This past weekend, I attended our church's ladies retreat. Our speaker, Cindy Morris, spoke on John 4, which is below for you to read yourself. One of the things that struck me the most, was when she started talking about water and words for it; waves, ripples, cascades, destroys, erodes, and so on.
When I started to think about it, the word that came to my mind was cleansing. God, who is our Healer, has been so good to cleanse us from sin, but He also cleanses us from a lot of other things too: anger, hurt, betrayal, pain, and suffering. When I began to think about cleansing, I realized that the process, although good, think of a nasty cut and blood for a moment, is very painful and sometimes unwanted. I know on several occasions my kids have cried harder at the thought of cleaning a scrape than the actual scrape itself. Our lives are sometimes full of nasty cuts, and they can be bleeding, oozing, and hurting. But when we allow Christ to pour the cleansing Water of healing over us, miracles can happen.
John 4: 1.The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John,
2.although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.
3.When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4.Now he had to go through Samaria.
5.So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
6.Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7.When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?"
8.(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9.The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. )
10.Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
11."Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?
12.Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
13.Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
14.but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
15.The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
16.He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."
17."I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband.
18.The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."
19."Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet.
20.Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
21.Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
22.You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
23.Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
24.God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
25.The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
26.Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."
2.although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.
3.When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4.Now he had to go through Samaria.
5.So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
6.Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7.When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?"
8.(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9.The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. )
10.Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
11."Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?
12.Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
13.Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
14.but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
15.The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
16.He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."
17."I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband.
18.The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."
19."Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet.
20.Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
21.Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
22.You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
23.Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
24.God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
25.The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
26.Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."
I love that this passage allows us to see Jesus as the person He was. He was a radical of his time...speaking to a foreigner, someone who the Jews thought was beneath them and a woman at that. He revealed Himself to her and she believed.(see vs. 39-42 same chapter)...sometimes even the disciples had trouble with that, and they were with Him all the time. She not only believed, but told others and they believed too....isn't that what it is all about??
On a side note, I am finally getting to reading Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw. Anyone who missed the earlier discussions some at the church had and wants to now...let me know.
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