“Leave it Behind” John 4.5-26 “The Woman at the Well” LWML Fall Workshop…

1.                  Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  The message from God’s Word for us today is taken from John 4:5-26.  Here in John’s Gospel we see that Jesus graciously reaches out to a Samaritan woman, leads her to recognize Him as the Messiah, and through her brings other Samaritans to receive His life-giving blessings.  We as Christians can sometimes allow social and cultural barriers to hinder our witness to Jesus and His love for all people.  But, just as Jesus forgave this woman her past and present sins, He now freely offers His forgiving love to us and calls us to spread the Good News.  The message is entitled, “Leave it Behind.”

2.                  Little Sam and his mother are off for his first day of school. She’s coping with the idea of her little boy growing up, and her head is filled with details, dreams, and dread about this day. Backing out of the driveway with papers signed, crayons packed, and an errand list in hand, she senses she’s missing something. She turns to Sam to see if he’s buckled in. She now realizes what she’s missing—Sam! Looking up, she sees in the window her precious cargo, who stares with an “aren’t you forgetting something?” fear in his eye. Have you ever been so busy with thought that you forget the main thing you are supposed to be doing? The woman at the well is someone who leaves behind her main task (gathering water) because of something greater that Christ has offered (living water).

3.                  Not long after Jesus shares “the Gospel in a nutshell” with Nicodemus in John chapter 3, he’s speaking with this woman in Samaria. How better could John the Apostle show to us that Jesus really meant what he said when he told Nicodemus that God loved “the world”? Who is it that struggles with the thought of Jesus as the Savior of all the world? In ch 3 of John’s Gospel it’s the religious establishment, in Jerusalem, Nicodemus, the Pharisee, a true Jew, and the religious uprising, John the Baptist’s disciples. In ch 4 we see quite a contrast as Jesus encourages a dialogue with the religious opposition, in Samaria, with a Samaritan, a woman and one of bad reputation! Here we see the One who comes for all people, “the light of the world,” so that all the world may know him as Abraham did, by faith.

4.                  John 4:4–8 says, “⁴And [Jesus] had to pass through Samaria.  ⁵So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.  ⁷There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸(For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.)”  This account describes for us the conversation between Jesus and the woman.  At the beginning of this section it says that Jesus “had to” go through Samaria. According to the Jews, he was “supposed to” go around Samaria, but according to his Heavenly Father’s plan, he “had to” go through the region. It was necessary for Jesus to go, to do, to be lifted up on the cross, and to rise from the dead for this Samaritan woman, in whom we see ourselves.

5.                  Notice how Jn 4:27–29 says, “²⁷Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” ²⁸So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, ²⁹“Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”  Did you see the fact that the water jar (main task) gets left behind?  When the joy of the Gospel and the promise of living water from Jesus come to people (like the woman at the well, the tax collectors Matthew and Zacchaeus, the fisherman Peter), those things we hold as most important (water, taxes, fish) are left behind in light of a greater hope that lies ahead.  A bucket at a well, a net by a shore, a country in the background, all remind us that God’s promises call us forward in hope. They are promises of blessing for all, of a land ahead, of living water.

6.                  The Gospel of John shows us that the promise is to “the world” (Jn 3:16). Jesus has come for all people: the religious establishment (Pharisees like Nicodemus), the religious uprising (John the Baptist’s disciples), and the religious outcast (a Samaritan woman).  In John 4:7 we see that Jesus speaks to her.  This action of Jesus was breaking the social barriers between Jews and Samarians and between men, especially a rabbi, and women. He who has been left behind by his disciples (v 8) leaves these barriers behind to tell the woman about a better “water” that she could receive.

7.                  Jesus comes for all people, even leftovers. (You may wish to hold up a container of leftovers for emphasis.) Have you ever discovered leftovers in the fridge long after you knew they were there? They’re used, old, forgotten, stale, and unwanted.  The woman at the well may have seemed like a leftover person to some. (1) She was a Samaritan, a second-class person. (2) She was a woman, considered unteachable by the rabbis. (3) She had five husbands and a live-in boyfriend. (4) She comes alone at midday to a well outside of town.  Maybe we can relate to this woman in one way or another. In her life we see ours. Do sin, sorrow, and stigma make us feel like “leftover people,” growing stale, unwanted, “left behind”?  Our Lord Jesus engages “leftover” people in conversation co that these sins, sorrows, and stigmas can be washed away by living water.

8.                  Old barriers, Jew and Samaritan, man and woman, God and man—are left behind through this one great mediator (1 Tim 2:5) who says, “I am he.” Old ways of living are left behind. Habits and humiliation are in the past when we become a new creation through water (Baptism, Rom 6:3) in Christ (2 Cor 5:17).  Old evasiveness is left behind. The woman’s elusive comments are no longer appropriate before a man who “told me everything I ever did” (4:29). Old anxieties are left behind. She said to the people, “Come, see a man.”  Old sins are left behind. She left (aphēken) her water jar. This is the same word God uses to describe leaving behind our sin. 

9.                  So how can Jesus help us to know these things are wonderfully forgotten?  Jesus, who is left behind at the well, is also looking to strike up a conversation with us. He takes us from earthly small talk to heavenly hope.  Did you see how this “living water” that Jesus talks about is one of many concepts on which He expands as he talks with the woman? She came for water; Jesus offers her living water. She refers to our father (Jacob); he speaks of the Heavenly Father. She mentions a prophet; Jesus is the Prophet (especially for Samaritans who accepted only the Pentateuch and were looking for the great prophet like Moses from Deuteronomy 18). She speaks of worship in Samaria and Judea; he speaks of worship in “spirit and truth.” She hopes for a messiah; he is the Messiah!

10.              Remember how John 4:4 tells us that just as Jesus “had to” go through Samaria, he also “had to” “be lifted up” (3:14; 12:34), do his Father’s work (9:4), bring other sheep (10:16), and “rise from the dead” (20:9). Just like Abraham in the Old Testament, Jesus had to leave behind his Heavenly Father for the promise that lies ahead for all people. He had to leave behind the joys of heaven so that all people may leave behind the sins, sorrows, and stigmas of earth.

11.              But how can we know this is for us? Because this day we are reminded by the life of one woman alone on the outside of town that a man who died alone on the outside of town leaves no one behind. He loved “the world.” Consider a kindergarten boy in a window, a woman at a well, a man leaving home, a tax collector in a tree, a Samaritan leper, a Pharisee, a prodigal son, a soldier by a cross, a thief on a cross, a lonely person, a leftover. To them Jesus says, “No one gets left behind!”  In John 4:28 we see that the very thing the woman came for (water) she leaves behind, so great is the impact of the greater thing (living water) Jesus has given. The gift and promises of God are so perfect that much will be “left behind” because they can’t compare with what lies ahead.

12.              When God forgives us we “leave behind” our sin. The woman leaves behind her bucket, but she doesn’t leave without “living water.” When Christ gives us this water through our baptisms, something must be left behind. We, like the woman, leave behind old barriers to the Savior, old guilt and sinful ways, for this woman had five husbands and a non husband, old patterns of elusiveness, old, and the old stale water of our sin for living water [v 26]).

13.              Isn’t that why we came here today, “to leave it all behind”? Reminded of the living waters of Baptism, refreshed by the voice of the Savior, renewed by the promise of what lies ahead, then leave the sins, sorrows, and stigmas here like an empty bucket forgotten on the ground. Then go like the woman with living water from a living Savior with a living message, “Come, see a man!”