Here is the script for a sermon I gave at Skamania January 8th, 2012.
I. Introduction
A reoccurring theme in the Gospel of John is that the eternal Son of God has taken on human flesh and confronted the idolatry of humanity. The author, the apostle John, is always working this theme out through stories of Jesus confronting the different characters, who are tripped up on physical, tangible, earthly things, and fail to see any spiritual significance in them. Idolatry is when humanity "worships and serves the creature rather than the Creator" as the apostle Paul puts it.
This is a major theme in all of John's writings. 1 John continues this theme of Jesus, who is God, confronting idolatry in his humanity. The epistle opens with this theme: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon, and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life - the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us” (1 John 1:1-2); John's testimony is of the tangible, physical, real humanity of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. John’s epistle ends - by no coincidence - with the command, “little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21).
It is important, then, to have a more biblical understanding of what idolatry is.
Genesis teaches that God made this entire physical universe for the good of humanity, to bless humanity, but humanity - as sons and daughters of God - instead of receiving the Father's blessing of creation in thankfulness, has worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator; we have committed idolatry; we have forgotten the Creator and turned to created, earthly things for our joy. But God is always working in creation to win our attention and affection. He is Immanuel, God with us, and he moves through physical, tangible, human events to win our affection and capture our hearts. This is what the incarnation is. This is what Christmas is all about.
Athanasius, a church father, puts it best. He says, “Men had turned from the contemplation of God above, and were looking for Him in the opposite direction, down among created things and things of sense. The Savior of us all, the Word of God, in His great love took to Himself a body and moved as Man among men, meeting their senses, so to speak, half way. He became Himself an object for the senses, so that those who were seeking God in sensible things might apprehend the Father through the works which He, the Word of God, did in the body”
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“For this reason was He both born and manifested as Man, for this He died and rose, in order that, eclipsing by His works all other human deeds, He might recall men from all the paths of error to know the Father” (Athanasius 26).
He is saying that we have taken our eyes off of God, the Creator, and turned them to created things. Our ultimate source of joy is no longer God himself as the giver of creation, but creation itself, and so God himself became a created thing. Jesus has been lifted up on the cross to draw all men to see himself, Creator among the creature.
In our text today we will see how this theme relates to worship. Church worship services involve physical orders of service. We are a physical, human community, there is no escaping the fact that worshiping God will involve real human actions and movements. There is indeed a right way to live out God's commandments in our real physical lives and actions, but we must pursue living out our lives in spirit and truth, in authentic worship of Christ, the Son of God.
When Jesus confronts idolatry, he does not tell the characters to turn a blind eye to created things as if the creation is bad, rather, he shows them how the creation proclaims the glory of the Son of God and must be received with thanksgiving. When we worship God we must pursue the right action with a heart of worship and thankfulness.
II. Text
“1Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2(although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4And he had to pass through Samaria. 5So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
These verses are placed carefully at the beginning of this narrative to contrast the faith of the Samaritan woman and the hardheartedness of the Pharisees. We will see towards the end of the narrative that John will likewise contrast the disciples with the Samaritan woman.The Pharisees were unable to take their eyes off of earthly rituals and see Christ's Deity. Jesus therefore knew that there would be problems of jealousy and rivalry in Judea, so he leaves. One commentator points out that “John’s word for ‘left’ is unusual in the sense of leaving a place. It often has the meaning “abandon” (as in v. 28 of the woman’s waterpot), and there may be something of this meaning here.”
Jesus is abandoning the Pharisees and their hard-heartedness because they will not abandon their earthly institutional hangups and follow Jesus. This is precisely what John seeks to contrast later with the faith of the Samaritan woman; she will likewise be tripped up about the earthly well of Jacob. In John 2 we see that baptism is only significant in what it signifies, in the reality of spiritual baptism and new birth. Likewise, Jacob’s well is only significant in the Truth of Christ, the living water, as Jesus will explain to the woman. Both baptism and Jacob’s well point to Christ.
"6Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.”7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.)
Jesus is wearied by his journey. This is not an arbitrary detail. John is showing us the humanity of Jesus; the Word has become flesh and dwelt among us and met us in our worldliness to redeem us. This is the man Jesus who the woman at well is now coming face to face with. Jesus is really a man; he is really thirsty. And as verse 11 will inform us, he is actually unable to get a drink for himself. His human weariness and limitedness is what has brought the woman into a conversation with the Word of God.
9 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.)
This woman's identity is found in that she is a Samaritan woman, rather than a Jewish man; Jesus has broken down these barriers in his humanity. We are constrained by our Earthly identities, by our personalities, by our race, by our gender, by our denominations, by our physical location on this planet. These are all things that develop our identity. Christ alone, in his humanity, is able to step across these boundaries and bring us to himself, to free us from these boundaries that constrain us and bring us into his identity as the Son of God.
What is the most true thing that someone can say about you? Is it that you are an American? Is it that you are middle-class? Is that you are a republican or a democrat? Is the most true thing about you the fact that you are a good or a bad family member? Is it that you have an outgoing or introverted personality? The most true and sure thing to say about you is the fact that Jesus loves you. Are you living your life like this?
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.” 11 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? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.” 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.”
Here Jesus presents himself as the greater reality to the earthly thing in the woman's life, namely, the well and the water. This water was, for the Samaritan woman, significant because it was water from Jacob's well. She asks Jesus, "Are you greater than our father Jacob?" Jesus' answer is that the water that he gives will provide everlasting satisfaction. Yes, Jesus is greater than her father Jacob. Jacob's well is significant because it points to Jesus. Water is good, and it satisfies our thirst, because it testifies to the greater reality of Christ.
This is true about every earthly thing. In fact, this is Jesus' primary method of teaching the characters who he is. John the baptist, in chapter 2, spoke of the greater spiritual significance of baptism, and earthly institution. In chapter 3 Jesus told Nicodemus about spiritual birth, new birth, being born again, which is the significance of earthly birth. This is key. There is truly a reason for the way things are in this universe and for the events that occur. There is a reason we get thirsty, there is a reason human beings are born into this world, there is a reason that the sun rises and sets every day; God has control of this universe and has designed everything precisely and meaningful.
Jesus did not turn a blind eye to these earthly things, as the Gnostic Ascetics did, but rather Jesus showed how these earthly things taught about him. God has designed our bodies so that they become thirsty and need water to teach us how much we need him to satisfy our souls. This is what Jesus is teaching here in this passage.
Psalm 19 says,
1 The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
4 Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
Creation does not glorify God just because it is beautiful. An agnostic hippie from Portland will tell you that creation is beautiful. But there is, for the Christian, something extremely profound about the beauty of the rising sun; it is because the faithfulness of God is like the rising of the sun. Likewise, water does not just happen to satisfy; it tastes good and satisfies because it proclaims who Christ is every time we are sustained and satisfied by it. "Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." Creation is beautiful because Christ is beautiful.
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.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
In verse 15, the woman seems to be jeering in her unbelief. Jesus then proceeds to cut through to her heart. She is a broken woman. She needs to be satisfied by Jesus. Here's what Calvin says about this passage: "those who are quite careless, almost deadened, have to be wounded with a sense of sin... we are not seriously affected by Christ's speaking unless we have been aroused to repentance. To profit aright in His school, a man's hardness must be subdued or ploughed by the sight of his own wretchedness" (Calvin 94). This is what is happening in this passage. We dismiss Jesus so quickly in our self-righteousness. We treat Jesus, the Bible, church, like a category of our life that we can take or leave; sure, you can be a religious person, you can follow Christ if that's your thing. But when Christ cuts to the heart of our sin we will know that he is the only remedy. He is not merely an alternative to an assortment of remedies for our problems in this life, his living water is the only water that will satisfy us.
19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 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. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 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.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
Either the woman is trying to avoid the subject of her sin, or she has been at this point impressed by Jesus and sincerely wants to know how to worship truly. Either way, she steers the conversation towards the subject of worship, back to earthly places and things. Do true worshipers worship in Jerusalem or the mountain? Here, Jesus sharply contrasts the Jews and the Samaritans, and sides with the Jews, because the Samaritans "worship what they do not know". Why is it that Jesus sides with the Jews here? Isn't his whole point in this narrative to break down the barrier between Jew and Gentile?
Jesus sides with the Jews for a very specific reason; he says, "for salvation is from the Jews". Israel was the Messianic community. Their rituals and their regulations were setup to proclaim the coming Messiah. The hour had come for a transition out of these regulations because Christ had come.
There is a rightness of worship; inasmuch as our worship services are oriented towards the proclamation of the salvation of Christ, they are well-done. We often forget this in American evangelical churches because we have over-emphasized the heart, as if the heart is not affected by real tangible action and obedience.
But I want to suggest that there are two extremes: one extreme is to go through the motions with no heart as the Pharisees did, the other extreme is to be under the illusion that one can live life without going through motions, and that these motions are of no consequence. We are physical beings, and we have physical, earthly communities with physical, earthly worship services and fellowship times. God is gracious to his community by giving us regulations and guidelines to be followed for our worship services; we take communion to proclaim Christ's finished work, we baptize to proclaim Christ's finished work, we preach the Scriptures to proclaim Christ's finished work, and we sing songs to proclaim Christ's finished work. Jesus has sided with the Jews; they were proclaiming the coming Messiah, even if they had grown hardhearted in these very regulations.
This section concludes with Jesus being revealed as the Christ, the coming Messiah. This is what it's all about. All the controversy of regulations and method of worship is about the fact that Jesus is the Messiah, that he is the Christ, the Savior of the world. This is true worship; to embrace Jesus for who he is; he is the God who loves us.
27 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?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.
After much clarity had been reached in the conversation between Jesus and the woman, the disciples return. I will leave most of their part in this story for next week, but already the reader can see the contrast between the disciples and this woman who met Jesus.
The woman abandons her water jar and goes into town to tell the people that she has found the Christ.
III. Application
Let Jesus confront the idolatry in your life.
How have you forgotten about Jesus in your daily routine, in the things that are important to you? Have you been lost in going through the motions of your life and forgotten how Christ is revealed in these motions? Is your work just work? Is your morning shower, brushing your teeth, eating breakfast, of absolutely no spiritual significance? It is not an accident that these things are in your life. God has control of this universe and he works all things to glorify his Son in our lives. He thought through whether or not it would be a good idea to create a world in which we would have to work, and that you would have the job that you have, and the family you have. These are not meaningless, random facts about life; they exist because God is our Father who loves us and is always working to sanctify his church.
Leave your water jar and be satisfied in Jesus. The woman at the Well would drink real, physical water again in her life, I'm guessing. But I think it would be difficult for her to not remember how satisfying to her soul Jesus is every time she took a drink. He has healed her brokenness, that is what he does, and that is why God designed a world in which we need water to be satisfied, so that we would know what Christ is like. Don't forget that about Christ. This is his world, this is his Creation, there is nothing neutral, nothing that exists outside of the truth that Jesus is a gracious and beautiful God, even waking up in the morning to go to work.
Think through those things in your life that are taking the place of Christ. What are things that you are convinced will make you happy? What are those things that you are convinced will satisfy you? Give those things up to Jesus. Leave your water jar and be satisfied in Jesus. Those things in your life are only good because they are a reflection of who Christ is; this is anything that you find enjoyable or satisfying in life. If these things are ends in themselves they are idols. Throw away your idols and worship Jesus. He is the only real God. Repent of idolatry and pursue satisfaction in Jesus.
