Jesus and the Samaritan Woman (John 4:1-42)

This is a sermon I preached at my home church, Lakewood Baptist Church, on 11/20/2024 as a series on scenes from the Gospels.

Introduction

My wife and I try to reserve Saturday mornings as time together to reconnect after a long week, and we usually like to have a nice breakfast together, so we will make eggs or pancakes (syrup courtesy of Ron Turcotte). This past Saturday, I had a piece of toast, but instead of getting up for a knife, I used a fork to spread jam on my toast. After a few minutes, I commented to Karrie, “I have concluded that a fork is an extremely inefficient tool for this job.” A tool only works well if used for its intended purpose. Tonight, I want to take us to a passage in John, but before we can jump in, we need to know why the Holy Spirit inspired John to write his Gospel.

John's Gospel opens with the claim that Jesus is the eternal Son of God come in the flesh to save us from our sins (1:1-18); and his thesis statement in 20:30-31 is "Now Jesus did many other signs – miracles – in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these [signs] are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." So, John's goal is that we see the truth about Jesus, believe, and have eternal life, which Jesus himself later defines as knowing God: “this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (17:3). But not everyone perceives the truth about Jesus: "The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him" (1:9-10).

Following his first sign miracle (turning water into wine at Cana), Jesus interacts with three individuals who need salvation: Nicodemus (3:1-21), the Samaritan Woman at the well (4:1-42), and a Gentile official (4:46-54). As Jesus engages both Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman in conversation, it becomes clear that both of them lack a proper understanding of who Jesus is, and we have this same problem today. While these individuals needed to understand Jesus' identity to be saved, we must remember to hold onto the identity of Jesus in our daily lives as we live out the salvation he has won. John's overall goal is to show us Jesus' identity so that we might believe and have life, so let's look at what Jesus’ conversation with Samaritan woman reveals about him.

Jesus is a man, but more than that (v.1-15)

v.1-4 – “Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria.”

The setting is that Jesus again leaves Judea for Galilee, but between the two is Samaria. As a reminder, the Samaritan people are the remnant of the northern kingdom of Israel, which was defeated by the Assyrian Empire as a judgment from God for their sin and idolatry. After the defeat, the Assyrians settled people of other nations in the land, and the already-idolatrous Israelites became even more corrupt. When Cyrus of Persia decreed that Jerusalem be restored and the Temple rebuilt, Nehemiah rejected the support of the Samaritans because they were already so pagan. And yet, it seems to have been fairly common for the Jews to pass through Samaria between Judea and Galilee at this time. Jesus needed to go through Samaria because the Father had work for him to do there.

v.5 – “So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.”

John notes that this region of land was given to Joseph by Jacob, likely the land Jacob purchased from the sons of Hamor near the city where Dinah was raped (Gen. 33:18-1; 48:21-22); Joseph was buried there after the Conquest of Canaan (Josh. 24:32). In addition to establishing the setting, this information is a reminder that the primary context for interpreting the NT is the OT, which will be important as we go on.

v.6 – “Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.”

Jesus, as 100% human, is tired and thirsty after walking in the desert – and just like when he was tempted by Satan, Jesus does not use his divine power for his own benefit but to do the Father's will, and the Father wants him to talk to this woman in Samaria.

v.7-9 – “A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)”

An unspecified Samaritan woman (we never learn her name) comes out of the village to draw water around noon (6th hour), the hottest part of the day, which is a weird time for such hard work. As the story progresses, we learn that she comes at this time because of her shameful reputation in the city. Jesus, sitting beside the well, asks her to draw water for him to drink. In terms of biblical storytelling, this puts us on the edge of our seat: important and good things usually happen when you meet women at wells! Abraham's servant met Rebekah, Jacob met Rachel, and Moses met Zipporah at wells. But there is conflict here: the woman points out that Jesus' request for water is odd because Jews and Samaritans don't “have dealings” – they avoid interaction if possible. In the oral tradition of the Pharisees, Samaritans were unclean in certain contexts, but Samaritan women perpetually so, like Gentiles.

v.10 – “Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, «Give me a drink,» you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’”

Jesus' response is strange and confusing, though we have lost the original feel of it: he tells this woman with a drawing vessel whom he has just asked for water that she should have asked him for water instead, a man without a drawing vessel. Further, he tells her that he can give her "living water," which is a common Greek idiom for "flowing water," whether a river or underground spring. What an odd thing to say! The discourse sections in John have many such odd quips from Jesus, designed to draw people in.

v.11-12 – “The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.’”

The woman is understandably confused, and asks Jesus how he can access flowing water without a drawing vessel; as the interaction goes on, we and the woman learn that Jesus means something quite different by "living water." But the woman asks a follow-up question before Jesus can answer – "Are you greater than our father Jacob?" What is the answer to this question – is Jesus greater than Jacob? Yes! We know that, but to this woman, Jesus just looks like any other tired, thirsty Jew. But then he dives deep.

v.13-14 – “Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’”

Jesus does not directly answer the question; rather, he elaborates on this "living water" he mentioned earlier. Now, remember, the primary context for understanding the NT is the OT, and Jesus' statements here sound much less strange when understood in light of the OT prophets, where God calls himself the "fountain of living waters":

Jeremiah 2:13 “my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

The prophets further speak of a time in the future Day of the Lord when "living waters" will flow from Jerusalem (Ezek. 47:9), and cleansing water will flow in the restored kingdom (Isa. 49:10; 55:1-7).

Zech. 14:8 “On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter.”

Further passages connect the cleansing water with the work of the Holy Spirit in the New Covenant. 

Ezek. 36:25-27 “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”

The collective teaching of the OT prophets is that God is the only source of satisfaction and spiritual healing; much like water cures our physical thirst, God cures our spiritual thirst by bringing salvation through his Holy Spirit, and Jesus claims to be able to give this same saving satisfaction of the Spirit pictured by a "spring" or "well" of water that leads to life – Jesus is the true "well" of "living water"! But there is a problem:

v.15 – “The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.’”

The Samaritans only used the first five books of the OT, so all these allusions are lost on the woman. She thinks Jesus is still speaking of a literal well of literal water, which she asks for so she won’t have to come to the literal well anymore.

Summary: In this whole section, the Samaritan woman interacts with Jesus as if he is a normal man, yet her words hint unknowingly at the fact that, though he is a man, Jesus is also more than a man, and he shows this by offering the "living water" of the Holy Spirit. Then he changed the conversation.

Jesus is a prophet, but more than that (v.16-24)

v.16 – “Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come here.’”

Up to this point, Jesus has shown no qualms about social conventions: he has been speaking to a woman alone, itself a taboo in Jewish culture, and about religious matters no less, when the religious leaders of the day refused to teach women, and some even called it sin. So, when Jesus tells the woman to get her husband, it is not out of a sudden concern for propriety, but to make a point.

v.17-18 – “The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, «I have no husband»; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.’” 

Now, we need to be careful here: our assumption is to condemn this woman, but historically women could not divorce men in this society, so either these five previous husbands had died or divorced her, and likely it was some combination of the two. The Jewish rabbis allowed only three marriages, and a person with so many failed marriages would be assumed to be under God's curse for sin. When Jesus states that she is currently living with a man, that is a clear sin on her end, yet Jesus does not bring any of this up to shame her but to show her his knowledge, and she gets the message.

v.19-20 – “The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.’”

Seeing that Jesus has supernatural knowledge of her life, the woman concludes that he must be a prophet. Since she has an authoritative teacher on hand, she decides to ask the major political/religious question of the day: where should one worship God? While the Jews had the full OT which described how God chose Mount Zion in Jerusalem for his Temple, the Samaritan Pentateuch (Genesis - Deuteronomy) spoke of only one holy mountain in the Promised Land: Gerizim, where God commanded the Israelites to recite the blessings of the Mosaic Covenant once they entered the Land (Deut. 11:29; Josh. 8:33-35). As a result, the question of where to worship was a huge theological debate between the Jews and Samaritans, so much so that the Jews had destroyed the Samaritan Temple on Mt. Gerizim about 150 years before this.

v.21-24 – “Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’”

Jesus does not answer this question either; instead, he moves from the external matter of where a person can worship to the more important matter of what kind of person can worship. While the Samaritans have incomplete knowledge of God from their truncated OT – “you (pl.) worship what you do not know” – Jesus says of himself and the Jews “we worship what we know” – they have the whole OT – and that salvation comes from the Jews since they are the people God chose as his own to reach the world through them. So, Jesus takes the position of the full OT that God has chosen Jerusalem; yet, he does not stop there. Jesus prophesies that, following his death, burial, and resurrection (this is “the hour” in John), the Temple would no longer be where God meets his people. Now, Jesus does not disregard the Temple; far from it, he cleansed it twice during his earthly ministry. However, Jesus also predicted how God's working in the world was about to change from primarily through Israel bound to the Temple to all over the world in the power of the Holy Spirit. By saying that worship must be "in spirit and in truth," Jesus means that God must call worshipers to himself by his Spirit, the one who leads people to truth. This is clarified elsewhere in John.

John 6:63-65 “‘It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.’ (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, ‘This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.’”

Yet Jesus is the only way to the life the Father grants through his Holy Spirit.

John 7:37-39 “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” And John adds in here a clarifying comment: “(Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.)” – his hour (John 2:4; 7:30; 8:20; 12:23; 13:1).

Summary: As an authoritative prophet, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman of the changes to come in God's plan, including the transition from Israel to the church as God's primary agent in the world and the future ministry of the Holy Spirit in empowering his church for this new work. Yet, Jesus does not say "thus says the Lord" but speaks on his own authority, since he is more than a mere prophet.

Jesus is the Messiah, but more than that (v.25-38)

v.25-26 – “The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am he.’”

The woman is already overwhelmed by the position Jesus takes on the issue of holy mountains, so she throws up her hands and says "Well, I guess the Messiah will make this clear when he comes," much like we say at times "Well, I guess we will never understand this side of eternity." Jesus, however, does not miss a beat and openly declares to her that he is the long-awaited Messiah. This is the first time Jesus identifies himself; in the other Gospels, Jesus frequently commands the Jews not to tell anyone of the miracles he has performed, but here he openly declares himself to a Samaritan – why? Possibly because the Jewish expectation of the Messiah had become a political revolutionary who would overthrow Rome, whereas the Samaritans were expecting an inspired teacher. So Jesus teaches. But now the scene changes.

v.27-30 – “Just 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?’ So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the town and were coming to him.”

It seems at this point that the Samaritan woman wants to believe; I would call her question to the other Samaritans hesitant yet hopeful: "Can this be the Christ?" While with Nicodemus, a theologically-trained Jew with authority, we have to wait until the end of John to see that he believed because he kept it secret, the poor unlearned Samaritan woman believes almost immediately and tells others right away, even using her own shameful past to communicate the message, better exemplifying the attitude of John the Baptist: "He must increase, I must decrease." And the Samaritans come out in droves to hear Jesus.

v.31-34 – “Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, ‘Rabbi, eat.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Has anyone brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.’”

The disciples ask Jesus to eat something, and Jesus responds that he has other food, confusing the disciples, who are notoriously thick with these sort of spiritual comments. Jesus clarifies that he subsists not on food alone but on doing the Father's will, recalling one of his favorite verses:

Deuteronomy 8:3 "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Then he seeks to refocus the disciples on this perspective as well.

v.35-38 – “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

The disciples need to see the big picture: God has been preparing Israel and the Samaritans for centuries through the prophets, John the Baptist, and now Jesus himself, to be culminated through the Apostles and the church. The proverb means that, while usually planting and harvest are separated by four months, planting the truth and harvesting for salvation here happen at almost the same time! His word picture of sowing and reaping comes again from the OT prophets, who described the future restoration of Israel as a time of abundant harvest, in which the gathering of one crop will not be finished before it is time to begin the next (Amos 9:13-15). The harvest is assured because God is the one overseeing the planting and he controls the growth, so they can be assured there is a crop ready for reaping.

Summary: Jesus openly announces himself as the Messiah, and is proclaimed as such by the Samaritan woman, yet his words to the disciples show how the new age is beginning and he himself is sending them to the harvest he has prepared, since he is more than the anointed Messiah.

Jesus is the Savior of the World (v.39-42)

v.39-42 – “Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me all that I ever did.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.’”

The Samaritans, after hearing Jesus for themselves, conclude that he is the “Savior of the world.” When we hear this title, we think only of Jesus, but it was used for pagan deities like Zeus as well as Roman Emperors like Augustus. The use of this title shows that the Samaritans grasp the scope of the mission – Jesus has come to bring life to all people, not just political restoration to Israel, as the Jews were expecting.

Conclusion

Through the course of this account, Jesus is referred to first as a Jew, then as "sir," then as a prophet, then Messiah, and finally as “Savior of the world.” In fact, the progression in chapters 3 and 4 from Nicodemus to the Samaritan woman to the Gentile official mirrors Jesus’ command to the Apostles to go to "Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Jesus is the God-Man, fully God and fully human, declared by his authoritative teaching to be "The Christ, the Son of God" (20:30-31), so that all might believe on him and have life in his name.

The incarnation of Jesus including his death, burial, and resurrection changes everything, since he opens the way to forgiveness of sin and knowing the Father by taking our place on the cross. However, Christ's work in our lives did not end at the cross, since following his ascension he sent the Holy Spirit who provides us with the ability to worship and serve God "in spirit and in truth." It is all of grace and all of Christ, both initial salvation and continued growth and service.

Lakewood Lessons: What do we need to believe about Jesus, and how do we need to become more like Jesus?

1. We must believe that Jesus is the "true well" of "living water" – He is the Christ, the Son of God, and you can have life by believing in him. Just like Israel doomed themselves by abandoning God, we doom ourselves to a lack of joy and peace when we rest in things other than Christ for our fulfillment and comfort.
2. We must worship "in spirit and in truth" – To fully understand who Jesus is, you must study the OT. Don't be afraid of it, or of leading others to read it. There is much that will take some work, but there is also much that is easily grasped and forms the foundation for the New Testament.
3. We must eat the food of doing the Father’s will – Jesus is our example of a life that is focused on serving God. As an introvert, I read the opening lines of this story feeling the exhaustion of Jesus having walked many miles with his disciples who often act like rowdy middle schoolers. He is tired and exhausted, and yet when the Father plants a person in his path for ministry, he obeys. Life is ministry, and we must be willing to minister as Christ was.

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All Scripture verses come from the ESV.