Barry Unwin, Upton, Welland, 19 March 2017
5 In Samaria he came to a town named Sychar, which was not far from the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by the trip, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 A Samaritan woman came to draw some water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink of water.” (8 His disciples had gone into town to buy food.)
9 The woman answered, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan—so how can you ask me for a drink?” (Jews will not use the same cups and bowls that Samaritans use.)
10 Jesus answered, “If you only knew what God gives and who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would ask him, and he would give you life-giving water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you don’t have a bucket, and the well is deep. Where would you get that life-giving water? 12 It was our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well; he and his children and his flocks all drank from it. You don’t claim to be greater than Jacob, do you?”
13 Jesus answered, “Those who drink this water will get thirsty again, 14 but those who drink the water that I will give them will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give them will become in them a spring which will provide them with life-giving water and give them eternal life.”
15 “Sir,” the woman said, “give me that water! Then I will never be thirsty again, nor will I have to come here to draw water.”
16 “Go and call your husband,” Jesus told her, “and come back.”
17 “I don’t have a husband,” she answered.
Jesus replied, “You are right when you say you don’t have a husband. 18 You have been married to five men, and the man you live with now is not really your husband. You have told me the truth.”
19 “I see you are a prophet, sir,” the woman said. 20 “My Samaritan ancestors worshiped God on this mountain, but you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where we should worship God.”
21 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the time will come when people will not worship the Father either on this mountain or in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans do not really know whom you worship; but we Jews know whom we worship, because it is from the Jews that salvation comes. 23 But the time is coming and is already here, when by the power of God’s Spirit people will worship the Father as he really is, offering him the true worship that he wants. 24 God is Spirit, and only by the power of his Spirit can people worship him as he really is.”
25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah will come, and when he comes, he will tell us everything.”
26 Jesus answered, “I am he, I who am talking with you.”
27 At that moment Jesus’ disciples returned, and they were greatly surprised to find him talking with a woman. But none of them said to her, “What do you want?” or asked him, “Why are you talking with her?”
28 Then the woman left her water jar, went back to the town, and said to the people there, 29 “Come and see the man who told me everything I have ever done. Could he be the Messiah?” 30 So they left the town and went to Jesus.
Well our topic this morning is the search for inner peace – the search for happiness. And while I was researching it I came across a series of cartoons explaining happiness, which will answer all our questions. So what is happiness?
- Happiness is…an unexpected piece of chocolate.
- Happiness is…not having to set the alarm for the next day.
- Happiness is…achieving what others said you could not achieve.
- Happiness is…being really silly together.
- Happiness is…Nutella. Loads of NUtella.
There were a lot more where they came from, but cute as they are, I’m not sure they get us anywhere. Instead, I want to throw the question of happiness over to you. You’ve all got a “What would make me happy?” card. Take a moment and think about how you’d answer the question…We’ll come back to what you wrote later.
Meanwhile let’s think back to our Bible passage, to that surprising encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. Why do I say it’s surprising?
First, there’s a racial and religious issue. Although they shared a racial heritage, the Jews and Samaritans hated each other. The Jews basically saw the Samaritans as racially inferior heretics, which is always a tricky place to start a conversation.
Then there’s the gender issue. Do you remember how astonished the disciples were when they got back with the food shopping to find Jesus speaking to the woman? Well it’s because no respectable Jewish teacher would ever be seen alone, in public, with a woman who wasn’t his wife or a close relative.
And then of course there’s the moral issue: the woman has a bit of a sketchy past– she’s been married five times and is living with a man who is not her husband. Even her own people think she’s outrageous – that’s why she’s out getting water at noon the hottest point of the day – it’s the only time she can go there without running the gauntlet of local gossip.
So when Jesus speaks to her, he’s speaking across a racial, religious, gender and moral divide. No wonder the woman is shocked, and asks,
You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan—so how can you ask me for a drink?
There’s shock there – but also intrigue. And Jesus responds to her curiosity with another surprise. Listen to what he says.
If you only knew what God gives and who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would ask him, and he would give you life-giving water.
He mentions life-giving water again a few verses later,
those who drink the water that I will give them will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give them will become in them a spring which will provide them with life-giving water and give them eternal life. (John 4:14)
So what is this life-giving or living water? Well Jesus isn’t talking about physical thirst here. He’s not offering to buy the woman a personal spring on the Malverns. Instead he’s speaking about her spiritual thirst. He’s saying he has something that will completely satisfy her spiritual thirst for ever.
I asked you earlier about happiness. What would make you happy? I don’t know what you wrote on your card, but a lot of people when they answer a question like that, they’ll write something like this:
- What would make me happy is “a promotion”,
- What would make me happy is “wealth”
- “a more romantic marriage”
- My team winning this week. NB As a Sunderland fan I’d be happy just for them to score a goal, occasionally.
In other words we tend to write about things or situations or experiences that we’d like to have, which we think will make us happy. But do they make us happy?
I was reading a bit about tennis player Boris Becker this week. Did you know that at the very peak of his career, he contemplated suicide? In his autobiography he writes,
I had won Wimbledon twice before, once as the youngest player. I was rich. I had all the material possessions I needed … It’s the old song of movie stars and pop stars who commit suicide. They have everything, and yet they are so unhappy. I had no inner peace.
He had it all – and yet really he had nothing. And Jesus is saying exactly the same thing to the woman – no amount of relationships or husbands can give her inner peace. Nothing will – until she addresses the spiritual thirst that sits at the very core of her being.
There’s an old Christian cliché – we all have a God-shaped hole in our hearts. It’s there because we’re designed for relationship with God. And when we don’t have that – or when we don’t understand relationship with God properly – then that God-shaped hole becomes an ache. It cries out for completion. And we’ll never know lasting happiness and contentment until that hole is properly filled. St Augustine so put it like this,
You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they find their rest in you
So what’s to be done? Well if the only thing that can satisfy our spiritual thirst is God, then we need to find a way to quench our thirst in him. So what is it?
Well I reckon Jesus points us to three things in this passage Three things we need to do if we’re going to quench our thirst in Jesus.
1) admit you’re dehydrated.
The first step to solving any problem is admitting it exists. That’s what the woman does when she says to Jesus
“Sir,” the woman said, “give me that water! Then I will never be thirsty again. (John 4:15)
For some of you, admitting you are spiritual dehydrated will be easy. You can feel it, feel the dryness. You’ve tried everything but deep down you know that you’re still missing something vital. You’re the sort of person who has psalm 63 as a memory verse,
O God… My whole being desires you; like a dry, worn-out, and waterless land, my soul is thirsty for you..
For others it’s much harder – in fact it’s often the brightest and most capable people who struggle the most with this. You’re used to being able to fix any problem – all you’ve got to do is set goals, come up with a plan, build a team, motivate them, and pretty soon problem solved. That works great in the office. It even works great in church. And it can bring great temporary satisfaction. But it can never satisfy the great spiritual ache within you.
No amount of achievement can rehydrate a dried up soul. Only Jesus can do that. And until we’ll let him, the drought continues.
So admit you’re dehydrated.
The second thing we’ve gotta’ do is…
2)stop drinking the things that make you thirsty
What does Jesus do when the woman admits she’s dehydrated? He points to her marital issues. At first it sounds like he’s changing the subject, or being petty. How cruel to bring up this area of embarrassment for her.Except Jesus isn’t being cruel. He’s challenging her – saying – okay – you’ve realised you’re thirsty. Now you need to admit you’ve been hoping sexual relationships can do for you what only relationship with God can do. In other words, you’ve been trying to quench the thirst with things that make you thirsty.
On those hot summer days when the temperature gets into the high 30s what’s the advice the doctors give? Stay hydrated! And the way to do that is to lie in the sun and drink lots of beer isn’t it?
I had a friend at university who did that. One day he went to Headingly for the cricket, started drinking, took off his t-shirt, got bored with the cricket and fell asleep reading the newspaper. He woke up 3 hours later with a newspaper-shaped rectangle sunburned across his chest.
Alcohol and caffeine-based drinks don’t quench our thirst – they make us thirstier. And it’s just the same with spiritual thirst. If we try to quench it in the wrong way, it just makes us thirstier.
Now that’s not to say that there aren’t things we can do to make ourselves temporarily happy. Remember – Nutella – lots of Nutella. But there’s only so far that can go.If you live for Nutella, you pretty quickly get rotting teeth and a weight problem that no amount of extra Nutella is going to fix. Nice though it is, Nutella isn’t the answer to a thirsty soul.
Nor are the other things we turn to for happiness and contentment. If money is your source of happiness, can you ever have enough? If beauty is the source of your happiness, you’ll always feel ugly. If it’s popularity or attention, you’ll never be able to please enough people. If it’s your children, they’ll leave home. If it’s being in love, the feelings won’t last. If it’s power, you’ll always feel insecure.
So how do we stop trying to quench our thirst on things that’ll make us thirsty? Well it’s too simplistic to simply say “Kick them out of your life.” That might be easy with Nutella. But what if it’s your spouse that you’re trying to cram into the God-shaped hole in your heart? How can you kick him out of your life? You can’t. So what’s the solution?
It’s to prayerfully admit before God that we’ve been misusing these good things. We’ve been making them far more than they should be in our lives.
The second commandment says this,
You shall have no other gods before me.
If we’ve broken that commandment, and if we’ve tried to quench our spiritual thirst on anything but Jesus then we have -Then we need to say sorry.But we can’t leave it there. We have one final thing to do.
3)Quench our thirst with Jesus
You’ve got a God-shaped hole in your heart – so fill it with what it’s meant to be filled with. With Jesus. In John 7, Jesus says,
Whoever is thirsty should come to me, and 38 whoever believes in me should drink..” (John 7:37-38)
What Jesus expected his audience to do in response was physically come to him; follow him; build relationship with him by spending time with him, copying the way he lived. In Matthew’s gospel he says,
Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest.. (Mt.11:28)
It’s all about coming to him. But 2000 years on, how can we physically do that? We can’t.
But Jesus knew that – so he sent his Holy Spirit into the world so we can still have a relationship with him. And that relationship works itself out as we listen to him speak as we read and meditate on the Bible; it works out as we speak to him in prayer and as we declare his wonders in praise; and as we share in his death and resurrection through baptism and communion.
And as we come to him, he’ll begin to change us, he’ll quench that spiritual thirst, and we’ll learn the true satisfaction that can only come from Jesus, and which can equip us to face all of life’s hardships.
So quench your thirst on Jesus. Stop drinking the things that make you thirsty. And it all begins with an admission that you are spiritually dry.
Let’s pray to the only one who can quench your thirst.
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I’ve been helped enormously in preparing this talk, by Tim Keller’s excellent little book, Encounters With Jesus.