St. John 4:10 – Lent 3A - 2008
St. Mark Lutheran Church, Conroe, TX
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In the Name of Jesus. Amen. A tired and weary Jesus arrived in Samaria in our Gospel lesson today and plopped down to rest on Jacob's well.
Then came a woman. A woman of Samaria. With the word “Samaria” came all of the racial tensions between Jews and Samaritans. She was a sinner, a half-Jew. Samaritans didn't worship in Jerusalem, they worshiped instead at Mount Gerizim. They were not God's people. Any good Jew wouldn't be seen associating with women like her.
Thank God Jesus comes off today as a pretty bad Jew! He sees her drawing water and initiates a conversation! He's not here to continue racial tensions, He's here to save all people – even her from her sins.
But the more He tries to engage her, the more she dodges. He begins by asking her for water; but she brings up their racial differences!
He continues. “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."
She doubts, “You don't even have a bucket to draw out water from this well and you want to give living water?”
The Lord continues,"Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
She ducks... still consumed with herself, “Give me this water so I never have to thirst and come to this well again..” That's not faith. She just doesn't want to come to this well again!
Then, He drops the bomb on her. “Go, call your husband, and come here." She had five husbands and the guy she was living with wasn't her husband... leaving her to conclude, “I think you are a Prophet.”
She gets religious, trying to dodge him by talking about where God is to be worshiped, He directs her back to Himself. He removes all that she can cling to. Leaving her only with pointing to someone far off – “When the Messiah comes, whenever that is... He will tell us all things.”
"I who speak to you am He.” She looks for someone far off, some time off, some where off. He directs her away from some far off time to right now – I am the Christ, the One who saves.
The Gospel that saves her, you and me, isn't on some mountain or far off place. He is right there. Right before Her. Jesus is the Christ. The One who saves sinners – even this woman of Samaria.
This is Lent, dear saints of God – Hers and yours. The woman of Samaria was ready to address anything except her sins. How about you? You are no different from me, or that Samaritan woman.
All of us are prone to rise up in the morning and get trudging along with what we call our lives. And the world fills churches with messages about having a good life - being positive and being happy – losing weight and spending less.
But that's not our real problem. The fact is that we have real, true sins that we must face, turn from, mourn, before God’s judgment falls on us.
Jesus is speaking to you today – calling you out of your sins. Stop your idolatry, stop being consumed with what you have. Quit your despising of His name and instead listen to what is preached and the forgiveness proclaimed in His name. Give up your hatred, your lusts, your stealing and gossiping. Quit your complaining about how things aren't they way you want them to be. Things are the way He has given them to you to be.
After your repent, turn your eyes to Jesus. He has come to men and women with real problems, true sins, a track record of bad behavior.
He has come to you – with all your faults, failures, and sins. Jesus speaks to you through His Word, teaches you, draws you to Himself and His Father by the promise of a life lived from His resources and gifts, rather than from our own.
Dear friends, what we try to patch together and then declare ‘this is my life’ is all hot air in a balloon that cannot last. The life that is in Jesus’ Name, the life He gives, does not end.
But it takes work to get that life to you! It takes sweat and tears. It takes Jesus showing up at the well thirsty at the sixth hour. The sixth hour is noon. The same hour that later on Good Friday, Jesus will be lead on His way to be crucified. There on the Cross, He saves not just the woman of Samaria, but you and me too.
Hard work. Sweat. Tears. Blood. There, on the Cross salvation was achieved. There is where your living water flows. From the water and blood flowing from His side.
This is the living water. Jesus has living water. Living water that you may drink and never be thirsty again. Never thirsty for drink, for a real life, for forgiveness, for eternal life.
From the Cross to the baptismal font then onto you. From the font to little Averee Bernard this morning. Eternal life is delivered in this water. To Averee, to you, to me.
Dear Saints of God, that's why the baptismal font is where it is! Our Baptism is not something that happens and then is in the rear view mirror of our lives. No, there is no other way, no other life, than through and in Holy Baptism.
So, Averee today comes through the font to eternal life. You do too. There, in the waters of your baptism, the living water by which you never thirst again, the Cross is delivered to you. And in your Baptism, in His living water, you live each day.
But how often do we go through entire days, or weeks, self-absorbed in our own tasks, without considering if what we are doing is pleasing to God? Or are we content with the world's religion, as this woman was, and not with true worship of God?
Jesus was trying to tell that woman that with water spilling onto her feet and over the lip of her bucket, she was parched and thirsty and did not even know it. The woman figured that to live, water from the well would be all she needed.
What she needed was a Savior. The worst part of being lost is that men do not even know they are lost.
What I need, what you need, is a Savior. Don't leave this day and return to spending your life going through the world's religion, without ever worshiping God; without ever truly mourning your sins and seeking God’s help in His Word and Holy gifts!
So, worship God in Spirit and truth by worshiping Him in the water. Live in your Baptism. Drown what you have done. Leave your sins behind in the font. Face up to your record, truly mourn it and seek God’s mercy. He has had mercy in the giving up of His Son.
Did Jesus ever get His drink? We aren't told. The woman of Samaria did leave her jar behind as she was off to go proclaim Him to her town, “Here was a man that told me everything that I ever did.”
Can you imagine what unbelievable works you can be off to do, in the living water that He has given you? Free of thirst and fear, you can serve those around you. Look out for them. Protect them. Put them first. Treat them as the most important people in your world – your spouse, your children, your parents, your family, your friends, your neighbors, your church members. Splash them with the living water, flowing from Jesus to you and from you to them.
But, first, His Supper. Better tank up before you go. His blood, drink it. Be refreshed. Never thirst again. Here is forgiveness. Here is life – real life. Here is the true worship of God. Here is Jesus.
Fix your eyes on Him as He heads onward to the Cross. He has water, that a man may drink, that you may drink, and never thirst and never die. Now that's real life! Life that never ever will end! INI. Amen.
