CHRIST AT SYCHAR’S WELL
Alistair M Brown
John 4: 1-42
This scripture gives a remarkable account of an incident in the pathway of the Lord Jesus here. The conversation that the Lord had with the woman - as we have it recorded - would take perhaps ten or fifteen minutes. The chapter itself covers a period of two days, when the Lord in His grace stayed in Sychar. How much was accomplished in such a short space of time! It was accomplished by one blessed Man, who sat just as He was at the fountain. The apostle, inspired by the Holy Spirit, provides this view of the Lord Jesus in His gracious and lowly manhood, sitting tired and thirsty, just as He was, at the edge of a well. It was midday: the sixth hour is twelve o’clock midday. It would be hot, and the Lord had walked a long way. He is the Son of God and the Saviour of the world; yet there He was in His lowliness, and feeling the dust and heat of the journey; He sat just as He was. And yet what resource was there in Him: the Lord Jesus is wealthy. As far as the world is concerned, He was an insignificant figure here - a tired traveller at the well - but He was able to give what no other person could give. He had resource to impart that no one else could impart.
And then another person comes on to the scene, this woman of Sychar. You might say of her that she too came just as she was. She came at midday to draw water. Normally in the east people would draw water from wells early in the morning when it was still cool. She came at midday and it has often been suggested that she probably did this to avoid meeting other people. She may have felt ashamed of herself; or that she had quite a lot to hide. She came with her water pot; she carried her needs with her. The Lord in His grace addresses himself to her and He expresses a need; He says, “Give me to drink”. The Creator of the world was making that request to the woman: “Give me to drink”. His grace was engaging her, and making a request that showed that He did not regard her as an outcast. The writer adds that Jews do not have anything to do with Samaritans, and the Lord would be known as a Jew. It would be evident to her that He was a Jew, but He asked for something from her. Her response is, ‘Why are you asking me?’. The Lord begins to engage her interest and her heart; He speaks about something that He knew that she needed. He says, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that says to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water”. What a remarkable thing to say to this poor woman.
Of course, the Lord was speaking of something far more than water for physical refreshment: He was speaking about inward satisfaction and joy which only He can provide as the blessed Saviour. And His words stirred the interest of this woman because they touched a need in her. She did not have joy and she did not have satisfaction. She had had five husbands and now the man that she was with was not her husband. What a moral wreck - and the Lord offers her living water. He knew all about her. The Lord knows all about each of us; He knows all about me, and all about you, and He knows what our needs are. In one sense our needs are all the same: we all need Christ. As sinners far from Him, we all need a Saviour. We have to acknowledge that that is true. The Lord brings this woman to recognise her needs. In another sense each of us has our own needs and the Lord is able for that too. Every one of us is different, and the Lord is sufficient for everyone.
“If thou knewest the gift of God”: the whole disposition of God is to give. What a Giver God is; what a Giver the Lord Jesus is. And we are in our need, like this woman. The Lord does not shun those that are in need. He did not shun a Samaritan woman who was morally helpless and hopeless. He reaches out to her, and speaks about the gift that He desired to give her. He longed to give her that gift, and He draws her in so that she is receptive. She asks Him questions at first that show that she did not understand the spiritual import of what He is saying. First of all she speaks about the Lord having nothing to draw with, and then she remembers something about the tradition of the place. “Art thou greater than our father Jacob … ?”. And the Lord says, “Every one who drinks of this water”, meaning the water of the well, “shall thirst again; but whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst for ever, but the water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life”. This was something that the woman would never have heard of before - eternal life. And she says, ‘Lord, give me this; give me this water so that I might not thirst and I might not need to come here to draw’. She did not want to come to the well; to show herself in public; she did not want to have to do that. She thought that somehow she could get hold of this gift that was being offered to her and she would never thirst and she would not need to come to draw.
Friend, something was stirring in this woman’s heart where there was need. She had met somebody who could satisfy that need, somebody who was like no other person - like no other person in His humility and in His ability to speak to her, and in His ability to transcend the divide between Jew and Samaritan. Such a divide did not prevent Him from reaching any soul in any moral condition, no matter the depth of their need. He brought this woman to a realisation of her need. She expresses it: she did not want to thirst again; she did not want to come to draw. His grace was holding her and drawing her. It was reaching her heart. And then in His faithfulness He says, “Go, call thy husband”. His grace held her and the truth searched her. That was a searching matter. She gives a bit of the story. She gives part of the truth, I suppose, and the Lord then states what the position is; not to condemn but simply to illuminate and to bring home to this woman what her case really was; what grace was in that.
It is in grace that the Lord helps us to see what we really are. We are hopeless cases as away from Him, sinners without any hope, sinners before a righteous and holy God. The Lord would bring us to see that and to understand what our need is, just as He did so graciously and yet faithfully with this woman of Sychar. And that brings out the confession. “I see that thou art a prophet”. Here was the woman, not speaking now about the gift - what the Lord would give her, but speaking about the Person, the Man. Her appreciation for Him had begun to grow. “I see that thou art a prophet”. She goes on to say, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where one must worship”. I think her conscience had been touched. She saw what she was; it was illuminated to her. She would know what she was, but the Lord in His grace brought that before her - ‘Here is your moral condition’. It is a touch of grace with truth. The Lord uses His grace to make the truth effective and to touch the hearts of those that He speaks to. How skilful He is. What a blessed Person the Lord Jesus is.
The woman also seems to recognise that there was much more here in this Man than she could put a name to, or that she could understand. She is led to speak about worship. She begins by speaking of Him as “a prophet”, then she starts to think about worship, but it was bound by religious observance and tradition and these things. But her heart was stirred towards Him. She did not even know His name yet. Then a revelation is given to her as to true worship. What the Lord says to this woman is most remarkable. He begins to speak these words of life eternal that Peter spoke of. “To whom shall we go?”, he said to the Lord, “thou hast words of life eternal”, John 6: 68. The Lord speaks to this woman, this poor soul with her moral condition so mixed, about the Father seeking worshippers and how they would be found, and in what manner they would worship. What tremendous grace! How faithful, too, the Lord was to the desires of the Father that He should find worshippers. Later on the Lord speaks about the sowing and the reaping. And He says, “My food is that I should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work”. The Lord was taking account of a soul in whom the Father had begun to work, in whom the Father had worked hitherto. Now the Lord is working in His gentle grace.
Is it like that with you, friend? Maybe God has begun in you a work, a sovereign work, giving rise to a movement in your heart - you realise that you have needs and that you are missing some vital matter in your life, missing satisfaction and joy. If that is the case, it is because God has worked in your heart already. We sometimes refer to these first stirrings as ‘new birth’. It is God by the Holy Spirit working in your heart so that you have some appreciation of what He is saying in the gospel. Then the gospel is preached, and you find that that need that you were just beginning to become aware of can only be met by one blessed Man, the Son of God: Jesus. He loves you. He has proved His love for you and for me by dying for us at the cross. He laid down a life that was perfect and flawless before God - the perfect sacrifice; and also a life of such goodness to man. He “went through all quarters doing good, and healing all that were under the power of the devil”, Acts 10: 38. People took account of Him, and said, “he does all things well”, Mark 7: 37. The life of Jesus here in service to men is something to be contemplated. It was wonderful. What love He showed, what grace, to the people that He met; this woman included. That life was laid down. He allowed wicked hands to take Him and to crucify Him, but He Himself delivered up His spirit. And when He was dead His side was pierced and His blood was shed. The offering of that One and His precious blood gives God a righteous and eternal basis to confer full forgiveness on the repenting sinner. There is no small print, no qualification, no ‘ifs and buts’ about what God offers in the gospel through the work of Christ. Christ’s sacrifice gives God the right to come out in forgiveness. What a wonderful Saviour Jesus is!
These Samaritans came to it that He was the Saviour of the world. He is the Saviour on a great scale, but He is a Saviour also for you and for me individually. How wonderful to be able to speak of Him. The Lord saw in that poor benighted woman a potential worshipper. However deep-dyed we may feel our sins are, as we come to the Lord we are potential worshippers. “Though your sins be as scarlet”, the prophet says, and “red like crimson”, Isa 1: 18. How deep the stain of what sin is morally in the sight of God; yet as a result of Christ’s work God can see us as “white as snow” and “as wool”. This woman felt that she stood out; she did not want to be seen; she did not want to come to the well when the other women filled their pitchers. She stood out, but she came to a Man who was able to wash her sins away.
The Lord speaks to her about the Father seeking worshippers. She says, “I know that Messias is coming, who is called Christ; when he comes he will tell us all things”. The Lord was bringing her along, leading her into the recognition of who He was. Then He is able to say, “I who speak to thee am he”. The woman’s response to that is remarkable. She leaves her water pot. The resource that she had, and the reason she had come to the well, are forgotten about and she goes right back into the city, to the men of the city, those who no doubt talked about her - she would not be spoken well of. She had a reputation; yet she went to these men. She says, “Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done”. She had Christ before her. She was no longer preoccupied with her sins and her moral condition; she was no longer ashamed of her reputation or that other people might see her and talk about her. She was occupied with Christ, and she was delivered from herself and her sinfulness; her vision was filled with Christ. She had found Him as the Man who could give her what she needed, and who had done so and had filled and satisfied her need. He had brought her into joy and told her about the desire of the Father to have worshippers. She had met Him, wrecked and impoverished . She came back into the city, leaving her water pot behind, to bear witness to the men of the city to One who was immensely wealthy and who had satisfied all her needs.
What a marvellous testimony to the saving grace of the Lord Jesus! This testimony is seen in persons. It is seen in this woman. And she says, “Come”: “Come, see a man”. She had gone back into the city, and the Lord was on the outskirts where the well was, but she identifies herself with Christ. In her thinking she was there with Him. “Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done: is not he the Christ?” Of the things that she had wanted to cover up and conceal, she could say, ‘Look, He has told me all about them, all my sins. He has seen to them. Is not He the Christ?’. She had come to appreciate that Person. He is the only One who could help her in her helplessness. He had, in His grace, shone a light upon her need. He had so spoken to her that she confessed that need: “Give me this water, that I may not thirst nor come here to draw”. And He had satisfied that need. He had drawn her to Himself and made Himself known to her, so that she recognised that He was the Christ. And she became a worshipper and a preacher, for the witness that she bore was remarkably effective.
It says that “many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him”, v 39. That was how effective her preaching was - many of the men of that city saw the change in her and came to Christ for themselves. Then it adds, “after the two days”, v 43. What two days they must have been. “And more a great deal believed on account of his word.” We are not told anything about the two days, other than what the result was - that more, a great deal, believed on account of His word. Sychar would have been a city that was beneath the contempt of the Jews. There would be no Jewish religious activity in this city, but people in their need flocked to Jesus and believed, they believed on account of His word. People are still flocking to Jesus. And when we come to Him we find our needs met. However stubborn, however deep-rooted, however intractable and insatiable these needs seem to be, however much we have tried to help ourselves and failed, we find in one blessed Man that He is able for everything. If we lay things out before Him He has the answer.
It was grace that caused this woman to speak of her need. The Lord would speak in grace to our souls to draw out the need that we have. If we confess that to Him, spread things out before Him, He has the answer. “If thou knewest the gift of God”; there is nothing beyond the giving of Jesus; He can resolve every problem. Men can resolve many problems, particularly technical problems, but they cannot resolve the problem of the human heart; but Jesus does. He can and He does. It is a wonderful matter that myriads come to Him. How fruitful the Lord’s death has been. Of course, He is no longer in death - He was raised by the glory of the Father and He is living, and He has been given a place that is above every place and a Name above every name. But how fruitful the Lord’s death has been: He said, “Except the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it abides alone; but if it die, it bears much fruit”, John 12: 24. Some of that fruit came to light in the Lord’s time here; this woman was an example. And the Lord speaks of the sowing and the reaping. I believe He had in His thoughts the perfect, sovereign work of His God and Father in many hearts. The Lord experienced the Father drawing people to Him. This woman was drawn to Him by the Father. And the Lord took up that work and brought forth the harvest - a soul secured as a worshipper for God.
What a transformation! From a debased and hopeless and unsatisfied condition, this woman becomes a delivered person who identifies herself with Christ, and is an effective preacher and a worshipper. That is what the Lord is able to do if we let Him. This woman let the Lord in; she accepted Christ. The Lord gave the gift He was willing to offer. She was willing to accept, and she found the blessing. And it is the same now.
Well, I commend these few thoughts to our hearts. May we be among those who accept Christ, who receive Him and know the joy and the satisfaction that brings. We find joy and peace in believing. That is what flows from the Lord’s giving, the gift of God, the living water, the gift of the Holy Spirit; joy and peace are the result of receiving Christ and receiving the Spirit. There is nothing like it, nothing to compare with the joy and peace available from Christ. They are certainly not to be found in the world. But they are found in the Lord Jesus. I commend Him to you, for His Name’s sake.
Glasgow
18th September 2021