The Third Sunday of Lent
March 23, 2014- Pastor Adam Moline
Exodus
17:1-7 Romans
5:1-8 John
4:5-30, 39-42
Grace, mercy and
peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
Amen. Our text today is from the Gospel
lesson, especially these words, “Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied
as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well.” Thus far our text.
Dear friends in
Christ. In today’s world, there are all
sorts of place where spouses meet.
Perhaps at a dance hall, or in college.
Maybe on Eharmony.com or Christian Mingle, or one of the other of dozens
places advertised on Radio and T.V. But
thousands of years ago, things were a bit different. In the Old Testament times, wells were the
gathering place for people to talk, to gossip, to visit, and most importantly,
to meet your future spouse. Yes, wells
in ancient Israel were the hot spots for dating. Abraham sent a servant to Haran to find a
wife for his Son Isaac, and it was there at a well, in the late evening, that
the servant first met Rebekah, the future Mrs. Isaac, the very literal answer
to the prayer he had just prayed.
It was not many
years later, that Isaacs and Rebekah’s son Jacob too, having run away from his
brother Esau who sought to kill him for stealing the birthright, fell down at
the same well, and met for the first time his future wife Rachel. Jacob worked 14 years for Rachel’s father
Laban, so that he might marry Rachel.
Moses, some 400
years later, also fled Egypt, having murdered a slave master. He too, after wandering in the desert sat
down next to a well, and met the seven daughters of Jethro, including one named
Zipporah. Moses helped them water their
flocks at the well, and soon he too married Zipporah as his wife.
And so it is in
our Gospel lesson today, that Jesus too, the fulfillment of the nation of
Israel sits down at the edge of a well dug by his Father Jacob many years
earlier. And who should come, but a
woman, who is not married. But unlike
the virginal young madiens of the Old Testament, the woman who comes to see
Jesus is not so seemingly righteous.
She’s been married before, not just once, not just twice, but five times
before. And now, she lives outside of
marriage with a man who is in fact not her husband, but instead a live in
boyfriends if you will. And what’s
worse, this woman is a Samaritan, a people who were despised by the Israelites.
The woman comes
not in the evening when the sun was setting and it was cool and crisp to draw
water, but instead she comes in the middle of the day, when no one will be
there to judge her and the life of sin that she has chosen. After all, we are embarrassed by our sin,
just as she was. But as she quietly and
quickly seeks to draw her water for the day, Jesus speaks to her, asking her to
draw some water up for him to drink.
The woman is taken
aback. How can a Jew talk to a Samaritan
woman? Especially one who is outcast of
her own society because of her sin?
Jesus goes on, “If you knew who I was, the bridegroom of all Israel, you
would ask me, and I would give you living water to drink, and you would never
thirst again!” This sounds good to the
woman, no more drawing water in the heat of the day, no more walks out of town
to the well. Instead no more
thirst. So she asks for this water from
Jesus.
And its then that
Jesus cuts to the chase, “Go get your husband so that I can give it to you
both,” confronting the woman with her sin.
She sheepishly looks to the ground and tells Jesus a half truth, “I have
no husband.” “You’re right,” Jesus
responds, “you’ve had five, and the man you’re with now is not your
husband.”
There’s no going
around it, the woman’s sin has been called out.
She knows that God knows the truth about her life, and her lack of
holiness. She knows that He knows. And she’s terrified. The Bridegroom Jesus has arrived at the well,
and the bride has been found wanting. The
Groom has arrived, and the Bride has fallen short of her end of the
bargain.
No dear friends,
I’m not talking about Jesus being married in the way that we think about
it. I mean in the eternal, heavenly way,
the way in which you and I and all people of the world are supposed to be the
Holy Precious Bride of Christ. We are
supposed to be united with Jesus forever.
We’re supposed to be taken care of by Him, to live in the home he’s
prepared in heaven. And in return, we’re
supposed to be Holy and pure, beautiful and radiant for him. But the problem is, we’re not. We’re sinful.
We’ve whored ourselves out to false Gods and sinful desires. We’re all adulterers, not just once or twice,
not even just five times like the woman at the well, but over and over again,
each and every day.
Yes, dear friends,
you as a sinner are that bride whose found wanting. You’ve sinned. Not just in adultery as the woman in our
text, but also by all the other commandments as well. When Christ the bridegroom looks at you, he
shouldn’t want you because of your sin.
He shouldn’t want you because you’ve done evil in thought word and
deed. He shouldn’t want you.
But he does. He cares about you, just as he cares about
this poor Samaritan woman in our text.
He loves you enough that he will point out to you where you’ve fallen
short, telling you of your sin, whether it be five husbands, or swearing
once. Not only that but he also will
still promise to give you the water of life from the well of God. He meets you at a well, no not a water well
for watering animals, but a shallow well sitting right here in the church. The well of the baptismal font. There, in baptismal waters, you are washed in
the water of life, made clean, made sparkling, and where Christ makes you his
sinful dirty bride, holy and sparkling.
He assigns his own righteousness upon you.
And then, having
washed you and made you clean in baptismal waters, he robes you in the white
robe of his righteousness, and brings you to the wedding feast, here at this
altar. There you eat his body and blood,
why? To forgive your sins. To make you holy. So that by eating the foretaste of that
wedding feast you might receive the life of Christ, and salvation in his
name.
And Jesus loves
you so much, that he’s willing to give up all he has to make you into his
beautiful bride. He fulfills Ephesians
chapter 5, promising to love you his bride so much that he’s willing to give up
his life to care for you. He’s willing
to bleed, he’s willing die, he’s willing to give up all that he has to make you
well again. And he does, on the cross, giving
up all to make you his bride holy. He
gives his life, so that it might be your life.
He gives his blood that it might wash you. He gives his body into suffering, so that you
might not. He forgives you sins on the
cross.
Dear friends,
today’s story is a wedding story – and you're the bride. You're the one Christ wants, and loves. You're the one he meets and washes at the well. You're the one he brings to the wedding feast. You’re the one he gives up all he has to care for. And so thus, your sin is forgiven
forever, and you are the beautiful, holy, precious bride of Christ. Even forever more. Amen.
