Title: THE THIRST QUENCHER

Focus: Jesus quenches our thirst for fellowship with God and eternal life.

Function: To move the people to “drink” the gift of the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ.

INTRODUCTION

No water? No life! Without water we cannot live. Do you know that 66% of you and me is water? That 75% of the human brain is water? That 75% of a living tree is water? Do you know that we could survive about a month without food, but only 5-7 days without water? No water. No life! It’s that simple.

In the Bible a water well can function as a symbol of deep human desires welling up from the heart. In Psalm 42, for example, the psalmist says: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” So strong is the psalmist’s desire for fellowship with God that he says, “Deep calls to deep.”

The psalmist’s desire for encountering God reminds me of a special water well in the Netherlands. Once a year, my childhood elementary school would organize a trip for the 4^th and 5^th graders, and on that trip they would stop in a town that has an “echo” well. This well is very ancient and very deep. Here’s what you were supposed to do: You walk up to it; you speak into the well saying something like “hello!” Then a few seconds of quiet, and all of a sudden from deep down the well you would hear your voice echoing, “Hello!” The echo gave you a clear sense of the well’s depth: “Deep calls to deep.”

So the water well can be a symbol of deep human desires welling up from the heart. Today we find Jesus sitting by a well, probing the thirst or desires of a Samaritan woman, and quenching that thirst with living water. Jesus comes to us today as the great thirst quencher.

THE PASSAGE: JOHN 4:1-42

The text tells us that Jesus is traveling through Samaria and has come nearby the town of Sychar, where the well of Jacob is located. This well is very deep. The well bottom has varied in depth throughout the centuries. In the year 670 A. D., for example, the well was 40 meters deep. In 1881 it was 13 meters deep. Today you need at least 7 yards of rope to raise a bucket of water from this well. Underground springs feed the well of Jacob. Thus its water is fresh and cool. And because the water is moving and not from a cistern filled with rainwater, for example, the people in Jesus’ days called it “living” water.

Jesus uses that term “living water” and gives it a new twist. If we want living water—water that quenches our thirst for God—then we must not go to the bottle or the faucet, or the pump, or to Jacob’s well, but to Jesus Christ. It’s not Coca-Cola, nor Gatorade, nor Heineken, nor any other drink or new age spiritual cocktail that satisfies. It’s Jesus Christ who quenches our thirst for God.

Look at Him: tired and thirsty, sitting by Jacob’s well at high noon—the Son of God, taking a break from his mission to declare to the world that he is the Christ, seeking the lost. The rule of God is breaking into the world. Soon the powers of sin, Satan and death will bow, bend, and bust before this Jesus, when God raises Him from the dead. Everything is about to change. Soon the dam of resurrection will burst open and refreshing, living waters of eternal life will bubble up, trickle in, and eventually flood all of creation. Jesus, the great thirst quencher is taking a break at the well of Jacob. What is he looking at? Note that

• Jesus is surrounded by the conflict between Jews and Samaritans:

Jesus is experiencing the centuries-old hostility between Samaritans and Jews. They have been feuding ever since the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. They barely talk to each other, though they worship the same God. Thus the Samaritan woman reacted with great surprise when Jesus asked her for a drink: “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)”

Jesus is not only looking at the hostile relationship between Jews and Samaritans; he is also very much aware of

• Religious differences. The Jews read the sacred writings of Moses and the Prophets, as well as the Psalms and the Wisdom materials; the Samaritans, however, limited their scriptures to the writings of Moses. As a result the Samaritans believed that the center of worship is Mt.Gerazim, near Jacob’s well. The Jews believed that the center of worship is Mt. Zion, in Jerusalem. Historical hostility and different religious points of views surround Jesus as he rests at Jacob’s well. But there is more. Jesus also encounters personal pain—

• The pain of rejection and discrimination faced by this Samaritan woman: She seems to have some issues with men. She has had already 5 husbands and the man she now has is not her husband. Also, the fact that she has come alone to draw water for her jar suggests that people shun her, perhaps because of her lifestyle. We don’t know for sure. But these are the murky waters that bring death to the Jews and Samaritans, and to this woman in particular: hostility, religious friction, and personal rejection.

These “murky” waters increase our thirst for true, living water—for fellowship and life from God himself. But then we must go to Jesus, for he is the great thirst quencher. Listen to him, speaking to the Samaritan woman: (vs. 10) “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Here I want to make 3 important observations:

1. Jesus speaks of “the gift of God.”And we learn that this gift of God is “living water.” So, then, we must see “the gift of God” and “living water” as one and the same. Last week we noticed that Jesus in his encounter with Nicodemus spoke of “seeing” and “entering the kingdom of God” in the same breath as “being born again by the Spirit of God.” Now Jesus speaks of “living water” and the “the gift of God” in the same breath.

2. Jesus teaches that the gift of God has its source in Jesus himself. That is, Jesus is the One who gives this gift of living water. Listen: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

3. Gradually, progressively, Jesus reveals himself as the Christ, the great thirst quencher. Note vs. 12 (the woman) “Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?” Vs. 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.” Vs. 26 “Then Jesus declared, ‘I who speak to you am he (the Christ)’” Vs. 29 (the woman speaking to the Samaritans in town) “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” Vs. 42 (the Samaritans after meeting Jesus, said to the woman) “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” You see? Slowly, but progressively, the people discover that Jesus is the Christ, the great thirst quencher.

APPLICATION

But what about us? Who do we say that Jesus is? Where do we go to scratch our itch, to satisfy our hunger, to quench our thirst? What muddy waters are we stuck in? What torrents of sinful conduct are choking and squeezing the joy of life out of us? What bitter potion of envy or hatred is polluting our hearts and our environment of influence? What keeps us from drinking the water that Jesus offers us today? Listen to him: “…whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Jesus gives us vigorous, abundant life. That life comes to us through the gift of the Holy Spirit. As we open up to the life of the Holy Spirit, we experience a number of different things at different times: Sometimes, there will be a washing, a cleansing from sin, through the act of turning away from our sins. That cleansing leads to a deep feeling of purity and forgiveness.

Other times, we may have an overwhelming sense of joy in response to God’s love; or we are filled with a peace that passes all understanding. The filling and overflowing life of the Holy Spirit—his grace from day to day—sustains us, moves us, empowers us to continue the journey of faith. Jesus quenches our thirst for eternal life and fellowship with God. The “water” Jesus gives us is grace galore—Spirit-empowering, Spirit-refreshing, Spirit-invigorating new life.

Did you notice the Samaritan woman? When she realized that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world, her heart jumped with joy; refreshed and invigorated by the gift of water that she received from Jesus—by the power of Jesus’ Holy Spirit she runs back to town and shares the good news. Did you notice what she left behind at the well of Jacob? The text says (vs.28) “Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town….” She leaves the water jar. She came to Jacob’s well to quench her physical thirst; she came there empty-handed, filled with deep desires leaking in her broken and searching heart. She receives the Holy Spirit cascading from the Son of God, and this Samaritan woman is a new person: the old life—with all its conflicts and disappointments, like that empty water jar---she leaves behind.

Tell me: what empty water jar do you and I need to leave with Jesus? What issue, what sin, what addiction, what horrible memory, what pain, what pesky question must we leave with Jesus? Tell me: doused, dunked, washed, sprinkled, immersed, or engulfed by the waters of God’s gracious spirit, what empty jar must we leave behind?

Remember! Jesus is our thirst quencher; Jesus quenches our thirst for God with new life in the Spirit. That life calls for a giving up of the old life and the adoption or pursuit of the new life.

In this, as in all things, glory be to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen