Text: John 4:5-26
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen.
Water is indeed a great necessity for each and every one
of us, is it not? Consider this, how
often don’t we have to drink
water? I’ve been told that the average
person can go without water for about 3 days.
However, after 3 days we enter into the very serious stage of being
dehydrated. Indeed, we need water every
day because we cannot live without it.
Thus, when we thirst, we logically seek out water to drink; when we
drink water we are satisfied. However,
once we are satisfied by water, we begin to thirst again. Around and around we go in this cycle of
drinking, being satisfied, and then thirsting again. No matter what sport drink commercials say,
there is nothing available to us to completely and permanently alleviate our
thirst. We are always dependent upon
water physically speaking.
In our Gospel Reading from today, Jesus encounters a
Samaritan Woman at a well. The Samaritan
Woman was most likely thirsty and needing water for that is the obvious reason
why she came to draw water from Jacob’s Well.
Jacob’s Well was approximately 80-100 feet deep and the water in the
well came from a spring. Certainly, this
well was a source of life for the woman, as well as hundreds of other
individuals in the city of Sychar.
Hundreds of people would come to the well throughout the day, lower a
bucket, and draw water.
In our reading, Jesus uses the Samaritan Woman’s need for
water to talk about a different kind of water, living water. Otherwise stated, Jesus uses the reality of
needing physical water and the certainty that mankind continually thirsts, as a
platform to switch the conversation to different water, living water that
quenches an eternal thirst.
My friends, material water, that is H20, will certainly
quench your thirst for a while. However,
material water cannot permanently quench thirst eternally speaking. Yes, like our bodies, the soul thirsts! St. Augustine, an early Church Father, once
said that the soul, which is created for God, will not rest until it rests in
God. Surely, God is complete and we are
incomplete because of the curse of the fall, the sin of Adam and Eve. Because of the curse of sin we are
continually trying to make complete the incomplete. After their fall into sin, Adam and Eve
realized their nakedness and felt shame.
Sin poisoned and corrupted their completeness, thus driving them to sew
fig leaves together to cover their shame and we have been acquiring fig leaves to
cover our shame ever since.
Whether we use the metaphor of sewing fig leaves to cover
our shame or drinking water to satisfy our thirst, the point remains the same,
we are not satisfied or complete as human beings. We are in a state of thirst. We are constantly trying to cover our shame. We are trying to calm our fear by being in
control. Truly, because of sin we are
off center, naked, shamed, thirsty, fearful, unclean, and restless. Unfortunately
this is the reality of sin and our fallen condition. This reality is what we affirm each and every
Sunday, as we confess our sins in the opening of our Divine Service.
As a result of our status we are constantly driven and
under compulsion to fix ourselves, to justify our condition, to quench our
thirst, so that we might be able to have a sense of completeness and
wholeness. We are constantly seeking to
make it back to the Garden of Eden where things were right and where mankind
was once whole, where there was no thirsting of the soul. But since we can’t travel back in time to the
Garden of Eden, we are left constantly attempting to find freedom from this
parching thirst. We convince ourselves
over and over and over that we are o.k. through thinking positive thoughts and by
reinforcing our self-esteem. We say to
ourselves, “I am not thirsty, spiritually speaking. I have springs of refreshing
water deep within me. It is there; I am
o.k.; I am not thirsty. I am satisfied!”
On the other hand, we are constantly trying to squeeze every drop of
water out of the things of life to satisfy our thirst. We desperately wrap our arms around money,
sex, power, food, our property, our possessions, our egos, our jobs, and so
forth. We wrap our arms around these
things to wring out every possible drop in order to wet the dryness of our
parched condition.
The problem though is that this doesn’t work my friends. Unless you and I can rid ourselves of sin by
making satisfactory payment for sin, which we can’t, you and I will never be
rid of this unquenchable thirst. This is
what King Solomon found to be true in the famous Biblical book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon, the cleverest of humanity, tried
everything, every experiment and desire known to man; and his conclusion was
that everything is worthless. In other words, Solomon teaches us that all of
mankind’s counsels, plans, and undertakings are all useless and fruitless when
lived apart from God. Without the Lord,
nothing can quench our thirst.
“And so it is in life when it comes to trying to satisfy
our spiritual thirsts. None of the
worldly things that we seek out in life can ever give us the peace that
surpasses all understanding. We’re going
to the wrong source in an attempt to quench our thirst. We’re not drawing Christ’s water of life. Spiritually, we’re not drawing anything
better than what we’d draw from a stagnated puddle downstream from the chicken
house. None of these things we sinfully
thirst after can ever see us through into eternal life. None of these things can ever quench the
sinful thirst that was a part of us from conception as sinners and enemies of
God. This is why Jesus Christ had to
come into our fallen world. This is why
Jesus has to make living water available to you and me.”[1]
In our Gospel Reading from today Jesus, talks about water
that is better than the water from Jacob’s well. This special water though does not need a
bucket, it is not located in a deep well, and it is not water that you need to
fetch for yourselves by your own doings.
No, it is water that is freely given. Yes, this water that Jesus talks
about to the Samaritan Woman is a gift. This water was freely offered to her and
it still flows to you and me today as pure gift.
But where does this water flow from? This water does not
flow from within us; it does not flow from any spring of our fallen world of
sin. Rather, this living water is the
very Gospel itself. This living water is
Jesus and His Spirit. This living water is poured out upon you at your
baptism. This living water is lavished
upon you from the very written and spoken Word of God. This living water spills over your tongues in
the Lord’s Supper.
Not only is this water freely given and found in Jesus
and all that He accomplished, it is living water that satisfies the parched
soul; it quenches thirst forever. It is
life-giving water that gushes up to eternal life. Yes, this living water of Jesus actually
quenches thirst. This fountain of living
water is not some philosophical idea, but rather the Gospel that actually does
stuff to us. The Gospel of Jesus Christ
is that which quenches thirst, clothes our nakedness, grants us rest, gives us
esteem, washes us clean, and completes us.
Why? Because Christ was indeed
crucified for your sins, was buried, rose again, ascended into heaven, and sits
at the right hand of the Father in glory—for
you. .
My friends, drink up and receive this water, it is for you!
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep
your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus the living water of eternal life. Amen.
[1]
Jason Zirbel ”Location! Location! Location!” http://lcmssermons.com/index.php?sn=3719
(22 March 2014)
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