young men went to find brides. We see it with Abraham's servant and Rebekah, with Jacob and Rachel, with Moses and Zipporah. In each of these cases, a man approached a well and had some interaction with a young woman who was there to draw water. That interaction eventually led to a marriage involving the young woman and either the man she encountered or the person he was there on behalf of.

Now, obviously, Jesus is not here looking for a wife. However, Paul uses the metaphor of marriage to describe the relationship between Jesus and the church. So we can look at this well scene in that light and see Jesus here searching for the bride — those who would make up the church. Interestingly, we find him searching and even identifying himself as the Messiah outside of Israel.

Another typology that can be seen is the woman having five husbands. I said earlier that it was Assyrian policy to import people from conquered lands into other places as a method of control. 2 Kings, which details the Assyrian activity in Israel, lists five other nations that had been conquered by Assyria and whose people had been imported into Israel. These people brought their own gods and modes of worship with them, and that worship took hold among the Israelites left behind. In the prophets, the spiritual relationship between God and his people is equated to the marriage relationship. And so from this perspective, some look at the woman's five husbands and see these nations and their gods as a part of Samaria's religious past.

That same idea involving the woman's relationships can actually be expanded and then tied back into that first well motif. Her sixth relationship — with the man Jesus identifies as not her husband — can be tied to the blended or syncretic religion that developed in Samaria once they had turned away from a paganized polytheism back to a monotheistic, yet still heavily paganized form of worship. It is the worshiping what they do not know that Jesus spoke of earlier. And then, in this same view, Jesus as the Messiah can be seen as the seventh man, or the perfected husband of the church, searching for his bride at a well.

There's also a sense of geographic irony taking place here. Sychar, the village the woman is from, sits on the slopes of Mount Ebal — the mountain of curses mentioned in Deuteronomy. And that village is about to be blessed in ways it can't begin to understand. Likewise, the Samaritans worship on Mount Gerizim, the mountain of blessings. And Jesus soundly proclaims the Samaritan worship to be in error and not the true worship to come.

None of this should be seen as a replacement for what is going on in the story. Typology is not meant to replace actual events. Rather, it takes the actual real event, people, and places and expands the story outward to point to a greater spiritual truth. This story is still real, as is whatever this woman has experienced in her life and her very tangible needs. But through those we are able to see Christ, who searches for those who need him, and are even able to begin to see ourselves in the story. Because the Samaritan woman serves as a foreshadow of many of the people who read this story.

Now, I said earlier we didn't get to see the woman's immediate reaction to Jesus' declaration that he is the Messiah. However, we do get to see it in verses 28 and 29:

"So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 'Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?'"

Much like the Gerasene demoniac, the Samaritan woman becomes one of the first evangelists in the New Testament. She leaves her water jar, returns to her village, and begins telling everyone there about her encounter with Jesus. She tells them what he did and asks if this could be the Messiah. Her life in those few brief moments has been transformed, and as a result she proclaims what has happened. And the people listen to her.

This is one of the reasons I believe we need to be very careful in overly moralizing this woman's story. Are there issues there? Yes, there are. Is she living with a man outside the bonds of marriage? Yes, she is. Has she come to the well at an odd time? Yes, but there could be a variety of reasons for that. Does any of this mean that she is scandalized in her village? It's possible, but since the story doesn't say, we don't know and can only speculate.

It's telling to me, though, that the people respond by listening to her and going out to the well to see the man she's talking about. Either she has some respect within the village, or there's something so radically different about her now that people can't help but take note. Either way, the result is the same. They go see what she's talking about. And the entire village is transformed because of it.

Verses 39 through 42 tell us:

"Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, 'He told me all that I ever did.' So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, 'It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.'"

And it is here that the woman continues to be a type, a foreshadow — not just of some, but of all who read this story, of all who encounter Jesus as the Messiah. Because of her word, the village came to see Jesus. Because of what they saw there, because of what they experienced for themselves, they came to believe he was indeed the Messiah.

And you and I are that woman. No matter what we've dealt with in life, no matter what sin there might be in our lives, no matter what we are facing right now, Jesus can meet us at our point of need and bring a new beginning — a transformation that brings living water into our lives that then wells up into a river of eternal life flowing out of us and into the lives of people around us.

Paul tells us that we are the temple of God. And Ezekiel shows us a river flowing from God's temple. John shows us in Revelation the river of life flowing from God's throne. They are the same river, and that is the river flowing out of everyone who allows God to write his law on their hearts.

Is that you? Are you like a living stone being built up into a spiritual house, a temple, out of which God's living water can flow into the lives of others?

No past is so broken that God cannot bring healing, transformation, and a new beginning. You aren't too far gone, and God can use you no matter what, if you receive the living water he offers.

Thank you for joining me today. If this episode has spoken to you in a meaningful way, please share it with someone you think might need to hear it.

Now, it's time to slip the moorings and head for the deep waters.

The Deep Waters Way. Where scripture, theology, and transformation meet.