008 - High Noon

When you pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink.

Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink. So when you were growing up, did your mom tell you about certain people you were not supposed to talk to? Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, me too. Don't talk to those people.

Don't even make eye contact. Yeah. Well, in John's Gospel today, Jesus decided to deliberately talk to those people you're not supposed to talk to.

On purpose. He goes there to meet that woman. And with a purpose, the woman at the well, today on More Than Ink. Well, good morning.

Welcome. This is More Than Ink, and I'm Dorothy. And I'm Jim. We're glad you're back with us and we're studying our way. I like to use the word exploring our way. I think that's good.

Yeah. We are exploring our way through the Gospel of John, which is one of our favorite things to do. And God reveals stuff to us every single time we do this.

And I'm not just blessed, I'm amazed. So last time we were with a very famous guy, Nicodemus in John 3. A highly placed, very influential guy, a Jewish leader. Who shows up again at the end of the story. He does show up again. So write his name down and wait for him to show up.

And if you don't know where, it'll surprise you, I think. Because at the end of the last chapter, in chapter three, you're not quite sure where Nicodemus is at. So we'll see what happens to him. But now we switch from Jesus talking with Nicodemus, who's a highly placed, highly respected, big time Jew, right?

A log keeper and stuff like that. And he goes to someone who is almost on the opposite end of the scale. So here's Jesus in his graciousness telling this person who he is.

And remember, John says, I'm writing all these stories so you'll know who this Jesus is. Well, here's an example where Jesus goes to the lowest end of the social spectrum. He goes to a place where self-respecting Jews actually probably would not have gone. The place itself is wrong.

Yeah. And we're talking about the Samaritans. Walking through Samaria.

You've heard about the good Samaritan. Most people don't know Samaritans were not in high favor in Israel at the time. Because they were half-breeds. They were half-breed Jews who had intermarried with the people of the land. And so they were regarded as less than by pure Jews.

Yeah. So they had half Jewish blood and they had some Assyrian blood and they had some Canaanite blood and they re-entered the area. And so they were really considered kind of half-breed cousins.

Well, and there was a twist on religion. There was this constant debate that they had their own temple and their own holy place and they didn't have to go to Jerusalem according to the law. Right.

And that separation had been going on for thousands of years. So you don't even go into Samaria for one thing, but it looks like Jesus in his travels going from north and south and north and south and north and south in Israel, Samaria is right in the middle of it, instead of skirting around it, which everyone did, he went straight through it. Indeed. Did you notice that? When you're reading of John 4, did you notice that in verse 4 it says, and he had to pass through Samaria. He had to.

He had to. Usually they would avoid that and go a few miles out of their way to travel up the Jordan Valley. But it says Jesus had to go straight through Samaria. And if someone challenged him and he said he had to, they'd say, no, you didn't have to go through there.

He says, oh, I did have to go through there. And we think it's because of this woman that we're going to look at today. He had this appointment set with this woman who by all rights, no Jew should talk to.

And on top of that, even a Samaritan shouldn't talk to. So she has a very checkered past, but Jesus decides it's time to introduce her to who he is. And so we find himself in the hot part of the day, sitting at a very famous historic well, waiting. He places himself right where she would come and encounter him. It's a great kind of, it's not an ambush, but it's a designed conversation.

And she, she herself is astonished that he would do this. So let's just pick up a few places where we set the context of it. Yeah, it says in verse 6, they were at a place, very famous place called Jacob's well. You know, there weren't many wells to find water in Israel. This one was dug by the patriarch Jacob, but they're there at the well. Jesus has sent away all the apostles to get food from somewhere because they don't have enough food.

So they're all gone. So it just leaves Jesus at this well. And in verse 5, he sat down by the well and it's the sixth hour, that's about noon. And he's just sitting there and here comes a Samaritan woman in verse 7 to draw water. And his very simple question to her is, give me a drink, give me a drink. Some of Jesus' best conversations start with the simplest things.

He opens the conversation right now, a self-respecting, law-abiding Jewish man, worried to find himself alone at the well with a woman, would not engage in conversation with her. But hear Jesus. Right. And you know, for our benefit, since we don't know that historically, John writes it for us in the next verse, in verse 9.

That's true. He says it right there in the text. You're a Jew, I'm a Samaritan woman, how can you ask me for a drink? Well, that's her saying that. She says that. And then John adds in parentheses, Jews don't associate with Samaritans. So thank you, John. And thank you, woman, to help set us up because we're just too far removed.

Yeah. So he asks her for a drink. And supposedly she draws one for him, because that's why she's there as well.

So either while she's drawing or when she gives him a drink or whatever, I mean, the issue in the hot noontime sun is I'm thirsty, I want a drink. And Jesus says in verse 10. He says, if you knew who you were talking to, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. What? No, wait a second. No, wait a second. Now get my attention. She's the one that's operating the well.

She's the one that's drawing this thing up and down. And you're telling me, Jesus, that I should ask you for a drink? Okay.

So what we need to understand is that in the Holy Land, that living water is a commonly used phrase that just means fresh flowing water, as opposed to well water or water that's been sitting in a cistern. So this may have begun just as kind of a, maybe even a flirtatious conversation from her point of view. Yeah, exactly.

And she responds, well, okay, tell me where you get that water. Yeah. Right. You can kind of hear that happening. Well, yeah, because, you know, living water is moving water, largely. You know, if you watch old westerns, you know, and you see that dead animal next to that pond, you know, and you see, and you see, don't drink there. You see all those buzzards sitting around getting ready to eat whatever died there. That's dead water. You don't drink that. But moving waters is commonly living water.

And so, you know, I'm sure she looked around her to see, you know, what are you talking about? There's no streams around. Right. So he says, yeah, I got the good stuff.

I've got the living water. You would have asked me for that. Right. And she says, are you greater than our forefather, Jacob? Because he's the one that gave us this well. Yeah, gave us this well.

You got something better than what Jacob gave to us. And now we're getting places. Yeah. So isn't it interesting when you watch how this conversation develops, because Jesus engages with her in this very common thing, everybody needs a drink of water.

And then suddenly he begins to drop like breadcrumbs into the conversation to kind of tickle her on. Yeah, like the living water. Living water.

Which she would much prefer. But how's that possible? And are you saying that you're giving me something that even Jacob has given you? And then all of a sudden he's gonna say, okay, I'm not just talking about fresh flowing water. I'm talking about water that once you drink it, you'll never be thirsty again. What? Okay, so there's water.

What kind of water is that? There's water and then there's water. So Jesus now he's doing sort of what he did with Nicodemus. We're talking about being born again.

I gotta crawl back in my mom. No, we're going way past the physical here. And he's saying here, just water, well water, but this is a different kind of water. I can give you water that's gonna well up inside you like living water leading to eternal life. Oh, now we're talking about spiritual reality.

Yeah, we just went to the spiritual world. Exactly. But interestingly enough, it wells up inside of you. That must have drawn a thousand questions in her mind.

And she doesn't even ask him. I'm not sure she even knows what to do with that. It's just like, whatever. Well, whatever that is, I want that. I just want that.

I want that. And she doesn't quite get it because she says, you know, if I don't have to thirst anymore, then I can stop coming to this stupid well. Right.

Well, no. So she's sort of getting there. But she's kind of changing the topic a little bit too, because now we're getting into a spiritual realm. And when you talk about eternal life in a spiritual realm, the issue of sin lurks in the background in the conversations.

And people know that whether they qualify or don't qualify for eternal life because you got sin. And with her, there's sin lurking in her background. And so when Jesus says the next thing, it's earth shaking to her. Go call your husband.

Yikes. Well, because the reason a woman would come to draw water was to provide for her household. Presumably there is a husband and children and people now servants would draw water, but a woman would lug home the daily water every day for her family. So Jesus says, okay, go call your husband and he knows what her condition is and how does she respond. She says in 17, I don't have a husband. No husband.

I don't have a husband. She could have tried to lie. It's hard to know how she says that. Does she say it flirtatiously? Does she say it sadly?

We don't know, but Jesus knows because he just looks her right in the eye and says, boy, you've said that right. Got it. Yeah.

You've had five husbands. You are a woman with a sequential problem with men trying to quench a thirst that men don't satisfy. Yep.

Yep. And now we're talking about thirst and thirst and water and water. And for her, there is this thirst that's never been quenched. And instead of trying, to her credit, instead of trying to just sort of bowl them over and lie to them and just skirt the issue, which is really awkward. I mean, it's a very awkward moment right here. She just kind of faces right up to it, just straight up to it. And he says, you're right.

You've had five husbands. Of course that convinces her he's more than he meets the eye because she didn't tell him that. Right.

And how would he know that he's a stranger coming into the area. Exactly. So then her in 19, she says, I can see you're a prophet. But she does kind of try to turn away from her own. Now she tries to steer it.

She tries to get out from under. It's too squirrely, too close to home. Let's talk about something else. Let's talk about this age old question. You Jews worship in Jerusalem and we say, we have our own place. And what do you have to say about that? And this is the Samaritan kind of difference with the Jews in the South. You know, we got our own place to worship. It's a nice diversion since we're on kind of religious ground because he's a prophet. But let's kind of turn away to, let's talk about worship for a second. Let's talk about a safe religious question that we haven't resolved in a couple thousand years.

Let's get away from my five husbands. What do you say? And you know, to his credit, he follows with her, but he's not going to let her get very far away. So he says, okay, good, okay. And he says, you know, a time's coming when you worship a father, neither in this mountain where we're standing or in Jerusalem. It has nothing to do with where you are.

Not about the place. So he's actually entertaining her question and he's going with the flow of the conversation, even though she's trying to divert. And he's trying to bring her back around to understanding who he is.

And he started when she realized that he knew something he should know. So he says, you know, a time is coming. And here we get some wonderful glimpses into some theology that is just newly introduced here. For instance, you know, what kind of people is God looking to worship Him? Well, first of all, God is looking for people. He's looking for people. God is seeking worshippers who worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Oh, we could talk about that for a long time. Spirit and in truth. You know, that opens this whole door of, you know, worship is not ritual.

Worship is not something you do in a place according to an order. Worship is an activity of the Spirit and must be based on truth. Well, what is truth? And the truth of who God is, not superstition. The truth about who God is and the truth about who I am in relation with Him. I think all of that is packed into that little phrase and more.

Yeah. So that was a wonderful detour. Jesus isn't going to let her get too far off track, but He does entertain it and He does give us some astonishing information right here, which is kind of cool. And then she tries to sidestep a little bit, stay in the religious realm. And she says, well, I know that the Messiah is coming. And when He comes, well, He can explain everything to us.

This is fascinating to me. He had just said to her, God is Spirit. Right. But here in response to her saying, we know Messiah is coming and He's going to sort it all out. He says to her, I am.

Right. Messiah. I am the one who's coming.

Yeah, I the one speaking to you. He has just said, God is Spirit. And then He said, I am. And here's your study skill for today, or one of them. If you notice in verse 26, you'll have the word He, probably in italics.

Most editions will have it that way. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you, am He? Well, that He is in italics. And that indicates to us that that little word is not actually in the Greek text.

What Jesus says is, I am. Right. Now that ought to get our attention. That rings some bells if you know the Old Testament.

It should. Yeah. I am. And in case you don't know the Old Testament, because you're joining us as you're trying to figure out how to read the Bible, that is the name of God in the Old Testament. Okay. And you can find that in Exodus three. Yeah.

If you want to turn back there, or you want to make a note and go back there later, where God is in conversation with Moses, I should have. And Moses is having this wonderful conversation and basically asked God, you know, I need to tell people what your name is. Yeah. Who are you?

Right. Who shall I tell him you are? And He says, tell them, I am who I am. I am. That's my name.

Right. And I hadn't revealed it before this point. I am who I am.

That's what you tell them. And so every time Jesus says, I am, there's this echo. A bell goes off.

A bell goes off. And we'll see, John will show us this happening in the later chapters. Every time Jesus says this, it promotes a deeper conversation and more and more opposition among the Jews. Oh, yeah. So much more a much more profound reaction is coming up in a couple chapters here.

There's not much reaction, but there they get it. Okay, so here's your study skill. Look for that in your cross references.

Right, right. Because in the column in my Bible, actually, in both of the Bibles that we have open here, it will reference some other places where Jesus says that I am, and that's helpful, because you can look at the reaction of the people and they knew clearly that He was claiming to be deity. It was unambiguous. Of course, it is straight up in verse 25, you know, and she says, I know the Messiah is coming. That's pretty classic Orthodox Jewish understanding that the Messiah is coming. And He says, I'm that. So when He says I'm the Messiah, and I also am He, He's putting together the Messiah and God Himself.

Right. In just one little phrase. Now, this is the first time that we have recorded that He actually says to anybody point blank, I am Messiah.

I am the sent one. Who does He say it to? He says it to a woman. A Samaritan woman. A Samaritan woman. So she's religiously unacceptable. Kind of a loose liver on top of that. A loose living woman.

She's socially unacceptable. Right. Oh, my gosh. What a wonderful thing that Jesus makes His most, makes His first and pronounced admission who He is to this woman.

Yes. In fact, that's partially if you wind back to chapter two, why Jesus was a little reticent to do the water and wine thing. You know, remember, His mother said, do something about the fact of running out of, and it says, He says something like my hour is not quite now. I can't, what He was really saying in that phrase was, I can't do it because if I if I out myself too quickly, I'll get arrested and killed too quickly. So I have to keep a little undercover for a while. I can't just go around telling everyone I'm the Messiah.

I've got to kind of keep it chill. And He did often say that. He did. And the other Gospels record it more clearly. Now don't don't go don't go blabbing this around.

Yeah. So don't misunderstand when Jesus says that He's not He's not denying who He is as Messiah. He's just telling people to slow down spreading the word because He knew that as soon as that word got out that He was claiming to be that it would rile the authorities so badly that they would they would angle to get him arrested and killed for blasphemy. So He's He's kind of playing the timeline to make sure that doesn't happen too soon, which is why He wasn't super public with the wine and water thing. But here He reveals it face to face to this woman in the middle of nowhere.

And in a minute, she's not going to be the only one in this region. That's right. So it becomes pretty widespread. The brilliance of this, though, is that because the Samaritans and the Jews are socially distanced from one another.

Hey, that's a phrase we use today. Since they don't talk much to each other. The news that spread to this Samaritan village probably didn't get back into the Jerusalem and Judah section in the south. And if it did, they'd say well, it's just those crazy Samaritans claiming something about some guy, so we're not going to get all riled about it. So Jesus could be very straight up and straightforward about who He is here without starting that that timer going down in the south that eventually got him killed. So He's straightforward here. In fact, right here, if He's consistent with what He does later, you would expect Him to say at this point after He says, I am, I'm He, you would expect Him to say, don't tell anybody. But He doesn't. But He doesn't. Because later on, He'll say that over and over and over until the end of the three year ministry, then He just lets it all rip.

He just lets it all out. So in the intro, if we just pass down through the passage, the apostles come back, and you can read that for yourself 27 through 37. But what I want to do is jump past that to see the effect on the village. And so when you get to 39, it says that a lot of the Samaritans from that town believe in Him because of the woman's testimony. And what was her testimony? She says, He told me everything I've ever done. So why is that such a big deal? Because she hadn't told Him. He just knew it. Yes. And He continued in conversation with her and told her things she'd never expected to see or hear.

Right. He didn't wave His hand and begone woman I cannot sit with you. Yeah, I'm clean and you're unclean, you're unholy, begone for me you dog, which is what she would have expected. Here's Jesus being friendly and loving and gracious to someone who really doesn't deserve it culturally, or from a sin perspective.

And He had said, prior to that, before saying I am Messiah, He had said, Ask me, ask me, and I'll satisfy your thirst that you've been thirsty with all your life. Yeah, yeah. So this very gentle, very available approachability. To a woman who is very needy.

Yes. And Jesus says, I know you're needy, ask me and I'll solve that need. And probably, you know, significantly beaten up by life. I mean, you think today of women you know, who have been serially through relationship after relationship, because, and part that we skipped over was Jesus said, you've had five husbands and the guy you got now is not your husband. In other words, you're not even married to this one.

You're living in sin right now. Or he's somebody else's husband and you're with him. So, you know, He just lays it all out. And yet, stays in conversation with her.

Yeah, and that's the astonishing thing. It's how, it's not so much how Jesus treats the big officials like Nicodemus in three, in chapter three, it's how he deals with the people who are down and out, who are distanced from the good people in society, the people who are put down because of their sinfulness, who think that they don't really have a place in the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, because of their sinfulness and because of their race or their culture, the Samaritans, they figure, I just have no place in this. And instead, Jesus gives her the honor of being the first one to understand who He is. And He says, God is seeking worshipers like you. Exactly.

Are you interested in a worship of the Spirit in truth? He just opens up a huge welcome door to her that you just would never expect to have happen. Indeed, she didn't go looking for Him. Nope. He placed Himself where He knew she would encounter Him.

Yeah. He opened the conversation. He welcomed her. He stayed engaged with her until the rest of the disciples got back and they're like, what?

What's going on here? Are you talking to this woman? They were astonished to find Him talking with a woman and let alone this woman. And this will not be the last time that Jesus pays great honor to women.

He does it over and over and over again. And women of questionable reputation. Yeah.

And many times questionable. And to them, it just cuts them to the heart that this guy would love them so honestly and be so accessible to them. Recognize them. And recognize them. See them and welcome them into the conversation. So it's not an accident that when you see the crucifixion scene and people are standing around, it's these women.

And the women are there. It's these women who are deeply touched by Him doing what no one else in proper society would do. They wouldn't come and talk to them. And they definitely wouldn't say, ask me for living water. And we can talk about eternal life, something of great value. So yeah, throughout His entire ministry, Jesus is very proactive toward women. Very. And they're downcast in society.

And the ones who are sexually ridiculed like her, Jesus doesn't let that stop Him. Or a promiscuous past, a current immoral situation. Right.

And this actually is much like what we are then. Because we are all very needy. We are all riddled with sin.

We like to talk to ourselves and kind of fool ourselves into thinking we're not. Cover it up. Cover it up. But when we get honest about that, which is what she did here.

When you get honest about that sinful past and you say, you know what, I really deserve nothing because of what I've done and who I am. And Jesus knew that. And she knew that. That's what really astonished her is that when she became open and honest about that, He still stuck around and He still offered her this great gift. It's a wonderful thing. So she goes running back to her village.

Just delighted. And who does she tell? She tells the men. She tells the men, I know. Because that's who she knows.

She tells the men and they all come out and they say, hey, can you come talk to us directly? And he does. He does. He comes out and he spends some time with them. In fact, I think it says he spends two days. They stay there two or three days. They stay a couple days. And you got to think that was uncomfortable for the 12 who were with him.

They didn't want to stay there. Exactly. Oh, exactly. And I can, I've always kind of envisioned her.

This is Jim's speculation running wild. But even during those two days stay, I envisioned her walking around with a smile from ear to ear saying, this is the guy. This is the guy.

This is the, isn't he just incredible? Yeah. We would, it would be so nice to know. I'd like to know her name for one thing. I don't know her name, but in God's wisdom, we don't want to worship this woman.

Right. I mean, and she's pointing to Jesus, so we need to keep pointing to Jesus as well. But as a result of all that, because Jesus was so gracious to this woman that no one would give the time of day to. They, in the end, at the very end of the story in 42, they say, you know, we don't, we don't believe just because what you said, talking to the woman, now we've heard for ourselves and we know that this man really is the savior of the world. Wow.

In two days, they've got it. So here in the, in the narratives and the gospels, in the most unlikely place in a place that was pushed off by the Jews as not being part of the kingdom of God, this whole village knows before everybody else. The outsiders. The outsiders. From a firsthand encounter and they believe. The outsiders have been made insiders by the grace and love of Jesus. And they've received the living water.

Yeah. So, you know, this is the second time now that John accounts for us a central, a focused story in which water plays a central part. And so actually the third time, cause he had talked to Nicodemus about the water too. So let me just offer you this, take your concordance and look up water and see all the places in the gospels where Jesus says something about water. Just look for the words of Jesus about water. And that's a, that's a study principle you can use since it's such a central idea here.

See what you learn from tracking down that. In a dry land like Israel, water has a very special and very valuable and really wonderful meaning. So just look for the words of Jesus pertaining to water. So as he asked me, I'll give you the living water. The living water. Well up in you, a well of water leading to eternal life.

And the villagers said, yep, this guy's the savior of the world. We want it. We're thirsty. Let's have it. Well, we got to quit. We hope you come back with us next week. John five next week. More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City and is solely responsible for its content. To contact us with your questions or comments, just go to our website, morethanink.org.