Living Water

Pastor David Hansen

3nd Sunday in Lent, 24 Feb 2008

John 4:5-42

Grace and peace to you in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

There is nothing better when your throat is dry than a nice, cold glass of water.  It’s amazing stuff, really.  Think of all the times we use water in our daily lives:

•First thing in the morning, to brush our teeth and wash our bodies.

•Every time we wash our hands during the day.

•In the evening when we cook our supper.

•To fill the ice cube tray in the freezer.

•To run the dishwasher at the end of the day.

•To wash our clothes.

•At the end of the day, to wash our faces and brush our teeth again.

There are many places in this world where clean, fresh water is in scarce supply; where people have to survive on as little water as possible – Washington County, Texas is not one of those places.  Indeed, it has been said that Americans are spoiled by the abundance of good water in our country – we are surrounded by it all day long.  We use gallons upon gallons of it every day.

Water is essential to our lives.  Certainly without an abundance of fresh water we would lose some of our conveniences – the dishwasher, the twenty minute shower, the washing machine.  But it is more than that.

This body, the one standing here in the pulpit this morning, is seventy percent water.  There are two and a half quarts of water in my blood. There are fifteen quarts of water in the extra plasma in my body. There are thirty quarts of water in the cells of my body, allowing all those little cells to grow. 

Like most pastors, I have been told at times that I am a bag of hot air.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  In fact, I am a great big bag of water – living, breathing, walking, talking water.

The woman at the well in Sychar knew the importance of water.

She knew that the well, dug by her ancestor Jacob, provided a vital life-line for the surrounding community.  Indeed, she was probably there gathering the water she would need for the day, when Jesus asked her for a drink.

Now, the friendly, hospitable thing to do would have been to offer Jesus the drink he had asked for.  But the woman from Sychar, the Samaritan woman, recognized that this man was a Jew.  And she knew that Jews hated and despised her people. 

She thought to herself, “We are not good enough to be your friends, we are not good enough to talk to on the road, but now we are good enough to fetch you water?”  And so she did not give the weary traveler the drink of water – which became the start of one of the most memorable conversations in Jesus’ ministry.

Jesus explains to the woman that he, the one asking her for well-water, is the source of living water.  He goes on to say that “Those who drink this living water will never again be thirsty.  The water I will give them will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

Now Israel was then, and is now, a dry, parched, desert country.  And there is nothing greater you could offer in such a place than an everlasting source of fresh water.  But this was even more.  Yes, regular water is essential to life.  But when we come to the end of life, water is useless.  With or without water, we will all die.

We all know that fact, but we don’t particularly like to face up to the reality of our death.  It’s like a group of friends were talking one day, and the conversation grimly turned to the issue of often avoided topic of death. One of the friends asked the others, “What would you like people to say about you at your funeral?”

One friend answered, “I would want people to say, ‘He was a great humanitarian who cared about his community.’”

A second replied, “I would want people to say, ‘He was a great husband and father, an example for many to follow.’”

The third friend gave it some thought and answered, “I would hope someone says, ‘Look, he's moving!’”

We often think that we are strong, that we are invincible, that nothing can harm us.  But when we are face to face with our own death, all such illusions fade away, and we are ready to reach out for any help we can find.

To return to our Gospel story, Jesus brought the woman at the well face to face with her weaknesses and failings.  He exposed what she had kept hidden, the things that she never talked about. 

Simply put, he brought her face to face with her sin.  And what is sin, but the face of death?  Sin and death go together – in hearts we know this, which is why we try to hide our sins just like we try to deny the fact that we will die.  But Jesus exposes all such self-deception, making us aware that we are sinners and we will die.

What are the sins that you keep hidden?  What in your life do you keep tucked away in the darkness?

The season of Lent starts with just such a revealing of our self-deceptions.  On Ash Wednesday, we go through a long and extensive confession, cataloguing our sins and exposing them to the light.  We are then marked with ashes, and reminded that we are dust and to dust we shall return.  Sin and death – so hopelessly intertwined that we cannot deal with one without dealing with the other.

I am certainly not immune to this deep denial of sin and death.  Ash Wednesday was one of the hardest services I have ever had to lead, for just one reason.  When Julia came forward with our daughter, I marked Layla’s head with the ashes and told her to remember that she is dust, and to dust she shall return.  And I almost fell apart. 

I preach this every Sunday – I regularly work around death and the dying.  Yet I was not immune to this denial of death.  I did not want to admit that my daughter, too, will die one day.

In the midst of all this, to the woman at the well and to you and me, Jesus throws out a life-line.  He offers a life-preserver to those of us who are dying and who are caught up in our hidden sins.

The water of life.

Not ordinary water – but the gift of life itself.  Water that can conquer sin, water than can conquer death – “water gushing up to eternal life.”

We are offered this water first at the font, when we are baptized.  And we continue to be offered this water: in the proclamation of forgiveness every week, in our hearing of the Word on Sunday morning, whenever we gather around this table.

For those who have the gift of living water, nothing is hopeless – there is always new life at the end of the tunnel.

When you stop to really think of it, are you overwhelmed by the sins of your life?

When you stop to really think of it, are you overwhelmed by the idea of your own death?  Or the thought of the death of a parent or child?

Friends, there is hope.  You have been given a life-line.

Not even a painful death on a lonely hill outside of Jerusalem was not enough to stop the living water of God.

You, me, all of us have been given new life through the living waters of Jesus Christ.  New hope, a new start.  And nothing, not even our sins, not even  death, can stop this new life – can even slow it down; because the same God who raised Jesus on the third day has given us this living water.

The woman at the well changed her life that day.  She proclaimed the wonder of this man with the living water, so that many came to believe because of her.  She lived a new life – the life of living water.

We, my friends, have been given the gift of living water.  Let us get out there and live our new lives – unafraid of sin, death, or anything else that might threaten us.  We have a spring of water, gushing up to eternal life.  Let’s live like it.