Worship

Lent 3                               March 8, 2026
John 4:5-26                     Pastor Ryan Wolfe

“Living Water for us and all”

Jesus’ midday meeting with the Samaritan woman is a favorite for a lot of people. And for good reason. Here we see Jesus at his pastoral best – speaking to a woman that others would have ignored or worse. Showing that he knows her sin, but wanting to bring her freedom from that sin. In many ways, she represents all of us—people thirsting for a way to satisfy that “God‑shaped hole” that only Jesus can fill. Through his cross and his life, he gives us forgiveness and opens heaven to us. If you trust him as your Savior, you have already tasted this living water. But this account also reminds us that his living water is meant for everyone. As we watch Jesus visit with this woman at the well, we learn how to share that same life‑giving water with others.

Jesus had been in Judea, the southern part of Israel, since the time of the Passover. In the chapters before our account, Jesus had been busy. He had driven the money changers out of the temple, met with the Pharisee Nicodemus (John 3:16 anyone?), and had been teaching in the wilderness while his disciples were baptizing. (John 4:1 tells us they were baptizing even more people than John the Baptist.) But that popularity was gaining attention, so Jesus decides to go back up to Galilee in the north. Now, normally the custom was to cross the Jordan, go north on the east side of the river, and then cross back over once you were past Samaria. But John says here in verse 4 that Jesus “had” to go through that land. Why? Perhaps because Jesus know he had to meet this woman, and teach us about watching and witnessing.

We find Jesus in a town called Sychar in the middle of the day, and he’s tired from the journey. So he rests near the city well while his disciples go to find food. Now, the timing of this meeting tells us something about the woman. This was the heat of the day, when people took a break from activity. In a climate not that different from Mexico, the inhabitants Israel and Samaria both took their own form of siesta. In fact, only outcasts looking to avoid others would go to the well at that time. And as Jesus speaks to the woman, we’ll find out that’s exactly what she was. She was trying to avoid people – but Jesus didn’t let that stop him.

The woman herself raises multiple objections when Jesus asks her for a drink. “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” John helpfully adds the parenthetical remark, “Jews do not associate with Samaritans.” Now, the Jews despised the Samaritans for a host of historical and religious reasons. Samaria had once been the land of the northern tribes of Israel. But when the northern Jews were carried away by Assyria, foreigners came into the land and intermarried with the few people who were left. The Jews of southern Israel saw them as a kind of “half-breed” people. To add to it, the Samaritans were not only “half-Jewish” by blood, but in religious matters too. The Samaritans followed the first five books of the Bible but rejected the rest of the Old Testament. They claimed to worship the true God but ignored the parts of the Bible they didn’t agree with. As the woman mentions later, Samaritans worshiped in the mountains of the north even though God said the temple worship was to be only at Jerusalem. So the Jews hated them. And that hatred was mutual. Jews and Samaritans never spoke to each other if they could help it. What’s more, she was a woman, alone. Culturally, a respectable man would never approach her, much less speak to her. This conversation never should have happened.

We can learn from Jesus in this about how to share the living water of forgiveness. There is no one we should ever cut off from the opportunity to hear about Jesus. Perhaps you have a neighbor that isn’t from Minnesota, that speaks with an accent or has a different color skin. Maybe they don’t know or believe what we know and believe about Jesus. You know what that means? You have what they need! Or your coworker is pregnant with her third kid by a third guy. Or your crazy cousin just got out of jail after another DUI. Yes, Jesus would have talked to them too. It doesn’t matter if someone is living the most outwardly sinful lifestyle imaginable. Or if they speak a different language or have a different background. Sharing our faith begins by looking at people the way Jesus did. Not as good or bad, similar or different. But as sinners who need the living water he offers.

There’s a second truth about witnessing here too. It has to do with timing. Jesus wasn’t going to Samaria – he was only traveling through Samaria. What’s more, Jesus was tired. He had been traveling all day. The disciples were getting food which meant he was probably hungry. But still, Jesus sees this woman and begins the conversation.

Think of the excuses we offer to justify our silence in the face of opportunities to share our faith. “I would have said something, but I was just on my way out of the store… I would have comforted her but I had been working all day and I needed a break… Yes, I could see he was hurting, but I was hurt too… I’d help at church, but I’m so busy with other things.” As we see Jesus speak to the woman at the well, our excuses seem pretty flimsy, don’t they? The first part of sharing our Savior is recognizing the urgent need to do it. Every soul we see is in mortal, even eternal, danger. Every person without faith in Christ is lost right now to hell. And there is no objection to sharing our faith that overcomes the great need these thirsting people have.

I was talking to a member a while back and he was saying how much he would have liked to be a pastor. I noted how much I sometimes would like to be a member. My circle of acquaintances is filled with people of faith already, and I love sharing Jesus with you. But you guys…you are the ones who live and work and play games with these thirsty people who don’t know Jesus. You are the ones that get to sit at the well with sinners, far more than me. You have more opportunity to share Jesus than I do. In that way, I envy you just a little bit. You have what the people around you need. I pray you see that.

What do we say when we share our faith? Jesus used what was right in front of him. When the woman objected to his request for a drink, and when she notes that he didn’t have anything to drop into the well to get the water, he tells her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

And now he’s got her attention. No miraculous wisdom revealed yet, but a promise of something great and lasting. She’s still thinking in earthly terms though, so Jesus shifts the conversation to the spiritual. “Go get your husband,” he tells her, knowing full well that she was living with a man she wasn’t married to. When he calls her out on her sin she tries to steer the conversation away. She asks about worship. But Jesus directs her back to faith. “A time is coming, and has come, when where you worship doesn’t matter, but only if you worship God in the Spirit and in truth. And when she confesses that she believes the Messiah (Christ) is coming, he tells her plainly. “I who speak to you am he.”

It’s a beautiful pattern for sharing the living water of salvation. Sharing our faith doesn’t have to be complicated. We direct people’s eyes away from the worldly to the eternal. When necessary we speak the law of God that shows a person’s sin. But we do that with humility, remembering that we ourselves were lost in sin and need the living water of forgiveness just as much as anyone. And when a person realizes their thirst for forgiveness, then we just show them Jesus. The one who died for our sin, and theirs. The one who takes us out of death and gives us life. The living water that never runs dry. A blessing since we need to go back to him again and again to find peace for our sinful souls.

Whatever your sin today, know that Jesus paid for it. Fully. Willingly. Painfully. Whatever your worry today, know that Jesus stands with you now, and is only waiting for the perfect time to bring you home to heaven. This is exactly what we need – living water for us, and for all people. And those who drink deeply, who find their thirst quenched, can’t help but share it.

The Samaritan woman is a great example of that. Our text ends before we get the whole story. The disciples come back and they’re surprised to see him talking to her but they don’t say anything. The woman though, she couldn’t stop talking. Not to the disciples though. She ran back into town with the news. She even forgot her water jar, but she didn’t leave without water—living water was bubbling up inside of her just as Jesus said it would. And her witness was simple. Verses 28-30 say, “’Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?’ They came out of the town and made their way toward him.”

Friends, like that woman, we have every reason to leave behind our worldly water jars. We have the living water of Jesus that never runs dry. We see the thirsty souls around us. May God bless us to drink deeply and share freely, and rejoice in this living water that is for us and for all. Amen.