Part 9 – John 4
Changed Lives
Here in John 4, Jesus stops by a well and asks for a drink from a woman who has a less than straight forward past.
I want you to note two things here :-
Jesus does not consider it inappropriate or unacceptable to ask this woman for a drink, despite her reputation and also the fact that she is from Samaria.
Jesus turns a simple, natural question, “give me a drink”, into a searching spiritual discourse.
Jesus had insight into this woman’s situation and recognised that she was in need of refreshing spiritually as much as he needed refreshing naturally. We so often separate our physical well being from our spiritual well being when in fact they are so often intertwined.
I wonder, when we are asked for a drink from someone in need, are we able to discern and understand the heart of the question? Are we able to draw refreshing water from the wells of salvation, connecting the natural with the spiritual? Are we able to provide answers that are life enhancing not life inhibiting when engaged in conversations?
What Jesus does in this account is take the everyday chore and spin out the spiritual truth. Jesus was concerned for this Samaritan woman, after all His mission was that ALL should be reinstated to a rightful place with God, that was his mission.
Jesus indicates in this encounter that there is something we can have here and now that will be like a fountain of water springing up in us to everlasting life John 4:14. The question is have we got it?
The story continues with the woman stating the obvious “the well is deep and you have nothing to draw with so where do you get this living water? ” John 4:11. What a great leading question for Jesus to be able to be ‘life enhancing’, moving from the natural thirst to the spiritual truth. Jesus invites the woman to come and partake of what he has to offer, life giving, life transforming Grace, that flows abundantly from the very heart of God. Jesus suggests that there is something far more important than quenching your thirst, something that is life changing and life enhancing. The spiritual thirst had been awakened and God had started the work of salvation in this Samaritan woman. This spiritual thirst needs to be awakened in all of us and we all need to be honest when we are asked the searching questions “go and call your husband”. Oops,”well I don’t have one”, there is nowhere to hide from the truth. Jesus, being God, knew all about this woman, just as He knows all about you and me. There is nowhere to hide so when asked the probing questions let us answer with all honesty knowing that God does not condemn us but wants us to be real so that we can be effective for him.
This woman was so excited by her encounter with Jesus that she left her water pot and went into the city and said to the men “come see a Man”, “not just any man but a Man who told me everything that I ever did, could this be the Christ?” John 4:29. They then went to see for themselves. An encounter with the Almighty that created a spiritual thirst in the woman has now generated an enthusiasm in others to find out for themselves. John 4:30. The great thing about this story is that one simple question “give me a drink” led to many people in a city believing that Jesus was indeed the Christ, because one woman was ready and willing to be honest about her situation. She went back and testified that she had met a man “who told me all that I ever did” John 4:39. Notice it is past tense ‘did’ God is in the business of forgiving and forgetting.
Changed lives is what it is all about. If our encounter with the Holy one does not continue to change our lives, if it does not cause us to continue to evaluate ourselves in the light of our conversations with God through Jesus then we need to re-evaluate our encounter. The gospel is better caught than taught. It is contagious. Have we caught it and are we contagious Christians?
