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 nonhusband, 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!” The peace of God
that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus
until life everlasting. Amen.
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