SPECIAL DAYS: Third Sunday of Lent

March 7, 1999 - LESSON: John 4:5-26, NRSV

SERMON TITLE: In Spirit and in Truth

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INTRODUCTION:

  1. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all.
    1. The Mirror answered: You, O Queen are the fairest of them all.
      1. You recognize this request from the Queen in Snow White.
      2. All went well for the Queen until.
      3. Until Snow White achieved maturity and became the fairest in the land.
    2. Then the Mirror gave a different message.
    3. Mirriors may be a means of communicating important information.

MAIN BODY:

  1. Survivors of a tragic plane crash could see and hear the rescue air craft, but the rescuers could not see them
    1. What to do?
    2. They found a mirror from one of the toilets
      1. Aiming it at the air craft they focused the sun light and signaled rescue team to show them where they were.
      2. After that, rescue came quickly.
  2. In the Epistle of James, chapter 1 and verses 22 to 24 we are exhorted to be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.
    1. James uses the illustration of looking into a mirror.
      1. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror.
      2. They look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.

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    2. Looking in a mirror has advantages and disadvantages.
      1. It allows one to clearly observe how you look.
      2. Sometime looking in a mirror is pleasant
      3. Sometimes it is not so pleasant.
  3. Looking into this mirror is not about looks, but about character.
    1. John invites us to look into the mirror of Jesus Christ.
      1. And Jesus left Judea and started back to Galilee.
      2. But he had to go through Samaria.
      3. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
    2. If we are willing to look into this mirror what will we see.
    3. If we are willing to look in this mirror what will we discover.
      1. It can be an enlightening experience.
      2. It can be a learning experience.
    4. We ought simply to let the story speak for itself.
      1. As we look and listen we will discover the application.
      2. The application is not to others, but to ourselves.
  4. Jesus is tired from his journey and is sitting by the well.
    1. It was about noon, (John 4:3-6 NRSV).
    2. A woman approaches.
      1. She is not supposed to be there at this hour.
        1. The women came to draw water either early in the morning or late in the day.
        2. Why is she there?

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      2. Is she not welcome among the women?
        1. Perhaps she has a sharp tongue.
        2. Perhaps she is ridden with disease.
      3. She does have a problem that will become clearer.
    3. As Jesus is sitting there a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink."
      1. The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?"
      2. (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)
    4. Jesus answered her, "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."
    5. The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?
    6. Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?"
    7. Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.
    8. Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."
    9. The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."
      1. She is so concentrating on the physical that she is missing the point of Jesus conversation.
      2. His teaching is not for her alone, but also for the people of her town.
      3. To help her understand what he is speaking of, Jesus makes a request.
        1. Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back."
        2. The woman answered him, "I have no husband."
        3. Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband';
          1. for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.
          2. What you have said is true!"

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        4. She is living a Ziggy kind of life.
          1. Ziggy looks out the windows and says: "Good morning new day, Hope you are friendly."
          2. Then he is reading his horoscope in the morning paper.
            1. "You will have a fine day from morning to night."
            2. He has to pay a fine for postage due.
            3. He gets a notice that he has to pay a fine for overdue library books.
            4. He receives a fine for over-parking.
            5. he gets fined for speeding.
          3. He has a fine day.
        5. The woman at the well is also having a fine day.
          1. She is not paying fines.
            1. She is experiencing the results of the decisions she has made.
            2. Her life is not what it might be.
        6. If we were going to characterize the woman, we might say that she is promiscuous.
        7. That is an understatement, if there ever was one.
      4. At this point why does she not turn and hurry away.
        1. Is that what a lot of people would do?
        2. Is that what we would do?
      5. The woman does not run away; she does not hide.
        1. She has a spirit of inquiry.
        2. She has a desire for something more than she has been able to achieve, the truth.

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      6. But she does attempt to change the subject.
        1. The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet.
        2. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem."
    10. Jesus does not accept this tack.
      1. Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
      2. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
      3. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.
      4. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
        1. Spirit = Superhuman
        2. Sprit = Spiritual being rather than an earthly being.
    11. The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us."
    12. Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."
  5. Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city.
    1. She said to the people, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?"
    2. They left the city and were on their way to him.
    3. Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done."
    4. So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days.
    5. And many more believed because of his word.
    6. They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."

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CONCLUSION:

  1. The people looked into the mirror of Jesus and found life.
    1. Their thirst was quenched.
    2. He gave them the water.
      1. Not physical water.
      2. Remember Jesus said, "The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."
      3. And so it does.
  2. Minton C. Johnson, in Washing Elephants & Other Paths to God (1) reveals that Stanley Jones wrote of an Indian who was to drive him over a very narrow, steep and dangerous mountain road.
    1. Before starting out, the Indian got down on his knees before the car and prayed to it, and got in to drive.
    2. Stanley Jones, being more practical but equally religious, asked the pious driver if he had enough gas.
    3. They looked and discovered just about enough to get them to the most dangerous and loneliest part of the road.
    4. No amount of praying does any good for a car out of gas.
  3. If your thirsty where will you go for water?
    1. Remember the woman at the Well in Sychar.
    2. At the well Jesus provided a mirror.
    3. It helps us to see as well.

1. Minton C. Johnson, Washing Elephants & Other Paths to God (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1965), 79.

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