Word of Salvation – Vol. 46 No. 07 – February 2001

He Had to Go That Way

Sermon by Rev. G. Vanderkolk on John 4:1-8

Scripture Reading: Acts 8:4-25

Beloved in the Lord,

Introduction:

If you were at Jacob's well, you would have seen a strange sight.  A dusty, tired man, sitting near the well about 12 o'clock in the day.  It wouldn't be a strange sight to find a dusty, tired man sitting by that well, but it would have been a strange sight because the man sitting by the well was obviously Jewish.  What would have made it even stranger was that the dusty, dirty man spoke to the woman who approached the well and asked for water.

Jacob's well was in a place called Samaria and Samaria wasn't one of those places that Jewish people liked to walk through.  To the Jews the Samaritans were a despised people, with their mixture of Jewish and pagan beliefs, their false and ruined temple and priesthood.  In actual fact if you looked up from this well, you would have seen the ruins of a temple on Mount Gerizim.  The Samaritans believed themselves to be descendants of Abraham.  They held to the first five books of the Bible, but they didn't hold to the rest of the Old Testament.

The quarrel between Jew and Samaritan was an age-old quarrel.  Its roots went back to 700 years earlier, when the Assyrian army had invaded and captured the northern state of what was then called Israel, compared to the other state which was called Judah.  As conquerors the Assyrians transported whole populations, the theory being that if a people is uprooted, its capacity and will to revolt were very much diminished.  While most of the population was uprooted, there were always some who remained and other people were transported to that region.  Inevitably intermarriage took place, which to the Jew (the Southern tribes), was an unforgivable crime.  When the Southern tribes had been taken into exile by the Babylonians they had remained, on the whole, untainted by the Babylonians, and continued to worship the Lord God, and to refrain from intermarriage.  The Samaritan religion was a sort of intermarriage, part Old Testament beliefs and part pagan practice.

Over the course of time, a rival religion was set up around the temple at Mount Gerizim.  It was only 100 years earlier that the temple at Mount Gerizim was destroyed by a Jewish army.  The hatred between the two peoples was a bitter one!  In today's terms, perhaps one could compare it with the attitude between Israeli and Palestinian, or between a Kosovo and a Serb.

1.  Jesus Speaks to the Immoral Woman!

We not only know that the woman was an immoral woman from the conversation that Jesus had with her, but we gain a clue to her darker side by the very fact that she came to the well alone.  When Rebecca came to the well, in the story of her marriage to Isaac, she came towards evening the time when women normally came to collect water.  According to the Jewish clock, Jesus was at the well around 12 o'clock the hottest time of the day, the time most unlikely to find a woman on her way to get water.  It seems that we get a clue from the circumstances that the woman was ostracised from the other body of women that made up the community of Sychar.  She came down to the well alone to collect water.

The sight of a Jewish man talking to a Samaritan was strange.  The sight of a Jewish man talking to a woman was even stranger.  After all a strict Rabbi wouldn't even talk to his wife or daughter in public.  The sight of a Jewish rabbi talking to a woman of ill repute was unheard of.  To the Jewish readers, who first read this gospel of John, the reading must have struck them in a powerful way.

The gospel writers love to hit us with contrasts, if we would only take time out to see them.  In John chapter 3 we are introduced to Nicodemus.  Nicodemus is introduced as a wonderful example of humanity.  He was powerful, rich, and most likely a patriot of Israel.  We are told he is a Pharisee.  Notice the contrasts.  Nicodemus is a Jew, the woman is a Samaritan.  He is a Pharisee, she belonged to no religious party.  He was a politician, she had no status whatsoever.  He was a scholar, she was most likely uneducated.  He was highly moral, from what we later read about her, she lacks morality.  He has a name, her name isn't even mentioned.  He came at night to protect his reputation, she, who has no reputation, comes at noon.  Nicodemus comes seeking, this woman is sought out.

The very fact that Jesus broke his journey to talk to the woman tells us something about Jesus.  It tells us that the gospel message is not just for one race, one culture, one nation but that the gospel is for all.  In a sense this is a pre-Pentecostal experience!  It is a pointer to Revelation 5 where we read that Jesus is worthy because with His blood He purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

2.  Jesus Had to Go That Way!

The wonderful thing about this story is that it isn't just that some people inquire about the gospel but that God in Christ seeks them out!  We come across these wonderful words in our text, "Now he had to go through Samaria” (vs.4).  In Luke 9 you have the record of some saying to Jesus, "I will follow you wherever you go," but also of Jesus saying, "Follow me."

Perhaps there are reasons for Jesus having to go through Samaria.  If you wanted to get from Judah to Galilee, to travel through Samaria was the quickest route.  Yet, most Jews travelled around Samaria, happy to stay out of that hostile territory, away from that despised people.  The fact was that Jesus had to pass through Samaria.  Jesus travelled along that road to talk to this woman who had been married five times and now had given up any efforts to legitimise her relationship with the man she was living with.

Jesus had to travel that way, because He was on his way to meet her!  He was going out of His way to meet the despised and forsaken, in fact the ones who did not even desire to know Him at all.  Truly Jesus came to seek and to save those who are lost!  Churches nowadays often talk about seeker sensitive church services, hoping to attract the ones – that inquires and don't we like it when we find one like Nicodemus coming our way?  Yet, Jesus reaches out to those who are not even seeking.  Don't we see something of the same love for sinners, when Jesus spots Zacchaeus in the tree and asks him to come down, for today He is going to have lunch at his house?

In a sense we see a portrait of Jesus' mission to humanity at this point.  Jesus has come seeking to save.  He had to go that way!  It was part of God's plan!  It lays a foundation for the worldwide spread of the gospel.  A text like this one has served to motivate the church throughout the ages to reach out to those who are lost - lost morally, spiritually and emotionally.

This woman is very much a picture of our community.  Not only are marriages falling apart at an alarming rate, but this woman represents a desperate search for happiness.  She has been discarded by men, or perhaps has discarded them.  She has sought happiness in unstable relationships.  We look around us today.  People moving in and out of marriage in a desperate search for happiness.  People living promiscuously thinking that sexual fulfilment is the answer.  How many people don't you see going down to the local newsagencies and TABS to make their money, motivated by the thought that money will make them happy?

Her life would make a good soapie.  In fact her story is very similar to what one would find in any woman's magazine.  It is a life of lost relationships, lost direction, lost opportunity.  Her aim in life was for peace and fulfilment but she was unable to find them for she was looking in all the wrong places.

Jesus has a message for these people and He gets alongside of them.  He, the creator of the whole earth, the One through whom the whole universe is created, asks for a drink.  We see something of the marvellous love of God in this simple act.  At this point Jesus searches her heart and He reaches out to her.  At this point He doesn't preach, he doesn't rebuke – yet He is reaching out to her all the same!

One commentator makes the point that what is interesting is that there are great similarities between Nicodemus and the woman at the well.  In a sense they both thought that they were right with God spiritually.  Nicodemus was a Pharisee who had confidence in his own good deeds.

Of course, he did lack peace.  This woman was somewhat confident because of her religious background.  She makes the comment that her fathers worshipped God on Mount Gerizim.  Somehow the thought is there that she is saved through her association with a religious past.  Perhaps many Australians today are confident of their salvation for the same reasons – that somehow they are right with God because of their baptism or their parents' association with a particular denomination.

They were both in a sense crudely literal.  They both tried to side-step Jesus.  Jesus talks about being born again and Nicodemus tries to talk about obstetrics.  Jesus talks about “living water" to the woman and she was thinking of the benefits of plumbing to her home which was 500 metres up the road.  Both Nicodemus and the woman are unhappy, not at peace, and yet they don't want to grasp spiritual realities either.  Don't we meet people like that all the time?  People who are desperately unhappy but who avoid the claims of Jesus at the same time who really don't want to understand.  The Apostle Paul writes, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."

The term "lost" means ruined, destroyed, wandered away, absorbed, wasted, hardened, beyond recovery, insensible.  According to God mankind has wilfully abandoned the way to Him.  As Isaiah the prophet says, "We all like sheep have gone astray... we have together become worthless."

Yet, the Lord of heaven and earth deliberately went that way.  He went through the land of the despised, and He met a woman who was lost in every way and He promised her living water.  He promised her "new life" in the same way He had promised Nicodemus new life.  God is always reaching down.  If you haven't turned to God at this point your life, then you should consider the fact that God is now appealing to you, through his Word.

God is wanting the Nicodemuses of life, the human success stories who are lost, and He is also wanting the down and outs, the unsuccessful, the ones who have tried for happiness in all its forms and come up bankrupt.  God in Christ is now reaching out for you!  If you were lost in the bush, what would you do?  Generally speaking you try to retrace your steps.  What if you can't find the way back?  Then you need a Saviour.  Jesus in that sense is the answer!

Jesus had to go that way!  Isn't that the story of God's love for the world!  There was no other way for man to be right with God.  Jesus had to go the way of the cross.  He had to take upon Himself the sin of the fallen.  He had to be cursed so that the curse would be lifted from our shoulders.  Jesus did appeal to his Father, whilst he was praying underneath the Olive trees on the Mount of Olives.  He did ask if there was another way, but God, his Father, said there is no other way to save.  Jesus had to go that way!  The way of the cross.

And for that reason Jesus was crucified.  He died that we might live.  He paid the price for all our sins and we gained His perfect holiness.  Jesus continues to seek out the lost!  He does confront us by His Word and Spirit.  He reaches out to us and He knows whatever we have done.  That doesn't stop Him wanting us in His family!  That doesn't exclude us from His grace.  You are never that far gone, as far as God is concerned.

John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."  God doesn't just love Jews.  His gospel is for Samaritans and Gentiles.  In fact, here at the beginning of John's gospel, we see that His love is for all nations.

Conclusion:

Of course that begs the question as to how we regard people.  As the disciples walked up to the woman's village to get the food for their master, they no doubt passed this woman by.  Whether they actually saw the woman, in the sense of registering her presence, we do not know.  One can well imagine that they walked in a group and the woman had to pass by them.  To them, the woman didn't present an opportunity at all.  Nicodemus might be someone worth knowing, but not that woman.

Jesus is teaching the disciples a lesson here.  In the light of His death and resurrection, the gospel wasn't limited to them and their kind, but to the nations.  They had so many prejudices to overcome.  We, too, are often encumbered by prejudice.  We all seem to have them!  The apostles John and James wanted to call down God's judgment on Samaria.  When Phillip preached in Samaria and some believed, John and Peter went that way to make sure it was a genuine work of the Lord.

We often want people just like us to be evangelised.  God loves to make life a little more testing for us!  Sometimes the ones that God calls are completely different from ourselves.  This both enriches our lives and tests them at the same time.  Can we love people who are different than us?  Can we love people who are not like Nicodemus?  Can we love the immoral; the people who are have their lives in an absolute mess?  This can all be an enormous challenge for the Christian, but what encouragement to look at Jesus and see that he didn't hesitate to confront one such woman.  She, too, needed a Saviour.

Jesus had to go that way.  Sometimes we have to go that way, too!

Amen.