John 4:4-42 Let the Nations Be Glad?
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John 4:4-42 “Let the Nations Be Glad?”
December 17, 2006 .
Read MorePreached @ Harambee Church by Pastor Michael Gunn on
“Let the nations be glad and sing for joy…”
Psalm 67:4
“The fuel of worship is a true vision of the greatness of God; the fire that makes the fuel burn white hot is the quickening of the Holy Spirit; the furnace made alive and warm by the flame of truth is our renewed spirit; and the resulting heat of our affections is powerful worship, pushing its way out in confessions, longings, acclamations, tears, songs shouts, bowed heads, lifted hands and obedient lives.”
John Piper; “Desiring God,” pg. 77
Intro
John is a missional book that reminds us what the mission is all about. Jesus came to die to save sinners and turn them into worshippers. John continues to show his mastery of storytelling as he includes this incredible and surprising story of Jesus’ encounter with a woman of ill-repute from a hated racial group. In Chapter three we saw Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus, who was a respected religious Jew. The contrast is interesting. He meets Nicodemus in the night and sheds His light, which is misunderstood. He meets the suspect woman in the middle of the day using metaphors for His story, and she gets it. John does this to show a bit of how God works and how we are part of this story. Whereas this story has cross-cultural missional instruction to it, it also wreaks of the why, which is worship. From God’s promise to Abraham that “All nations would be blessed in him,” to this encounter in chapter four, we see God’s plan unfold and culminate in the person of Jesus Christ.
From the Head…
We begin with, “Now He had to go through Samaria.” There is a question as to the meaning “He had to go.” Was this geographical or missional? You can find commentators on both sides. The natural path to Galilee from Judea (see verse 3), would be through Samaria, but there were certain Jews who would cross the Jordan and go north instead of walking through the region of the people they despised. There was another option where Jesus didn’t have to go through Samaria. I, along with other scholars, believe that in doing the will of His Father (See Chapter 17), He had a divine appointment. I believe this was an intentional act of cross-cultural ministry for Jesus, because He came to seek and save the lost of both Jews and gentiles.[1] He is the promise of Genesis 3:15; 12:2-3; 22:18; 26:4. Christ is the Messiah, or the Taheb/Prophet that the Samarians were waiting for (see verses 19+29). God leaves a witness of Himself in every culture. The Samaritans did not believe that the whole Jewish bible was God’s word. They only believed that the first five books (the Pentateuch or Tanach) were inspired, so they didn’t have a full view of the coming messiah. They certainly understood that a prophet would come from above (mentioned in the Genesis promise as well as Moses’ words in Deuteronomy -19). Jesus’ words in John 5:39 reminds us that these OT scriptures testified to the coming messiah. The whole bible is one unfolding story of redemption.
Jesus no doubt went to Samaria to begin His mission to the world. This story is in contrast with the encounter story of chapter three. In chapter three we have an upstanding Jewish male, and here we have a woman of ill repute from a hated racial group. John’s book is written for Jew and gentile, and emphasizes Jesus’ mission outside of Jerusalem and the Jewish areas. Either way, whether you are an upstanding religious/moral person or an outcast of ill-repute, you are stuck in your sins and need Christ.
Jesus intentionally crosses four major barriers. First He crosses a racial barrier. The Samaritans were left over Jews from the Northern Kingdom that was captured by the Assyrians in 722 bc. Instead of staying pure to the faith, they adopted many of the Assyrian religious practices and intermarried in spite the law forbidding intermarriage based on religious (not racial) reasons. The Samaritans played a part in acting against the Jews in the Maccabean revolt, and the two people groups hated one another. It was popular for Jewish Rabbi’s to say, “Let no man eat the bread of the Samaritans, for he who eats their bread is as he who eats swine’s flesh.” One of their prayers also said, “Lord, do not remember the Samaritans in the resurrection.” Secondly, Jesus crossed a religious barrier. The Samaritans, as previously indicated, had adopted many Assyrian practices and had shunned all the books of the Old Testament except for the first five books. Based on these five books they centered their worship and temple on Mt. Gerizim (About 400 bc), and did not recognize Solomon’s/Zerebbabel’s temple. Their temple was destroyed by John Hycranus (Hasmonean leader) in the 2nd century bc, which fueled the Samaritans hatred and choice to work against them during the Maccabean revolt. Thirdly, Jesus crossed a gender barrier. Both Jew and gentiles considered women inferior, and meeting with a woman as a rabbi would be considered offensive. It’s ironic that Christianity has been characterized as sexist by our “progressive” culture. They obviously know nothing of who Jesus was and how He treated women. The assumption is that since the bible teaches different yet equal roles that this is a sign of a patriarchal sexism. But that is a result of a post-modern interpretation that sees all narratives through the lens of power, which when you read about Christ you can only laugh. There is no doubt that Christ challenges the power base of His time and is in clear rebellion to both religious and cultural mores, but He never acted out of a particular power base. The biblical role issue is for protection and to symbolize Christ’s relation to the church, not to denigrate women. Jesus was spectacularly for women, and empowered them by allowing access to Himself and His teachings. Fourthly, Jesus crossed moral barriers. Not only was this a Samaritan woman, she was a Samaritan woman of questionable moral history. She was most likely shunned by her own people[2], never mind a religious Jew.
Now I need to stop for a second and remind us of two things. First is John 20:21, “As the father has sent me, I send you,” and secondly of Jesus’ last words in Acts 1:8, “You will be my witnesses, and in all Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The reaching of the kingdom of God through God’s people is an intentional act. It’s an act that isn’t comfortable. Diversity and cross-cultural ministry is hard because we are more apt to care about custom than we are mission. In our attempt to worship God we center our worship on our desires and preferences, instead of God and His desires. We want “good” music, vibrant youth ministries, and sermons that are “relevant” so we can feel good about our religious lives. We don’t want to be challenged and confronted with the holiness of our savior and the shallow depth of our own lives. We prefer entertainment over worship, which includes obedience to the word that we hear. Jesus rocks His world, and travels to the unknown land to share the gospel with a whore!
Jesus and His crew came to Sychar (a place in Samaria unsubstantiated by geographical records) and the famous Jacob’s well, which was a plot of land that Jacob gave to Joseph (Genesis 48:22), most likely a place called Askar, a village a mile from Shechem. Joseph’s tomb lies near the well (Literally Pege/Phrear, “a dug out running spring”), and still exists to this day.
Jesus, tired from His journey (showing the human side of Jesus), asks the “Samaritan woman for a drink.” As we have already shown, this was offensive to anyone watching the ordeal, including His disciples who had gone in to town to get some food. The woman rightly sets racial setting in verse nine[3], but Jesus intentionally moves beyond to the obvious barriers with a Socratic method of getting to the point. He questions, asks, and utilizes metaphor to turn the conversation to a spiritual one. Since the issue was water, He was able to appeal to the great need of water to sustain life. Jesus’ reference to “Living Water,” is a reference to the Spirit of God, which is often rejected by men in order to fulfill their own plans (see Jeremiah 2:13-15 cf. John 7:37-39).
The woman sees only from an earthly perspective, just like Nicodemus did. She was speaking horizontally, but Jesus was speaking vertically. She was concerned about her own temporal survival needs; Jesus was concerned for her eternal needs. So often our spiritual lives appear insignificant or take a back seat to our physical “needs,” while our spiritual lives really need the attention. It is far too easy to get caught up in our lives and try to find ways to enhance our personal development while eschewing our spiritual selves.
Jesus, knowing that the woman has not really begun to understand that she is filling her life with sex and relationships in order to find fulfillment while missing out on the relationship that would truly satisfy her needs, goes there. He commands her to, “Call your husband and come back.” She meekly answers she has no husband, and Christ rightly calls out the fact that she had five and the one she is currently trying to feel whole with is not her husband. It is here that she perceives that Jesus may be a prophet, but Jesus’ intention isn’t to reveal Himself, as much as it is to expose her larger need, the hole in her soul. Note that he reminds her of her sin but doesn’t camp there. It’s the symptom revealing the problem; it isn’t in of itself the problem. The problem is not knowing God. She, like many of us, has rejected God, the spring of living water, and created her own means of fulfillment, herself.
In both incidences of confrontation (Nicodemus and the woman at Sychar), Jesus brings the listener to the idea that they need to “know” God and not rely on their own means to fulfillment (religious, self help, pagan, etc.). Our great fulfillment and joy comes from knowing the true God, and worshipping Him with our heart, mind, and soul.
In order to change the subject, the woman falls right into Jesus’ line of argument, the issue of worship. To “know” God is to worship Him. Jesus’ mission is to bring worshippers to His Father; to Glorify His Father. To glorify God means to bestow honor and weightiness to Him. Note her idea of worship is purely physical and ritualistic. She is arguing place, Jesus is arguing heart. Jesus says, “That true worshippers will worship the father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is Spirit, and His worshippers must worship in spirit and truth.” What does this mean? It is connected to His words to Nicodemus that no one can experience the kingdom of God unless they are born from the Spirit of God. Unless God does a spiritual surgery on your soul, you can’t perceive the things of God. You will always be frustrated because the things of God will not jive with your human reason at all times.
In order to worship God, we must come to Him with a changed spirit and knowledge of the truth. Where many want us to believe that all attempts at worshipping God are the same, the bible indicates that knowing God is imperative to worshipping Him. The fact is, biblical followers of Christ, Buddhists, Mormons, and Muslim’s do not see eye to eye in regards to who God is. They see a very different God. Capitulating to the theory that they are basically the same when the four views are contradictory is a capitulation to the elitist epistemological theory of rationalism. Jesus plainly says, “You Samaritans worship that what you do not know, we worship what we know.” Our worship has both truth (knowledge/reason) and soul/heart. An imbalance in either direction can cause a spiritual problem. We can’t have affections and emotion without teaching and doctrine, and we can’t have teaching and doctrine without emotions. Otherwise our worship will be purely ritualistic, and we, like the people in Matthew 15:8-9 will honor God with our lips, “But their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me.” When we are struck with God’s truth, and our spirits’ have been quickened by His Spirit, it should trigger emotions of love, fear, comfort, gratitude, and desire to obey. We celebrate after the word, because we believe that our celebration of who he is should come as a result of hearing the reading and preaching of God’s word in a public arena.
It’s not surprising that Jesus uses this whole conversation to remind His disciple’s (including us) of the mission that we are called to be part of. It’s a mission that is our sustenance, like food. It is because it gives us purpose. His disciple’s had to be confused over Jesus’ unusual behavior, but it was a precursor to the ministry that would unfold in Acts and the building of the kingdom of God, to the Jew first and then to the gentile.
…to the Heart
Unless we are born from above and our worship is a genuine expression of the reality of Christ in our lives, we will have no clearer answer for the world’s ills than any other self-help guru peddling his five steps to self-centered bliss. It is genuine worship that transforms our hearts and invites the non believing public into an experience with the living God.
[1] Although the Samarians were half-breeds (Jewish/Assyrian), the Jews referred to them as gentiles.
[2] The fact that the woman is at the well at mid-day infers that she may either have been embarrassed or barred from coming at normal times, which is in either the cool of the early morning, or the cool of the late afternoon.
[3] The alternative translation, “Jews do not use dishes Samaritans have used,” is most appropriate for this context, since Jews considered sharing any vessel with a Samaritan to be unclean. Since Jesus was asking for a drink and had no drawing bucket, He would have to drink from an “Unclean” cup of the Samaritan, which would have not been an ordeal for Jesus since He taught that uncleanness doesn’t come from the outside, but from within (Matthew 15:10-19).
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