John 4:5-42 2024/06/02 Osaka Church
Christ is Risen!
In the middle of the afternoon, in the scorching heat, Jesus sat by a deserted well and asked a woman who had come to draw water, ”Can I have a cup of water from you?” the woman asked .”Why do you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan with whom you Jews a bad relationship, for water?” Jesus answered, ”If you knew who I am, you would ask me for living water.” ”Living water” literally refers to water that gushes out from springs or streams that flow smoothly. It is not water that is stagnant at the bottom of a well. The woman scoffed and says, ”You’re kidding, where and how do you get all that water?”
So Jesus solemnly told the woman.
“Whoever drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water that I give him will not be thirsty forever, but that water will become within him a fountain of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman didn’t understand what Jesus was trying to say. She instead replied: “Then, please give me that water. If we had that kind of water, we wouldn’t have to go to such trouble every day in the middle of the afternoon to fetch water.”
It was at that moment that Jesus suddenly changed the topic. “Call your husband here.”
Caught by surprise, the woman told the truth in a spontaneous way. “I don’t have a husband.”
Jesus replied, “You are right to say you have no husband. You’ve had five husbands one after another. Moreover, the man you’re living with now can’t even be called a husband.”
The woman instantly saw the truth in Jesus’ harsh words. In an instant, she realized how misplaced her life had been, and she was speechless. It is a “sin” that misses the mark. In Greek, amartya means “an arrow that misses its target”. Isn’t that the case with us too? A life in which we have become obsessed with one thing after another, a life in which we have relied on one after another the unreliable, false promises and cheap comforts offered by this world. Sometimes it was sexual pleasure , sometimes it was booze and feasts, sometimes it was money and fame, sometimes it was travel and hobbies, and sometimes it was a dubious “religions.” We drink and become thirsty again, soon tired from the endless cycle, ending up sitting in despair, wondering what we’ve been doing with our lives.
The woman was forced to confront Jesus with her sin and her “missing the mark.”
That is why the woman next asked Jesus:
“Where should I worship?” In other words, where should I offer this offering to atone for my sins? Will it be on this mountain as we Samaritans have done since ancient times? Or in the temple in Jerusalem, as you say?
Jesus answers this question once and for all.
“Neither. The time has come to worship in spirit and truth.” A completely new era of worship, an era in which people use the words of Christ as their guide, are inspired and strengthened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and live in a fellowship of love. Worship is no longer confined to the temple only. It is not set apart as a special experience in a sacred time and place. This is a declaration that an era has begun in which living by the Word of Christ and the Holy Spirit, in other words, “in spirit and truth,” the very way of life becomes worship. When we live that new way of life begun by Christ, we will finally hit the bull’s eye. We will dig up a spring of water that will lead to eternal life.