“Look, here is the lamb of God!”  This is the invitation and the proclamation made by John the Baptist that we heard about two weeks ago.  The lamb of God.  The Son of God.  The Son of Man.  The bringer of a new age.  The bringer of new life.  Jesus.  Here is the good news which is the prelude to our story today.  Let us hear it for the good news which it is.  It is John speaking again, “He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure.” (John 3:34)

When is water not just water?  When we’re talking about the gift of God.  The Holy Spirit of God is a gift freely given without measure to all who ask.

A chance encounter at a well that wasn’t chance at all.  It is not by chance that we’re hearing these words today.  Jesus does not approach randomly or casually.  An unlikely scenario.  Misunderstanding and understanding.  Boundary crossing.  Acceptance.  God revealed.   A new purpose revealed.  These are some of the things that are going on in the story that we heard this morning.  Let us take a look at this story this morning and see what God may have to say to our hearts. 

Last week we read about Jesus and his followers attending a wedding up north in Galilee, and then returning to regular life in Capernaum.  After that, John writes on Jesus going up to Jerusalem at Passover.  While there Jesus meets a pharisee called Nicodemus.  Jesus speaks of a gift.  New life.  New birth.  Jesus tells him that one sees the kingdom of God by being born from above, born of the Spirit.  Not understanding, Nicodemus wonders asks, “How can anyone be born after having grown old?”  Jesus tells him about the Son of Man being lifted up so that anyone who believes in him may have eternal life, life that is from above, from God.  Life reconciled and in communion with God.  After this. Jesus decides to head north and go home for a while.  This is how chapter 4 starts.

We start the story with Jesus in an everyday situation.  He’s at a well at noon.  He’s tired.  “Give me a drink.”  The first line of dialogue in the scene. 

This woman is not in a good place that day at noon.  While it’s conjecture, it’s thought that the reason she was coming to the well at noon was because she didn’t feel welcome coming to the well with the other women of the town in the cool of the morning or the end of the day.  The fact that she’s living with a man who is not her husband meant she would have been considered something of an outcast.  The fact that a rabbi is talking to her at all was surprising.  The fact that a Jewish man was asking to share what she used to draw the water was shocking.  Jews and Samaritans did not share things in common.  Jews and Samaritans lived in segregation. The question, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” is a good one.  In this story we see Jesus breaking down barriers.  We see Jesus signifying that people are more important than the barriers and walls that we set up around ourselves.

We’re talking about the importance of symbols throughout these weeks in John’s Gospel.  There’s an importance to this story happening at a well.  New relationships are born at wells.  Life-changing things happen at wells in the Bible.  Isaac met his wife Rebekah at a well.  Jacob met his wife Rachel at a well.  Here new life is happening at the well.  Jesus is crossing boundaries.  He’s breaking down walls.  He’s destroying barriers.  He’s sitting down.  He’s taking the time to sit where people who are labelled such as he is (Jewish/rabbi) are not supposed to sit. 

Jesus is offering a free gift.  “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.’”  Living water meant water that flowed, the kind you would find in a stream or river.  Reading these words from our vantage point we know that Jesus is not just talking about water.  “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give will never be thirsty.  The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” (4:13-14)

In the context of this chapter, I believe that we best understand Jesus to be speaking here of the Holy Spirit.  “God is spirit,” Jesus will say, “And those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (4:24)  God gives the Spirit freely without measure.  All we need to do is ask.  If you knew, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.  A spring of water gushing up to eternal life.  Eternal life – that we might know God.  That we may be made new and renewed with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.  That we may be given strength.  That our shame may be taken away.  That our fears may be stilled.  This is the gift of God given freely and without measure.

I know we can be suspicious about gifts that are offered for free.  I remember taking the subway daily at Yonge and Eglinton.  At times there would be people promoting a breakfast bar or something similar handing out free breakfast bars!  I remember the crowds hurrying by, largely ignoring the free gift.  We know that very often, something offered to us for free has a price attached to it later on.  We’ve signed on recently with the Sundance streaming service.  We signed on for a free 30-day trial.  We must be aware of course, that they will start charging $8.99 after 30 days unless we take steps to cancel.  We can be mistrustful of free offers.  I remember us holding a garage sale once.  I decided that I would bring the Weber kettle grill to the driveway and grill up hotdogs for passersby to enjoy.  No one wanted the free hot dogs!  We can be mistrustful of free offers.

Or perhaps we don’t want to ask.  We don’t like to ask for help if we think too much of ourselves.  Pride gets in the way.  I’m doing ok, we say.  I can handle it (life) on my own.  Or we think too little of ourselves to ask.  I don’t want to be a bother, we say.  Why should God care about little me?  Who am I, after all, that the Lord of heaven and earth should make such an offer to me?  Who are you? 

You are his beloved creation, and he is inviting you to be his beloved child.  We may ask because God has asked first.  Asking can put us in a lower position when it comes to social hierarchy.  We can be too proud to ask for help.  God has already asked.  Jesus started this whole conversation with a request.  It wasn’t a command.  “Give me a drink.”  God has already asked the question.  Where are you?  What are you looking for?  What do you want me to do for you?

And he has come to us, looking for us, running after us with His goodness. 

I want life in you.  Let that be our answer.  I want to be filled with your Holy Spirit, living water that will become in me a spring gushing up to eternal life.  The Holy Spirit is not just for our benefit of course.  The ancient promise from God was “I will bless you and make you a blessing.”  The goodness of the Holy Spirit in us is not just for our benefit, but that we might be like holy fountains, gushing with the goodness of God.  I like to think of us as holy garden hoses, filled with the living water of the Holy Spirit so that it’s spraying everywhere we go. 

Isn’t this what we want in our lives.  When we are at our best, do we not want to make a difference in other people’s lives?  Do we not want to be a help?  Do we not want people and places to be better for us having been present in them and with them?  Do we not long for this kind of purpose?  That we might be someone who helps.  That we might be someone who speaks a word of encouragement or a word of blessing or a word of the truth of God’s love into a situation.  Last Monday we had our second Revitalization Team meeting with CBOQ and our cohort.  We were talking about discernment and it was a good meeting.  Part of discernment is listening for God to speak to us.  Cid Latty, one of the leaders, told us this, “I have never heard anything bad from God.  I have never heard God say ‘I don’t love you’ or ‘You’re not good enough’ or ‘You should just give up.’  I have only ever heard good things from my Father.”  What an amazing word of encouragement!  What a reminder of how we are loved by God!

There’s no hidden cost or price to be paid with the gift of new life and the living water of the Holy Spirit.  Someone has said this when it comes to the promises of new life and the Spirit in John 3-4:  “Rebirth and Living Water are being offered… not to persons who have passed qualifying exams but, in both cases, to proved spiritual incompetents like the rest of us. Life with God, Jesus has taught us again and again, is not for spiritual champions…“Blessed are the poor in spirit” (not the spiritually rich), “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” as Jesus began his First Inaugural (Matt. 5:3 at the very head of his Sermon on the Mount). The gospel is for admitted failures, for confessed incompetents, in short, for people like all of us when we are honest. The incomprehension and incompetence, almost the rudeness and even perhaps the slight contempt detectible in both Nicodemus and the Samaritan Woman may all be intended by John to say to readers: Jesus’ promises are for problematic people; get used to it; be grateful.”

And ask.  We talked last week about Mary’s good and fitting and proper response to Jesus.  “Do whatever he tells you.”  This reminded us of her earlier good and fitting and proper response, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word.”  In our story, the Samaritan woman gives the good and right and proper response to Jesus who is before he.  She asks.  “Sir, give me this water…”

May that be our prayer today and every day.  “Lord, Jesus, give me this water, that it might become in me a spring of water, gushing up to eternal life.”  The Samaritan woman doesn’t fully get it. She’s still thinking on the level of the literal and not having to come back to the well.  That’s ok though, we don’t fully get it either.  The important thing is the asking.  She asks. Sir, give me this water.  She ends up going back to her city and the water is gushing up from her.  “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!  He cannot be the Messiah can he?” (4:29)  Come and see.  Come and see a man who knows the depth of my heart and loves me!  “They left the city and were on their way to him.”  The people of Sychar were coming to see!

Jesus is the bringer of new life and a new age.  This woman of Samaria has been held in contempt.  Jesus doesn’t look on her as a label.  He looks on her as someone who was created for the Spirit of the living God to inhabit.  Living water.   Jesus looks on her as someone who is able to spread this news to a whole other people group, starting with her village.  Starting with where she lives.  What does Jesus expect of us who are indwelt by the same Spirit?  What does Jesus expect of us where we live?  What will Jesus enable in us where we live if we say “Sir give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty…” 

The woman has gone to tell her village some truth – “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!”  There’s some hyperbole here – Jesus didn’t tell her everything she’d ever done.  She’s excited to have met him though and speaks of a deep deep truth.  Jesus knows everything she has ever done and loves her.  Jesus knows everything I have ever done and loves me.  Jesus knows everything you have ever done and loves you.  He cannot be the Messiah, can he?

Can he?  Yes, he can.  The one who has made it possible for his followers to worship in Spirit and in Truth.  The one who has made it possible for his followers to be filled to gushing with the living water of His Spirit.  The one whose truth is redeeming love – reconciling restoring love that crosses boundaries and enables the same reconciling restoring healing love in us.  He cannot be the Messiah, can he?  Come and see!  This is the Christ, friends, that we follow.