Salvation is Worshiping the Father in Spirit and Truth - A Sermon for the 3rd Sunday in Lent

Third Sunday in Lent
March 12^th, Year of Our + Lord 2023
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, SD
Salvation is Worshiping the Father 
       in Spirit and Truth - John 4 

   There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink."…  The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?"

    It's the sixth hour, that is, about noon.  It's probably hot, and dusty.  Jesus has been walking
all morning, and Jesus is human.  So He’s thirsty.  This is all straightforward, but this encounter at Jacob's well is also packed with tension and subplots. 

    In the ancient world, wells were meeting places.  Everyone had to go there.  Watering holes could even be places of courtship, where a man and a woman might meet, places even of romance.  At a well Abraham's servant found Rebekah, the wife for Isaac, the woman Isaac would love, (Genesis 24).   At a well Isaac's son Jacob met his beloved Rachel, (Gen 29).  At a well the exiled Moses protected his future wife Zipporah and her sisters from a mob of male shepherds who were harrassing them, and so Moses was taken in by her father Jethro, while he unknowingly awaited God's call into service, (Exodus 2).

      Just given the role of wells in ancient culture, this meeting of Jesus and the Samaritan woman has a hint of impropriety to it.  No devout first century Jewish man, let alone a religious teacher like Jesus, would normally want to be seen alone with a woman who was not his wife.  And Jews generally avoided dealing with any Samaritans, whom they considered almost sub-human.  And that Jesus speaks with this Samaritan woman, who we will learn has a history of messy relationships, makes the whole encounter at the well very unsettling. 

      Jesus creates social tension, by asking this woman to give Him a drink.  The Samaritan woman is surprised and questions Jesus about the propriety of His request, Jewish man to Samaritan woman.  And yet she is drawn to Him.

    It’s hard not to wonder if, given Jesus’ forwardness, she might have hoped that He could be a new and better man for her.  And, of course, Jesus is the Man she needs, just not in the romantic sense that she might be thinking.  But, as we will see, whatever direction the Samaritan woman trys to turn this unexpected conversation, Jesus will turn it to His own purposes. 

    He replies, "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."    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?  Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock."  Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." 

     That was abrupt.  Jesus doesn't spend time building a relationship, getting to know this Samaritan woman.  He unexpectedly asks her for water, she questions the propriety of His request, and then He immediately turns the conversation to God, and life with God, and His own identity.  She doesn't get it.  Her mind is stuck on literal water in a literal well.  But Jesus doesn't worry about her temporary confusion.  She wants to see what trick Jesus will perform to draw water out of a deep well.  Jesus ignores her question and instead speaks God's Word of truth, words about spiritual realities, and eternal life. 

   The woman replies, "Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water."  The idea of a perpetual water source is very appealing to this woman who has never even heard of indoor plumbing.  She has had to work hard all her life to get the water she needs to live.  So, perhaps half-mocking and half-hoping, she asks for the eternal water Jesus describes.  The woman, without realizing it, asks Jesus to save her, to give her His eternal water of life. 

    We might expect at this point that Jesus would gently encourage her and explain to her all about the salvation that He was bringing.  But repentance for sin must come before faith.  So, Jesus applies the Law, exposing her sin.  Jesus says, "Go, call your husband, and come here."  The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true."

     Ouch.  Several things are happening at once.   Jesus demonstrates His divine knowledge by telling this woman about her sins, which He couldn’t possibly have known through earthly means.  Jesus also lays bare the central struggle of this woman's life:  trouble with men.  Suddenly the propriety of this one-on-one encounter, between a man and a woman, out in the countryside by themselves, becomes even more suspect, because this woman has been going through men at an alarming rate: five marriages, and now a relationship with a sixth man without the benefit of public marriage vows. 

     Jesus is unconcerned with our sensibilities, unconcerned with what people will think
or say.  But He is concerned to remind us that to truly preach the saving Gospel, we must proclaim both Law and Gospel.  We sinners must be brought to repentance over our sin before we even understand the need for a Savior, let alone believe in a Savior who dies on a cross.  So, Jesus applies the Law, and exposes her sin.  It's never pleasant, but it must be done.   

     Who are the people in your life that you would like to see drawn to Christ's living waters?  As we think of the outreach of this congregation, we must remember that we cannot skip the proclamation of the Law.  Now, we are not all-knowing like Jesus.  So preaching true law is harder for us, and we need to be gentle, to tread carefully.  We do need to build relationships.  And also, we should notice this: even though Jesus knows all her sins, see how gently He preaches the law.  Jesus doesn't beat this woman over the head with her sins.  He simply reveals the truth, and stops.  He doesn't tell her to fix her life, to straighten up and live respectably.  She already knows what she is supposed to be doing, but she has been failing.  She doesn't need more directions for overcoming her sin; she needs to be rescued from her sin.  She needs to be washed clean, in Jesus’ living water. 

   The woman, her sin revealed, changes the subject:  "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.  Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship." Amazingly, this woman doesn't seem to take offense that Jesus has laid bare her sin.  Perhaps she is just dodging the painful topic of her past, but she acknowledges that Jesus has special knowledge from God.  Finally the conversation reaches the topic Jesus really wants to discuss:  the relationship between God and sinful man, as it is created and sustained in true worship. 

   "So, Mr. Prophet,” she asks, “How should we be worshiping?  You Jews say Jerusalem, we Samaritans, who also claim the books of Moses, say here in Samaria, at Mt. Gerizim.  Who is right, the Jews, or the Samaritans?" 

     Finally Jesus has reached His desired topic, so for the first time He gives her a direct answer.   "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

     Now we can see why Jesus is willing to break so many societal taboos by talking with this Samaritan woman: He has come to this well to proclaim God’s salvation.  Yes, explains Jesus, there is a difference between Jews and Samaritans, and yes, by God’s election the Jews are closer to the truth.  But now all that is changing.  The walls of separation, erected by God around Israel as a necessary part of the plan for bringing the Messiah, are now coming down.  Now true worship no longer is tied to one people or one place, but rather true worship of God the Father is tied only to Spirit and Truth. 

    Spirit and Truth.  Here we have a clear prescription for right worship, straight from the mouth of Jesus.  But what are Spirit and Truth?  Well, Jesus tells us that God is spirit.  Paradoxically, our worship begins in God.  That is why we call it Divine Service, for true worship begins with God serving us.  If you come to worship thinking you are doing God a favor, that first and foremost He is looking to get something from you, then you misunderstand the spirit of true worship.  The first and most important thing in worship is us sinners receiving God's service to us.  Only then can we do something in response.  Only by first receiving His grace and forgiveness can we then serve Him, with our confession of faith, our thanks and praise, and our lives of service to others.  

     God is spirit, and of course the third person of the Holy Trinity is the Holy Spirit, the Helper as Jesus names Him.  The Holy Spirit's work is to remind us of what Jesus has taught us about the Father.  In John’s Gospel we also hear Jesus flatly declare:  I AM the Truth.  True worship, then, is Trinitarian, the Spirit leading us to the Father through the Son, Jesus Christ. 

   The Church wisely constructs her worship using this Word of Spirit, arranged in faithful and memorable forms.  For we have the very mind of the Spirit, handed down to us in the words of Holy Scripture, the Word of Truth.  This is why true worship in the Spirit is Biblical worship.  This is why good liturgy is mostly Scripture, and entirely Scriptural. 

   This is also why, in our hymnal, the various parts of our liturgies have, in small italic print, Bible references that show us from where in Scripture they come.  It wasn’t some committee in a room who made up these words we say in worship.  We worship by primarily using the Word that God has given us.     

     True worship agrees with the Spirit's Word of Truth, which reveals Jesus to us, who is Truth in human flesh.   So true worshipers are careful to ensure that the things we say, the words we sing, and the confession we make are true, and never lies.  For this is the true worship that the Father desires, the true worship that saves our souls. 

   The woman said to [Jesus], "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things." Jesus said to her, "I AM, the one who speaks to you.”   

     The woman is impressed by the words of this prophet.  She does not yet fully understand, but she is encouraged by Jesus’ preaching.  So, she expresses the Promise that has sustained her faith throughout her troubled, sinful life.  She declares the promise of the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior who was to come and reveal all things.  Jesus now has her right where she needs to be, eager for the Messiah.  And so He closes the deal.  He replies to her hope for the Messiah by saying, literally, "I AM, the one who is speaking to you."  

   Jesus identifies Himself as the Messiah, the Christ, and He does so by answering with God’s Old Testament name: I AM.  It’s awkward to translate it literally, but that’s really the point.  No more confusion.  Jesus has brought this woman to the heart and center of true worship, which is the revelation of Jesus Christ as I AM, God in the flesh, the Messiah, come to save us from our sins.  True worship brings us to Jesus, even as He is coming to us, reaching out to save. 

     If you read on in John chapter 4, you will see that this story continues from the conversion of one woman to the salvation of many, as she brings her neighbors to meet Jesus.  God works through this sinful woman to draw many to His living water.  There is a great deal for us to learn in this.  We will do well to meditate on the Truth that God works through forgiven sinners to draw more sinners to Himself.    

   

But for this morning, we will end our meditation with our sister-sinner at the well, standing with Jesus, worshiping the One who gives the Water of Life.  He is the One who gave His own life for ours, atoning for all the sins of this woman's messy life, and all the sins of our messy lives. 

   By the leading of the Spirit, we too are blessed to stand before the One who gives us
new life, through His True Word, in the waters of Baptism, and at His Table. 

    God grant that His Spirit keep us in the Truth, worshiping our Savior Jesus, both now and in eternity.  Amen.