Scripture: John 4:1-45 (ESV)
Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.
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." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock." Jesus said to her, "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 again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water."
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." The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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."
Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you seek?" or, "Why are you talking with her?" 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?" They went out of the town and were coming to him.
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, "Rabbi, eat." But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." So the disciples said to one another, "Has anyone brought him something to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, then comes the harvest'? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."
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."
After the two days he departed for Galilee. (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast.
If you don’t know who Augustine is, you should do yourself a favour and look him up. He lived from 354–430 AD and was a very influential Christian theologian. In fact much of our culture in the Western world has been shaped by this one man’s writing. Now because Augustine was smart, driven and popular he rose up through the ranks of his world. Before his conversion to Christianity he lived a very hedonistic lifestyle until he eventually came to realise that the endless parties, women and drink could not satisfy the deep longing he had in his heart. Augustine eventually used all the gifts he had been squandering on wild living to serve God and eventually became a writer, theologian and Bishop of what is now Algeria.
The reason I mention this is that Augustine thought deeply about the sense of longing his heart felt, which he tried to fulfil with wild living. One of his most famous quotes says “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you”. This, incidentally, is the source of the modern day quote we preachers like to use: “We have a God shaped hole in our heart that only Jesus can fill”.
What Augustine wrote about is what the Samaritan woman in our text felt. An unquenchable longing that nothing seems to satisfy. So what happens is that Jesus comes to sit at Jacob’s well in the hottest part of the day and this Samaritan woman comes to draw water. This shows us that she is trying to avoid other people, probably because of her living situation. Jesus, knowing her condition, offers her something that will truly satisfy her deep heart longing. He offers her living water.
She had been trying to fill her deep heart longing with relationships. She had five husbands and now another man, and yet her sin left her ever more deprived and unsatisfied. So Jesus does something shocking: he pinpoints her deepest need. Shee needed a relationship with God, through him. She needed Jesus to quench her spiritual thirst. She needed the living water.
The same is true of us. None of us will ever be spiritually satisfied, none of us will have our hearts fulfilled until Jesus comes and takes up residence in our heart. We can chase wild living, careers, relationships or whatever, but the truth remains. “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you”. We really do have a God shaped hole in our heart that only Jesus can fill.
So if you are tired of chasing after things that don't satisfy, then turn to true source of life and drink deeply.
Prayer
Dear Lord Jesus, I confess that I have tried to quench my spiritual thirst through all kinds of other ways. Please forgive me for that. Thank you that you provide the true living water. Help me drink deeply. Amen.
Spiritual Challenge
Today think of one area in your life where you have been trying to fill the God-shaped hole in your heart with something else. Commit to laying that down at Jesus’ feet.
Finding Living Water in a Parched World