Living Water

Exodus 17:1-7 (CEB)

The whole Israelite community broke camp and set out from the Sin desert to continue their journey, as the Lord commanded. They set up their camp at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people argued with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”

Moses said to them, “Why are you arguing with me? Why are you testing the Lord?”

But the people were very thirsty for water there, and they complained to Moses, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us, our children, and our livestock with thirst?”

So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What should I do with this people? They are getting ready to stone me.”

The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of Israel’s elders with you. Take in your hand the shepherd’s rod that you used to strike the Nile River, and go. I’ll be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Hit the rock. Water will come out of it, and the people will be able to drink.” Moses did so while Israel’s elders watched. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites argued with and tested the Lord, asking, “Is the Lord really with us or not?”

John 4:5-42 (NRSV)

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 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.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but 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.’ 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.’

Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ 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 have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 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 worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ 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.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. 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?’ They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. 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 Saviour of the world.’

Sermon

Introduction

Good morning. This is already third Sunday in Lent. I hope your Lent is going well without drinking too much bock beer. Today’s sermon had to be extra short because we have lots of things going on today. You may not feel it short, but I tried. We have the ordination and installation after the sermon, and we also have mission kick-off of Dignity for Women with lunch after the worship service in the fellowship hall. And I also have a few things to say. Coming Wednesday, we are the host of the Community Lenten Soup & Supper. Last week at the Lutheran Church, little less than fifty people attended. We need to prepare enough soups. And for that, I need your help. After the soup supper, we will have a simple Wednesday worship service. And I need four volunteers to read the Scriptures. The Scriptures will be all in English, so if you can read English, please let me know. The last thing is a personal thing. I will be on vacation attending a conference in Arkansas for a week from Tuesday, April 25th to Monday, May 1st. I need someone to take care of Samuel while Hannah works. Hannah called several daycare centres in town but none of them so far are taking a child for a week. So if one of you or someone you trust can be a babysitter, please let me know. Of course, we will pay.

Symbolic Living Water

In today’s OT lesson, Israelites ran out of fresh water to drink. And this is kind of common situation which we read a lot in the Bible because they were wandering in the desert. And by definition, a desert is where there is no water. I told you couple times that there are many puns in the Hebrew bible. And there is another interesting Hebrew word: שמים (sha-maim). Its meaning is heaven, and it is a compound word. A compound word is where two or more words are merged into a new word. For example, football is a compound word: foot + ball. When I watched a football game, they mostly grabbed the ball and ran. So I don’t really get it why it is football, not handball. But anyway, football is a compound word. Likewise שמים (sha-maim) Hebrew word for heaven is a compound word: שם (sham) + מים (maim). שם (sham) means ‘there is,’ מים (maim) means ‘water.’ Together the Hebrew word for heaven literally means ‘there is water.’ You know, there are many descriptions about heaven both in the Bible and out of the Bible such as there is gold and all kinds of jewels, lots of them. And I am pretty sure, it must be women’s description. If we ask Martin Luther, the founder of Lutheran church, ‘what the heaven is like,’ I think he might have said to us, ‘Beer. Lots of beers.’ The little children at the time of Moses probably asked their fathers or grandfathers the same question, ‘God is up there in heaven. What’s it like up in heaven?’ For those people who wandered around in the desert for forty years, what do you think is the most precious thing they could ever think of? Water of course. ‘Umm. There is water in heaven!’ Then everybody was like amazed. And that makes sense to their scientific knowledge back then because water falls from heaven which we call rain. They thought that there is lots of water up there, and sometimes it even overflows on earth.

Anyway, Israelites ran out of drinking water, and they asked for it, but not really nicely. It could have been better if they asked it nicely. So whenever you ask God for something, please be nice to Him. Anyway God gave them water, this time not from above, but from a rock in the desert. This is a prophetic moment with symbolic meanings. Jesus Christ is the Rock of salvation, and out of Him the living water comes out so that all the people can drink from it.

True Living Water

In Today’s NT lesson, Jesus and His disciples went to a town in Samaria. And I have to say that it is a very weird and unusual route. You may have heard the Jim Crow laws and segregation. I don’t know much about it because I was not there. But maybe I can say that it was way worse back in those days of Jesus between Jews and Samaritans. Jews despised and persecuted Samaritans. Samaritans always wanted to harm the Jews whenever they had chance. I heard that Harlem, NY used to be a really dangerous neighbourhood where even cops, Black or White, did not want to go there. So what Jesus did was like a White preacher walked into the Harlem back in the dangerous days. But the segregation and inclusiveness is whole another sermon topic which I will come back at some point but not today. I heard a joke about Harlem making fun of Australian accent. A naive White girl from Australia came to NY for the first time, and she walked around. She accidentality walked into Harlem. But she had no idea how dangerous that was. Then the Black gangsters on the street saw her and shocked: ‘What the heck is a White girl doing here?’ One of them yelled at her, “Did you come here to die?” Then she answered merrily, “No, I came here yesterday.”

Anyway, Jesus had a nice conversation with a Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob. Well, I went to the well of Jacob as part of the seminary class. There is a Greek Orthodox church on top of the well, and it is open only limited hours. We were lucky that we went there when it was open. The well is still functioning. They don’t allow to draw the water usually but because we were the seminarian group, the priest in charge allowed only one of us to draw some water from the well. And he pointed me out. I am not going to explain the whole conversation between Jesus and the woman. I am just trying to shorten the sermon as much as possible. So I am omitting tons of things. Anyway, Jesus revealed Himself to her that He is the living water which will make her never be thirsty. Again, Jesus is the Rock of salvation and the Living Water. When we drink this living water, we will never be thirsty again. Every and any thing Jesus does is once and for all. In the OT days, the high priests had to sacrifice a lamb every year for the forgiveness of the people over and over again. But Jesus, who is the true Lamb of God, was sacrificed for the forgiveness of the people once and for all. All we need to do to drink this living water is to come to church and worship God in spirit and in truth.

Gushing Water

Then Jesus tells her more that once we drink it, then the water becomes in us a spring where the water will gush up forever. But why do we need a spring in us? We already drank the living water, and we will never be thirsty again. Thus, we do not need more water. What is the extra gushing water for? That is not for us to drink, but for others to drink. Once we have tasted the goodness and love of God, and the forgiveness of the Saviour, God wants us to go out and spread the news. And that is exactly what the Samaritan woman did when she found the true Messiah. She went to the town and spread the good news among the town people. I used to serve a parish with two churches, preaching the identical sermons. At one church, the members did not tell about me or the church to their friends and neighbours. When I asked them to, I was told like, ‘They are not going to come to our church. It is pointless telling them.’ But at the other church, several previous members who left the church came back because the current members told them about me: ‘Hey, we have a new preacher with an interesting accent. And his message is as interesting as his accent. Come and check it out.’ So those several previous members came back only because they were told to come and check it out. And even a few people from a different town came to check it out. And they stayed. They came back every Sunday driving fifty minutes on highway. I have no idea how they heard about me and the church. Anyway, the members went out and spread the news. 

It is like when you find a cheap gas station. The gas price these days is about $3.10 or $3.20. I remember the gas was $1.35 in May 1st, 2020. That was a good old days. Some of you may remember the better days when it was under a dollar. But on June 10th, 2022, it was $5.06 per gallon. Anyway, let’s say that you find a gas station where the price is just a dollar per gallon, and the quality is even better than the other gas stations. Then would you keep it a secret only to yourself, not telling even your family or friends? I’d tell everybody that I know. It is not that God wants you to be a missionary to strangers, or to preach to your families and friends. All God wants is a simple invitation, “Come and see” just like the Samaritan woman said. You can do that too. ‘Hey, we have a lunch at church. Do you want to come?’ ‘Hey, we have a Valentine’s party at church. Do you want to join us?’ Or how about this, ‘Hey we have a preacher with funny accent. Do you want to come and laugh about it together?’ When you talk about the church and invite others, you become a spring of gushing living water which will quench their thirst forever once and for all.

Conclusion

Friends, Jesus Christ is the living Bread from heaven which gives us the eternal life. Jesus Christ is the living Water which quenches our thirst forever once and for all. Jesus Christ is the Rock of salvation on which we stand firm. Let us eat this bread and drink this water. And in turn, let us become the spring of gushing water for our families, friends, and neighbours far and near. Then God will surely bring us up into heaven where there is lots of water. Amen.