John 4:16

Jesus tells her, “Run, go call you husband and come back.  We’ll talk some more then.” John 4:16 EFP

Jesus is a very perceptive individual.  This is a very critical part of the conversation.  The woman is at the brink of a breakthrough.  She has just asked for some of the mysterious water this Jewish stranger has been bold enough to offer her when, from her vantage point, he can’t even get water for himself.

She is intrigued and curious, but not quite ready to take that leap of faith.  She is scratching and sniffing, but not ready to bite.  She wants to open up, but life has taught her that extreme caution is needed to protect herself from men.  She is not quite sure if she can trust this man.  Jesus knows this, so he pulls the husband card.  “Go call your husband!”  He should be in on this conversation is the implication of his statement.  It is not all too proper for a man to be speaking to a woman alone, especially a woman who only comes out when there is no one else around.  Jesus is wise; it can be argued he does not want disrepute to damage his ministry due to some scandal.  But there is more to it than that.

Jesus knows her struggle—he knows her history.  He knows the sensitive subject of men in her life.  He is trying to help her, but he can’t unless she lets him in to her darkest place.  So he removes the cover and waits.  I don’t like opening up my dark places to people.  I am a very private person.  But God knows everything about me already, but he needs me to admit what He already knows.  “Run, Ruben, go bring me your secrets, your struggles, your failures,” he tells me today.  I have a choice to make today and every day.  I can leave my struggles hidden and boxed, or I can come out of the shadows and sit down with my Creator and talk to him about it.  The story line in Sychar is thickening.  So is mine….

John 4:15

The woman pleads, “Lord, I want some of that water!  Please let me have some so I don’t have to come here again to draw water that can’t quench my thirst forever.” John 4:15 EFP

“I want some of that, Jesus!” says the woman.  Why wouldn’t she?  It sounds like the solution to her daily mid-day drudgery.  It doesn’t matter at that moment if it truly sounds too good to be true.  If there is any chance that it is indeed true, she wants to take advantage of the offer.  “If it means I don’t have to come every day to draw more from this well, then please give me some water from of your private reserve.”

She still doesn’t really know what he is talking about.  She still does not have any idea how he is going to go about getting this living water.  But she is so beat up by life, so crushed by the unsavory judgments; she is desperate enough to grasp at anything that might offer her an escape from the backside of life.  So she pleads.  “Please, Jesus!”

Is the woman playing along?  Is she seriously asking Jesus to give her living water that will literally quench her physical thirst forever?  Is she beginning to show Jesus the side of her she has let no one else see?  I believe she is so fraught that she is willing to take a chance on this eccentric stranger who speaks of things too good to be true.  I’m sure I have at times passed on the offer because it just sounds too good to be true.  Can it be that my ability to long, to crave, and to desire for the intangible only takes place when I have recognized the effervescent nature of the tangible things in my life?  I will never desire the living water while I am still drinking repeatedly from the fountain of water that eventually and inevitably leads to death.

John 4:14

“But whoever drinks the water I will give them,” Jesus continues. “They will never be thirsty again---ever!  In fact, their very lives will become a fountain of living water gushing from their soul, springing up into a pool of everlasting life” John 4:14 EFP

It is not enough for Jesus to point out the sad reality of the woman’s life.  It is not his purpose to pull the proverbial rug from under her feet.  But Jesus knows she does need a dose of reality because the object of her admiration and honor is not one who is able to deliver the goods or sustain what her soul needs most.  She is in the habit of placing her faith in all the wrong places.

Jacob falls short.  Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, it doesn’t matter.  We all fall short of providing a steady stream of whatever we can provide. Period.  Not good works.  Not financial security.  Not health.  Not commitment.  At some level, visible or unseen, we all fail.  This woman places her happiness in the hands of mortal men.   She had placed her religious devotion in the hands of a man—named Jacob.  He could be admired because he was now dead and had become an icon for her people.  But she desperately needs something else—someone living.

Jesus offers her hope.  Jesus’ words assure her she is counted among the “whoever.”  It is not an exclusive club.  Secondly he states that when she drinks she will never be thirsty again.  No loopholes in either of those statements.  Then he adds that not only will she not be thirsty again, but she will become a living spring of water—forever!  Jesus says he will give a drink to “whoever.”  “Whoever” drinks will never thirst again because they become a channel for living water forever.  How do I sign up?  Where do I get in line?  How does it work?  I can see myself asking Jesus these questions.  I am not the only one….

John 4:13

Jesus responds in kind.  “Whoever drinks the water from this well,” he says, “in time will be thirsty again.” John 4:13 EFP

Jesus could have responded in any number of ways.  He could have addressed the whole Jew-Samaritan estrangement issue.  He could have listed the myriad of ways he is able to access water; or how, for that matter, he invented it!  He could even have discussed the merits of Jacob compared to his own divine credentials.  Any of these could have made for some stimulating conversation.

But Jesus had not come for some interesting afternoon chit-chat by Father Jacob’s well.  He had come to this place, at this specific time, to introduce hope back into the life a woman who had given up on it.  She is just going through the motions; alive, but not really.  So he cuts to the chase again and states a truth that even she can’t argue with.  It doesn’t matter if Moses himself had dug the well and blessed the water, the results are the same: drink and get thirsty again.  The fact that it was Jacob—Israel himself who provided this water source, does not change anything.  8-14 days seems to be the length of time a person can live without water. So you have to keep drinking more and more and more and more.

It’s not the substance, but the Source that makes the difference.  As long as the source is human, tangible, material, earth-bound, the end is similar: it does not endure.  Water is a good thing.  Jacob is a legend.  Moses, Abraham, David, go down the list, all A-list type people.  They are all good men—fallible, but good men.  But just as they faced their mortality, so everyone and anything that comes from them will also face a similar fate.  It’s inescapable.  It’s inevitable. It’s unavoidable.  Whatever you attain or gain from any human source will fall short of satisfying permanently.  There is a shelf life on most everything humanity values under the sun.  There is no answer to that.  All I can do now is what the woman of Samaria did—she kept her silence and listened.  I do well to do likewise.

John 4:12

“Come think of it,” the woman continues, “Do you think you are greater than Jacob, our patriarch?  He gave us this well; he actually drank from this well; his children and his livestock as well!” John 4:12 EFP

Now the woman begins to get feisty with Jesus.  Sensing a disconnect between what Jesus is offering and the reality she sees in front of her, she decides to challenge the stranger.  I like her spirit.  “Jacob drank from this well,” she blasts back. “His sons did too.  Oh yeah, his cattle and sheep drank too!  They either had the wherewithal to do it or had someone do it for them.  But you, well you don’t even have a cup to hold water to drink.”  She is obviously not afraid to speak up for herself.  Perhaps that is because she is used to having to defend herself from hurtful words and piercing glances as they present themselves.  I like her spunk.

The stories she has heard growing up were the measure of what greatness was.  Jacob, later called Israel, was the father of all Israelites, including Samaritans.  She may have never met the patriarch, but she knew his story like the back of her hand.  She had memorized the narrative as any good girl would have.  But that’s all she knew.  Her measure of greatness was a man long ago dead and buried.  All the men she had known since them never came close to measuring up the legend of Jacob.  But even he needed a cup to drink the water that came from this well.  This Johnny-come-lately did not seem to grasp the significance of a cup.

The woman is feisty, but she is also blinded by the limited perspective she has of the workings of God in human history.  These are great stories, but as I tend to do, they are stories of events that took place long ago.  I need evidence of God working today.  In the absence of convincing evidence I also throw obstacles in the path of God’s purposes on my behalf.  Jacob was still giving them water millennia after he drank it himself.  That is a tough act to follow…unless you are Jesus, the Son of the Living God.

John 4:11

The woman answers incredulously, “Sir, you seem to have forgotten, you asked me for water because you do not have anything with which to draw it.  The well is deep. You can’t even get water for yourself.  Can you explain to me how you are going to get living water for me?” John 4:11 EFP

It’s a fair response, wouldn’t you agree?  From her perspective, it is Jesus who is in the position of need.  He can’t even draw water from Jacob’s well, much less access any of this mysterious “living water” he mentions.

She sees what she sees, and from her point of view, Jesus is crazy, delusional, or eccentric at best.  She hears him offering her water when he has just finished asking her for water.  She hears him mention some gift, but he does not seem to have anything to offer.  She hears him say, “If you only knew,” she would be asking him for living water, but she has no intention of asking him anything other than if he’s been out in the sun too long.

I wonder how different my response would have been to Jesus given the same scenario.  I probably would have walked away.  If a homeless man started telling me he could give me living water while I am about to drink a bottle of cool Smart Water, I would conclude he was angling for a swig of my private reserve.  On the other hand, maybe I would be intrigued enough to engage the gentleman in a conversation just to find out if “the lights were on with no one at home.”  Come think of it, I can recall wondering whether the words I heard in a sermon or read in The Book sounded too far-fetched and incredulous to believe.  How can or why would God Almighty even be talking to me?  Why does He pursue me?  Why does He want me to live for him?  To serve Him?  He is God, he can do it himself after all!  How does that work, anyway?  I have to ask.  I need to know.  It doesn’t make sense, but somewhere in the recesses of my soul I want it to make sense.  So I stay, side by side with “that woman,” so much like me, wondering and hoping against hope that the Stranger has something to offer.

John 4:10

Jesus seizes the moment. “If you only knew.” he replies, “If you only knew the gift you are being offered, and recognized who it is asking you for a cup of water, you would be the one asking, ‘Please give me water.’  And he would certainly give you some—and not just any water.  He would give you living water, without any hesitation.” John 4:10 EFP

All Jesus needs is an opening.  Once the woman replies to his request, even in a resistive tone, Jesus cuts to the chase.  One second he is asking for a cup of water, the next he is talking about a gift of God and living water.  How does he do that?

He completely turns the conversation around from the request for a thirst-quenching cup of water for him to a reference to a gift of living water being offered by the one who had initially asked for a simple cup of well-water.  The key words in this text for me are, “If you only knew….”  Wow!  There are so many things that she doesn’t know.  So much she has overlooked in her life filled with the clutter accumulated through the years of rummaging through relationships, disappointments, the heartaches that inevitably come into all our lives.  But knowing whatever it is she has overlooked is going to make all the difference.  It will turn things around.  Life will look differently, if she only knew.

That’s the point, isn’t it?  I live my life seeing things through my human eyes and from my limited perspective.  My life commandments inherited from family, friends, and foes become my marching orders.  They define my life and how I interact with it.  But Jesus entreats me, “Ruben, if you only knew….”  He reminds me when I lose hope, “If you only knew….”  Knew what?  Number one, if I only knew the gift that is mine through Jesus Christ.  Secondly, if I only knew the one who is asking me “If you only knew.”  Jesus is telling me, if I only realized the Gift and the Giver are mine already, I would be asking for more and more of the Gift from the Giver of all “good and perfect gifts.” (James 1:17)  If I only knew…Him!