Sermon Series

The other day I was playing on the living room floor with Luke (my two-year-old son). We were playing with some plastic animals, a couple of lions and a rhinoceros. Luke had one of the lions—the biggest one--and I had the rhino. For a while we pretended that the lion and rhino were just walking around growling (when you’re two, every animal—rhino, lion, wildebeest or salamander—growls). Side by side the rhino and lion walked, growling.

Then it occurred to me that if a lion and a rhino were in as close contact as we were pretending, they wouldn’t be as cordial as we were making them out to be. After all, lions are hunters. Lions hunt rhinos. So, being the good father I think I am, I wanted to teach Luke something true about lions and rhinos, so I said, “Luke, did you know that lions are hunters?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “Did you know that lions hunt rhinos?” “Yeah”, he said. He was catching on, so I added a degree of difficulty. “Luke, want to make the lion hunt the rhino?” I asked, showing him what I meant. “No daddy.” “But Luke”, I persisted, “Lions are supposed to hunt rhinos…” Then he got this frustrated frown and again said, “No.” We went back to growling and walking.

A few minutes later I got an idea, one more suited to my area of expertise. I said, “Hey Luke, did you know that Jesus is sometimes called a lion, ‘the Lion of Judah’?” Luke’s response was appropriate. He looked at me with that same scowl, growled and thrust his lion toward me as if to say, “Listen, buddy, if you want to play, then play, quit your talking or I’ll sick my lion on you!” I got the message.

Now I know Luke’s impatience had more to do with my jabbering than the theological lesson I was trying to teach him, but it made me think about the way we sometimes respond when we’re faced with Jesus the lion. You see, I was raised to see Jesus as the meek and mild, tender shepherd, the blue robed, white skinned, silky haired man on the Sunday school flannel board. Jesus is meek and mild, the tender shepherd. But he is so much more.

Jesus is called the Lion of Judah. And lions hunt; they’re ferociously protective, and they don’t like anyone messing with them. Lions will do whatever they need to do to defend what’s theirs. They are warriors, battle ready and steely. Jesus is a lion.

Last week we talked about the only thing God ever asks of us: to worship him (Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength). And how that intimately connects to the ultimate purpose of Jesus: to find worshippers. (Philippians 2:9-11: “God exalted him (Jesus) to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”)

So Jesus walked the earth looking for worshippers, the Lion of Judah went hunting. In our story today from the Gospel of John, we see Jesus, the ‘Soul-hunter’[i], in action.

Jesus was tired from a long day of walking. He was on his way back to Galilee , his home region in the north part of

Israel

. To get to Galilee , he had to pass through Samaria . Now Jesus was a Jew, and Jews and Samaritans did not like each other. Theirs was an animosity rooted in theological incompatibility. The Samaritans created their own Bible, shunning the Jewish scriptures in favor of their own version. They thought they were right and the Jews were wrong, so when Jesus the Jew had to pass through Samaria , you can understand the tension.

But Jesus was all about his purpose to make worshippers. He never strayed from that regardless of where he was, or who he was speaking with. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that as he passed along the outskirts of the Samaritan town of Sychar , he went hunting.

Tired, hungry (he’d sent his disciples into town to buy food), and thirsty, he sits down next to a well where a Samaritan woman was drawing water…

Jesus is especially good at getting people’s attention. Jesus scandalized and shocked people to get their attention. So when Jesus wanted to teach about worship, he finds a Samaritan woman. And if that isn’t shocking enough, the woman is a harlot, a whore, as one writer says. The first thing we learn about worship from this passage is that worship has to do with real life. It is not a mythical interlude in a week of reality. Worship has to do with sexual immorality, hunger, thirst and racial tension—all nuances of this story. How is this so? Well you recall how last week we heard Paul’s call to live whole lives in view of God’s mercy, how remembering the mercy of God fuels a life of adoration (worship). Well, Jesus brings wholeness from sexual sin; he brings water to the thirsty, food to the hungry, and peace among warring factions. In short, Jesus brings mercy. Show me someone whose life has been transformed through the mercy of God and I’ll show you a worshipper.

So Jesus walks right into the hostility of Samaria , sits down and asks for a drink—the great hunter moving stealthily among his quarry.

Now this woman is worldly. She lives within the racial and social boundaries of her people. So when Jesus asks for a drink, she’s stunned: “We really shouldn’t be talking. You a Jew and me a Samaritan woman…”

Jesus raises the level amazement when he says, “If you only knew who was asking you for water…If only you knew. Then I’d give you living water.”

She misses the point. And from a self-centered, worldly perspective she says, “You don’t have anything to draw water with…” (Notice that she doesn’t offer to let him borrow her jug—every man/woman for themselves.)

Jesus replies, “You know, anyone who drinks from this water (referring to the well) will thirst again. But the water I give satisfies the deepest thirst, and when you drink it, a life-giving spring bubbles up in you and you’re changed.” The Holy Spirit begins to work in your life and you’re changed, you’re satisfied and your life becomes cleansed…

Now, the woman is curious but she can’t rise above her five senses: “Show me where to get this water so I don’t have to make this darn trip here every day under the hot sun.” She’s evading him, sensing that there is something more to this man than meets the eye, but is not yet ready to go where he’s going.

But Jesus teaches us another valuable lesson: don’t give up on people too soon. Jesus has his sights set on this woman and he aims to create a worshipper of God.

John Piper says that the quickest way to the heart is through a wound and he touches the most sensitive and vulnerable spot in her life. Jesus knows that this woman’s life is a mess, he knows of her sin and yet says, “Go, call your husband and come back.” This is a shrewd tactic—but don’t forget there’s a battle going on. He knows that she’s not married and living a sexually immoral life, but he says go tell your husband…

Why would Jesus strip open the woman’s inner life like this? Because he had said in John 3:20 , “Everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light lest his deeds be exposed.” Concealed sin keeps us from seeing the light of Christ.

Leprosy deadens your skin. It makes it impossible to feel, so you scratch and pull at your flesh, but you don’t feel it even though your skin is falling apart. Sin is like spiritual leprosy. It deadens your spiritual sense so that you rip your soul to shreds and you don’t even feel it. But Jesus lays bare her spiritual leprosy. “You have five husbands and the man you’re sleeping with now is not your husband.”

Now watch the universal reflex of a person trying to avoid conviction. She has to admit he does have some insight. “Sir, you’re obviously a prophet.” But instead of going in the direction he pointed to, she tries to switch over to an academic argument. “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem . What’s your take on the issue?”

I was amazed to read this week about the Saskatchewan farmer who cut off his fingers to free himself from a piece of farming equipment, and the story about the mountain climber a couple weeks back who cut off his arm to free himself from a boulder pinning him. Animals have been known to chew off their legs if they’re caught in a trap.

A trapped sinner will mangle and twist rules of logic to avoid being trapped. “Well, yes, since we’re on the subject of my sin, what’s your stand on where we should worship?” This is standard double-talk for a person caught in sin—cause a diversion, rationalize, make excuses…I do it, don’t you?

Jesus says, “A time is coming, and has now come, when the true worshippers will worship the father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks…”

She replies, “Yes, I know that Messiah is coming, the one they call Christ. When he comes he’ll explain it all…”

Don’t misread this, don’t race over Jesus’ next words; this is not a passing comment. This is not a throw away statement. This is the God of mercy, the great Soul-hunter revealing his identity. The Lion of Judah pounces: “I who speak to you am he.”

Now, we don’t know what this scene looks like, but the text implies what happens. We’re left to imagine, fill in the blanks a bit. Though it doesn’t say this, here’s what I think happened: Look at verse 28: “Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did…”

There’s a scene in The Two Towers where great Gandalf, walks into the throne room of a great king. A dark and putrid spell had been cast over the king and he was rendered speechless, and was shriveling up by the minute. So Gandalf is in disguise, and he strolls to the king’s throne and begins to call out the evil. Those around the king chuckled, thinking the crazy old man was just delusional. Then all of a sudden, Gandalf throws his dirty robe aside revealing a brilliant white tunic, and his face is aglow and his voice booms, and the evil flees, spell broken.

I think something like that happened to the woman at the well. When Jesus proclaimed he was messiah, I think at that moment the woman’s soul was captured, her heart shattered, and she found herself in the jaws of the lion terrified yet deeply in love as she saw mercy for the first time.

She came to the well thirsty, with a jug to get water. She left there a worshipper of Christ, in awe, satisfied by living water.

I think our culture is reflected in the life of the Samaritan woman. Sin is an attempt to place ourselves in control, to be God in a sense. This woman’s sin was sexual immorality. But it could have been greed, arrogance, gossip, fear, anything. Sin is the effort to satisfy a thirst only satisfied by the living water of Christ.

Jeremiah’s cisterns—cannot hold water. Like our attempts to satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts cannot hold water. We were created to yearn, to long after, to ache for the love and forgiveness, yes, and to worship the One who is our Creator. That’s why nothing satisfies but the fullness of Jesus Christ, the living water.

Living a life of worship means constant awareness of God’s mercy. John Piper says that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. The analogy he uses is God as a never ending fountain. When we are awash in the glorious mercy of Jesus, we stand in the never ending fountain quenched, washed and satisfied. We have no more need for our own broken jars, our cisterns that hold no water.

Worshipping God corporately on a Sunday mimics this analogy when we come and focus on God’s character. In song, in silence, in prayer, through the offering, through the Scripture, everything should be an acknowledgement of God’s mercy and grace. And as his worshippers, we’re reminded that it is all about Him, and so we come and drink! God only ever called us to worship him, and he is most glorified when we are most satisfied in him.

All spirit no truth= emotionalism, a high and then a return to ‘real life’. But authentic worship is not, as I said earlier, an emotional, mystical interlude in the middle of real life.

Authentic worship means that we know truth about God and respond in awe and wonder. Authentic worship of God calls forth the Holy Spirit to transform our lives. My friend says that if worship doesn’t change us, it isn’t worship. The combination of good doctrine, right theology, truth about God, and emotional celebration of that truth changes the way we live and interact with the world.

Jesus says that God is looking for true worshippers, those who worship in spirit and truth, heart and head.

The story of the Samaritan woman is rife with symbolism. But I think the most profound symbol is her jar for carrying water. She’d come to that well a hundred times or more, carrying that jar. She knew some truth about spiritual things, yet had grown callous from a life of sin. Back and forth, day after day she came to drink.

Yet one day she encountered the spring of life, living water, the stream that never ceases to flow. I imagine she took a look at her chipped and cracking jar and realized the futility of attempting to contain Him. Her only option was to stand in His tide and be satisfied. So she left her jar behind and became a worshipper of God.

Are you thirsty? How are you satisfying your thirst? If you’re trying through means other than the person of Jesus Christ, you need to know that you’ll never be quenched. Perhaps, like the woman at the well, it’s time to take a look at the jar you carry—the sin that continues to bind you—and realize it is never going to be big enough to carry the water you need. Put it down, leave it behind. Stand in the never ending fountain that is Jesus and be satisfied. Let’s pray…

[i] John Piper, Desiring God (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 1986). Piper’s chapter on worship follows the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Piper uses the encounter as a description of a worship feast. In this message I have used much of Piper’s insights to demonstrate Jesus’ longing for worshippers.