Tuesday, 15 December 2009 12:27 | and posted in Jesus & the Gospels
After the Samaritan woman in John 4:15 asks Jesus to give her living water I’d expect Jesus to say “Fantastic, here you are!” or perhaps even, “You have chosen well, woman.” But no! Jesus starts talking about the woman's husband. In fact John never says that Jesus give this woman living water.
Strange hey?
Why offer something you’re not going to give? That doesn’t sound like Jesus to me…
But then I had a recent revelation. What if the rest of Jesus’ conversation with this Samaritan woman is about the process of Jesus’ giving and the woman’s receiving of this living water?*
Jesus’ comment about this woman’s husband gently, but directly, touches upon her area of greatest pain. Women were not allowed to divorce men, so Jesus’ prophetic statement about her having five husbands (John 4:18) tells us that five different men had divorced her.
Can you imagine the rejection, and shame she lived in because of this? Can you imagine the lack of self-worth and value she felt? If you were in that position would you feel loveable?
No wonder she is now living with a man outside of marriage and visits the well at noon when no-one else is there.**
Jesus prophetically brings all this up as for living water to become “a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14), whatever is currently “springing” up in our hearts needs to be dislodged. This woman has been looking to man after man after man to meet her needs and this has to be dealt with so that she can allow God to meet her needs.
Typically, we don’t like chat like this! It’s too close for comfort. The woman didn’t like it and she sidesteps the issues of her heart with issues of the mind (see John 4:19 – 20).
Do you do this?
Jesus desires our hearts and once we realise that Jesus is the one we’ve been waiting for (John 4:25) we can begin to receive his living water and allow Him to heal and restore our hearts.
John 4:28 says: Then leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people…
This verse is what living water looks like in reality.
She leaves what is previously essential to her (her water jug, her isolation, her sense of rejection, etc) and went to get her entire village (the very people she had been avoiding!!). She has been transformed and many people came to believe in Jesus because of this woman’s testimony.
Living water for this woman looked like the healing of her heart and her restoration back into community.
What do you think living water may look like for you? What “water jug” are you going to leave behind?
FOOTNOTES:
* John 4:16 – 30
** See John 4:18 and John 4:6
