10/ 15/ 2000  Worship service            
         
In Book of John, chapter 4, there is a peculiar story.  During the time of Christ, perhaps the most unfathomable events were Jesus entering foreign lands and conversing with foreigners, or non-Israelites.  Not only did He conversed with foreigners, but the fact that Jesus talked to a Samaritan was absolutely unacceptable to people of Jewish descent.  Samaritans were the mixed descendants of Jews and foreigners who had emigrated to Israel after the fall of the Kingdom of Northern Israel by the Assyrians some 2,722 years ago.  

Not only were they considered as impure, mixed descendents, but Samaritans, unlike the Israelites who led their lives of faith centered around one God, under one temple, worshipped icons and hence were discriminated by the Israelites.  The social segregation between the Samaritans and Jews continued for a long time; in fact, it lasted so long that this segregation became a fact of life, a stringent social statute that was not to be broken or compromised.  It was during such times that Jesus entered the off-limits regions of Samaria.  Not only did He entered the land that was forbidden for Jews to enter, He talked with a Samaritan--a woman, in fact--during a period where gender separation was the rule of the day, and a woman who has had five husband at that.  

The important aspect of all this was that through this conversation, Jesus was able to have the woman discover the root of her problems, and was able to shift the woman's interest from visceral aspect of life to spritual aspects of life.  This woman was born again through her conversation with Christ, and became the living proof to her neighbors that Jesus is indeed the Son of God, the Messiah that the God had sent forth to this earth.  We must learn this great art of conversation from Christ today.  Today, or this hour, must be the time in which we truly understand the amazing ability of our Lord to heal a human being through conversation and words.

A philosopher named Martin Buber has stated, in a book called "I and Thou," that there are two types of human encounters and conversations.  First, there is an encounter between "I and It," or an encounter with non-human things.  When we drive a car, or use a lawnmower to cut grass, or use pen to write in a note book, we are establishing a relationship between ourselves and the objects that we use.  All these encounters are classified as a meeting between me and it, between ourselves and non-human objects around us.  Conversely, the encounter between "I and Thou" is a living encounter and conversation between two human characters, in which two hearts come together to share ideas, impressions, influence, and ultimately experience changes in our very own characters.  

Therefore, the physical meeting between me and it often ends with "I'm OK.  But you're not OK."  However, the conversation between you and me ends with a good, satisfactory feeling based on the idea that "I'm OK.  And you're also OK."  Through the encounter between Christ and this woman from Samaria, we can see a form of a personal converation and encounter between you and me.  Then how was Christ able to lead this woman from Samaria down the road to salvation?

First, Jesus started talking to this woman with the utmost interest.  In looking at verse 6-7 of today's scripture, we can see that at 6 o'clock Hebrew time, or noon, a woman comes to the well of Jacob, at which a tired Jesus was sitting down to catch some rest.  The peculiar thing is that when most other women either come early in the morning or towards the evening to get water from the well, this woman shows up at 12 o'clock in the afternoon, when the sun is at its peak and the day is at its hottest.  

This is probably because this woman had much to be ashamed of, and had desired to avoid the eyes and gaze of other people.  Coincidentally, at this hour, the desciples had gone to town to get something to eat, and only Jesus and this woman were present at the well.  This tells us that Christ could ask and talk about personal things of this woman, and the ambience and conditions had been set for some deep, profound converation.

Second, Jesus leads the conversation to a deeper level, from "physical water" to "spiritual living water."  When the woman asks him "How is that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" Jesus responds with an answer that does not pertain to the question.  In verse 10, Jesus answers, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink," you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water."  

Upon hearing Jesus's response, the startled woman returns the question in verse 11, asking, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.  Where then do You get that living water?"  The Samaritan woman, to this point, does not yet understand what Jesus is talking about, or what living water means; she still is only thinking about the secular water, in which we drink to quench our thirst.  In verse 12, she even says,

"Are You greater than our father Jacob, who have us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?"  She is asking "since you promise me water that is better than the water that Jacob and his sons drank, are you a greater man than Jacob?"  Jesus answers with a phrase that is more even more confusing to this woman.  In verses 13 and 14, Jesus answers her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.  But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."  

The water from Jacob's well will only momentarily quench thirst, and it is water that must be drank when one become thristy again; however, our Lord Jesus gives the water of everlasting life, one that shall never make one thirst again.  The Samaritan woman wanted to drink such a water.  She had drank the secular water from the well but did not quench her basic thirst, and she wanted to drink such water that would forever quench her of her thirst.  In verse 15, she replies "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw."  To Christ, she asks, give me such water which will not make me thirst again.  However, event at this point, this woman from Samaria did not undertand the fact that Jesus was the Son of God, the Lord who can give the water of everlasting life that will forever cure anyone of their thirst.

At this time, Jesus suddenly changes the topic of their conversation.  While talking about the water, in verse 16, Jesus says to the Samaritan woman, "Go, call your husband and come here."  The Samaritan woman, again startled by Jesus's command, replies in verse 17, "I have no husband."  In verse 18, Jesus replies, "for you hand had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in tht you spoke truly."  

Upon hearing these words, the Samaritan woman understands who Jesus really is.  Therefore, in verse 19, she states, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet."  Now the woman understands that Jesus, unlike a common man, was a Prophet, and that the topic of their conversation, the water that Jesus was talking about was not just any water to quency bodily thirst, but that the water was a living water able to bring forth the power to quench all thirst and bring forth everlasting life.  

She had a moment of awakening when she had heard Jesus say, correctly, that she has had five husbands, and the one that she is currently living with was not her husband.  She had drank all the water in the world, yet had no satisfaction in quenching her thirst.  She was very much interested in this water that Jesus had promised, one that would bring everlasting freedom from thirst.  The key point, however, is that the topic of their conversation has shifted from "drinking water" to "Samaritan woman's husbands" to "worship."

Third, in verse 20, the Samaritan woman asks, "Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem in the place where one ought to worship."  This woman, at this point, enters into a new topic of conversation with Christ.  She has tired of life, and despite having had five husbands, she did not find any satisfaction in her life; therefore, her wish was to offer up a pure, true worship service to God and find a new life for herself.  To her question, Jesus replies in verse 23 and 24, perhaps the most important words in 4th chapter of John:  

"But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Rather in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.  God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worhip in spirit and truth."  With this reply, he strikes the core.  This phrase means that true, living worship do not depend on location, social status, nor nationality; rather, it depends on spirit and truth.  To reiterate, true worship depends on the solemenness of our hearts and truth, not some outside condition that has no bearing on how true our heart is.  "True worship is not dependent on the status or gender or nationality of the individual, but spirit and truth are the only ingredients involved in right worship of God."

The Samaritan woman, through her conversation with Jesus, was able to find the truth.  She was able to come to the belief that Jesus was the true Son of God, who can bring the water that would quench all thirst forever, and that He was worthy of true worship with the Holy Spirit.  The belief compels her to throw down her water pails, and proclaim to all in her village that she had met Christ.

Conversation with Christ gives us the true life.  It gives us the water that will quench our thirst forever.  The woman from Samaria was able to satisfy her unquenchable and unsatisfiable physical hunger and thirst through her encounters with Jesus.  I believe that the spiritual water from our Living God is the only thing that can satisfy all thirst forever.  Our conversation with Christ is possible through our prayers.  I pray in the name of our Lord that through prayer to Jesus, all of you can gain the true happiness, everlasting life and salvation.  Amen.