Jacob's Water

"You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?" Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again;" (John 4:12-13)

I think back over the stories of Jacob that I have heard all of my life. I think about my own identification particularly with Jacob's wrestle with the heavenly messenger that revolved around him struggling to deal with his own sense of identity and worth. He had grappled with others all of his life to achieve a sense of value and belonging but with very little satisfaction. He had often used deception and manipulation to try to get his way, to achieve his desires and even to capture a feeling of being accepted by God. But each time it always came back to haunt him.

In the above verses Jesus contrasts Jacob's kind of water with His own offer of water that genuinely satisfies. Jacob's whole life was marked with a desperate search for acceptance and love. But much of the time he could not escape the ever-present feelings of disappointment, isolation and frustrated desires. His bad choices put him into long-term situations that caused him a great deal of emotional and spiritual pain for many years. He was forced to run for his life from his twin brother because of his trickery and thereby was never able to see his very dear mother again before her death. His penchant for deceptions was reciprocated back on him by his uncle who seemed even more adept at deceiving and tricking people for his advantage. Because of this Jacob ended up with two wives who were intensely jealous of each other for the rest of their lives. This caused a great deal of tension and misery in Jacob's family which extended for generations.

In a very significant way, these problems describe the effects of a life lived depending on one's self instead of surrendering the life totally to God's ways and will. Even though Jacob was passionate in his pursuit of God, the ways in which he went about trying to be accepted by God usually ended up creating serious problems for himself.

I believe that Jesus may have had some of this in mind as He spoke to this woman who was herself caught up in a similar kind of life, looking for love and acceptance but trapped in methods, traditions and a religion that failed to bring about a deep sense of value and satisfaction that her heart so longed for. She, like so many of us, was depending on repeatedly coming to Jacob's well and drinking Jacob's water and employing Jacob's kind of search for a way to thrive while also experiencing the same kinds of frustrations and disappointments that Jacob experienced.

Jacob's water represents man-made religion that appears to be authentic. It talks about God, it relies on information about God and truth and it is sometimes even passionate in its pursuit of wanting to be accepted by God. But still it fails to bring the kind of peace into the life that is so necessary for our hearts to feel satisfied and whole. It is the kind of religion that most of us are all too familiar with but that does not really connect us effectively with the heart of God like we were designed for.

Jesus came to this world to reveal to us a new kind of water that addresses the deepest longings of our souls. As He described this new living water coming from a curious description of a well that is found inside the heart, placed there with our consent through the kindness and miracle power of a loving Father, this woman began to sense her own deep craving for this kind of water that she had unconsciously been looking for all of her life. While she may not have fully understood all the metaphors or their full implications, she sensed that whatever it was that this man was describing to her met perfectly the longings deep in her heart that she had never been able to give proper expression to herself. She began to realize that Jesus was truly exposing her own deep thirst that she had never been able to satisfy through her religion or through any of her repeated intimate relationships with men.

Jacob's water is still very popular today in every church and is found in every religion.

Jesus' water is still a standing offer to anyone who is finally ready to turn away from the wells that simply cannot satisfy the soul. God calls these wells “broken cisterns” by comparison to what He has to offer.

Jacob's water promises to make us feel good, to make us appear good, to maybe even bring us into conformity to God's will and find us acceptance with Him through complex systems of belief or some level of personal performance and achievements.

Jesus' water is radically different from the inherent assumptions found in Jacob's wells. Jesus' water is the very gift of Himself living inside our hearts producing joy, acceptance and deep satisfaction that can never be found in performance-based religion or emotional relationships with other people or even things. Jesus water produces living fruit in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Jacob's water cannot satisfy the thirst of our heart for very long if at all. It can bring us pleasure for awhile or cause us to think that we are right with God through religious ceremonies or intellectual arguments. But Jacob's wells only produce water that is at best temporary and we keep having to come back again and again seeking to fill up the deepest cravings of our heart only to have our heart soon feel empty once again.

The reality of Jesus' water is something that very few people appreciate properly. I know that I am far from completely understanding and immersing myself in this living water. I can really identify with Jacob in his desperate search for feeling valued and loved and cherished as he wrestled with the very One who had come to give him exactly what he was longing for.

The good news is that Jacob finally got it. After fighting through the night with his own distorted, confused feelings about God, he discovered that the One he thought was out to hurt him was actually the One he had been searching for all of his life. He came to realize that the person he was fighting was the only one who had the ability and capacity along with the eagerness to bring him the blessing he had been chasing for so many years.

Jesus accepted this woman's claim to be a descendant of Jacob. He could see in her the same patterns of longing for God but being repeatedly frustrated in her attempts to find love and acceptance. She was drinking Jacob's kind of water and getting the same results that Jacob had gotten centuries before her.

Jacob as last learned to turn away from his own methods of digging here and there for the kind of water that failed to satisfy his deepest heart longings. He discovered that his only hope was to cling in full dependence on the only One who had what he craved the most and who loved him the most. He began to realize that the kind of satisfaction he really wanted could not be found in religious performance or blessing rituals but in clinging tenaciously to the One who was the blessing Himself. He began to realize that the kind of love that really ravishes the heart could never be found in the arms of a beautiful woman but had to be experienced in the embrace of the One the one who had created all women to begin with, yet the very one he was fighting against.

The same opportunity was being offered to this woman of Sychar. She had sought to find acceptance, value and love in the arms of one man after another only to discover that there was no one who could satisfy effectively the deep cravings of her heart. Marriage after marriage had fallen apart until she was willing to simply live in a loose relationship with a man outside of this formality. Maybe she had given up ever finding real love after going through six different men. But amazingly the seventh Man she encountered turned out to be the very God who had created her heart and the only one who could satisfy the longings He had put in there to start with. Only He could offer her the kind of water that Jacob's well had repeatedly failed to satisfy. Only He had the ability to take up residence deep inside of her and produce the joy and peace that she had looked for in all her other relationships. Jesus was offering her the gift of Himself, to be that well of water dwelling in her heart to produce new living water that would very quickly splash out and attract many others to taste of this wonderful resource.

Unpacking Prejudice

"You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?" (John 4:12)

Yet another link emerged for me just now. I have wondered where some of these pieces fit in relation to each other and I just saw how the ideas of gift and greatness fit side by side in this puzzle.

Jesus began by talking about a gift of God. He had just asked the woman for a gift from her, but instead of immediately offering it to Him she decided to explore why He was so bold and brash as to break all the rules of society to even talk with her. So He began talking about the nature of gifts and who has the biggest gift of all and began to let her in on the fact that He had a much better gift for her than He had requested of her.

Since He had brought up the issue of God, which was a very sore point of contention between her people and the Jews of which Jesus was obviously one, and since He had also brought up the issue of gifts and water in context of asking her for a gift of water, she turned it around and began to deepen the discussion by referring to what her village considered the most valuable gift to them by one of their own ancestors, Jacob.

It is interesting that she brought up the subject of Jacob to a Jew. The Jews of course, considered Jacob to be one of their important forefathers and so likely this woman was trying to make a point of saying that she belonged to a race of people who could also trace their own lineage back to a man that the Jews held in high esteem in their own ancestry. She was bringing up an issue that had caused some of the most prejudice and friction between the Jews and the Samaritans at the very beginning of this discussion to see what kind of reaction she might get from this most unusual-acting Jew.

In response to Jesus' mention of a gift, she was also letting Him know that this well and the water in it should be recognized as a valuable gift from Jacob. This well reminded these Samaritans every day of their connection to Jacob and they clung to its importance as a visible reminder of the ancestor who was considered by both Jews and Samaritans as being one of God's chosen men on earth. This well may have been one of the points of argument that Samaritans may have referred to in justifying their claim to be some of God's chosen people in the face of bitter and even vicious claims to the contrary from most every Jew.

This bigotry had flared up first when the deported Jews returned from the Babylonian exile to Jerusalem and began to rebuild the walls that had been destroyed 70 years previously. This was during the days of Nehemiah and Ezra. They were very sensitive to the fact that it was their own nation's sins that had caused God to allow them to be overcome as a nation and had delivered them into captivity as a consequence of their disloyalty to Him. With the vivid awareness in their consciousness that disobedience to God was the real issue that had caused them so much suffering for a whole generation in captivity, they determined to do everything possible from then on to prevent such a thing from ever recurring again.

As a result, the Jews swung to the other extreme and became very legalistic in their practice of religion. They became extremely particular about learning all the rules and laws of Moses and following them to the letter as much as they could figure out how. Part of this intense application of strict law-observance resulted in the fierce enforcement of marriage laws against all those who had taken wives from other nations during the time of captivity. Those who had been scattered through the surrounding countryside instead of taken to Babylon had been forcibly mixed with other people imported by the Babylonians from other places in the world. The returning Jews from Babylon felt tension with these who had been left behind and prejudices flared up as a result.

Ezra and some of the other leaders decided that there must be a strict separation of good Jews from any who could not completely prove their legitimate lineage as a pure-blooded Jew. Basically what happened as a result of these decisions was a forced imposition of ethnic cleansing as we would call it today. This can be read about in the last two chapters of the book of Ezra.

The people who were ethnically cleansed and experienced forced separation from the ethnically pure Jews came to be known as the Samaritans. They had Jewish blood in their lines but were not pure Jews. As thus, they were considered by Jews to be illegitimate and corrupt both ethnically and spiritually. After they were forced out of fellowship with the main group of Jews they set up a rival temple in their own territory that only tended to amplify the tensions between these two groups of people claiming to be followers of God. This tension never subsided for hundreds of years, so when Jesus showed up and began talking with one of these “illegitimate people” He was definitely going against the grain of what was socially and religiously acceptable.

All of this background and much more was very present in the minds of everyone involved in this story. The tension had become so great between these two peoples that they did not even normally consider talking with someone from the other group. They generally only harbored animosity and hatred for the others, which is why this woman found it so astonishing that a Jewish man would even consider talking with a Samaritan woman, much less ask a favor of her. This was simply unthinkable and amazing and worth finding out about in her opinion.

From this context she decided to see what Jesus' opinion was of the obvious issues that she supposed separated them since He was already ignoring all the prejudices that she expected Him to share with all Jews. Since He had brought up the issues of God and gifts and water, she continued this most curious conversation by asking Him to explain Himself in relation to the obvious differences between His people and hers.

How often have I made the mistake of focusing first on what makes me different than others than on what we share in common. It is so easy to look first for what makes me unique, what differentiates me from someone else instead of seeking to view them as a fellow child of God in need of knowing God better. While this woman was focusing on what was different about them Jesus was softening her heart by seeking to eliminate their differences and offering to bless her.

Jacob was one of the most important figures in the heritage and religion of the Samaritans, and particularly for this village. They were very dependent on this well as their primary source for much needed water and felt that it was a gift from Jacob to them personally, as far as they were concerned. In their minds Jacob represented their link of legitimacy to God, and if one was to talk about gifts of God, then obviously they needed to know that this gift from Jacob was the Samaritan's proofs that they were not as far from God as all the Jews claimed that they were.

Now, if some Jew comes along and begins talking about a gift of God connected with water that is better than the obvious value of this well of water from their great ancestor Jacob, then she may begin to question the relative value of the person making such a brazen claim that challenged all the social and religious beliefs that the Samaritans had held to for so long.

What I am starting to see here is that the underlying issues that the woman was referring to was about value and identity. The Samaritans had been marginalized, shamed, hated and despised for generations by Jews who claimed with vehemence that even God Himself had no use for Samaritans because of their ethnicity. They were considered less worthy than dogs of being treated with respect.

This is certainly not something unfamiliar to us today. There are many similar issues of prejudice all over the world today and repeated instances of ethnic cleansing that spawn horrific scenes of senseless violence in the spirit of vicious prejudices. On a lesser scale, we can also see the more subtle forms of prejudice between people of different denominations that view each other with varying degrees of suspicion and even hatred. These prejudices are sometimes encouraged and inflamed by the more extreme elements within these various groups believing that they are doing the will of God and are helping Him to purify “His chosen people”.

Prejudice is a terrible thing, and given the long history of violence, hatred and evil that has come from it one would think that mankind would learn to see it for what it really is. And yet it continues to thrive and flourish and cause even more violence and pain and senseless evil in the world. It is much easier to see it in others of course rather than in ourselves. But some people have even come to the point of being very proud of their prejudices and believing that prejudice is an honorable thing that should be cherished and encouraged in society. I have observed that in many places patriotism is only thinly veiled prejudice dressed up to look and feel like something more acceptable.

All of this distorted thinking stems directly from our twisted views of what we believe God is like. Even though the book of Ezra has many good things in it, I don't necessarily believe that everything that Ezra did in the name of God was God-inspired in spite of the view of many theologians and Christians to the contrary. The Bible reports what people did whether it was right or wrong, but that does not mean that everything they did in the name of God was necessarily God's desire for them. The effects of the strong direction toward legalism that was introduced into the Jewish psyche in the days of Ezra actually matured years later in the time of Jesus. Its fruit could be seen in the blinding hypocrisy and bigotry that enveloped the hearts of the priests, scribes and Pharisee's who ended up rejecting their own Messiah and having Him tortured and killed on a cross – all in the name of religion and national purity.

Their own high priest declared in the spirit of prejudice and corruption that had matured to completion, "You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish." (John 11:49-50)

But in this encounter with the woman in Samaria, Jesus was able to effectively meet and disarm some of her strongest prejudices because of the openness of this woman's heart and her willingness to let Jesus introduce her to a completely new and startling picture of the true God of heaven. And because of her willingness to lay aside her prejudices and embrace the good news of the gospel, she quickly became one of the most effective missionaries for Jesus that had ever been seen up to that point in time.

Divine Engagements

"You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?" Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." (John 4:12-14)

What caused the woman to bring up the subject of who was greater?

Jesus did not directly respond to her question about being greater than Jacob. He did indirectly, but He allowed her to come to her own conclusion about Him instead of simply answering the question straightforward.

I have noticed that Jesus seldom responded directly to questions under the multiple choice options that people offered Him. Instead, He very often brought up something else that sometimes seemed almost unrelated at first. He was speaking from a very different view of reality and of what is important. If He had responded directly to many of the questions put to Him that would have allowed the other person to determine the direction of the conversation. But He did not allow that, for to determine the direction and content of a conversation is to have great influence over the assumptions of what is most important.

Not answering questions directly is viewed by many as being disrespectful. But Jesus did not convey an attitude of disrespect, while still choosing to decide the direction of the conversation. He also quite often used questions Himself to stimulate others to think more clearly instead of just responding directly to their questions. He would use questions to get people to reexamine their own assumptions inherent in their logic.

In this story He could have been accused of not being willing to face reality, of not being practical. After all, He really was thirsty and He had asked the lady for a drink. She did have the wherewithal to provide it for Him and yet He seemed to immediately steer the conversation away from the very thing that He needed and had asked for Himself. Instead of continuing to encourage her to help Him based on His initial request, He steered the conversation to a completely different plane of existence that He viewed as far more urgent than His own need for a drink of water.

I believe that likely He considered her thirst of much greater intensity and importance than His own, even though hers was not so obvious physically. And being the selfless being that He was He was always eager to provide for other's needs ahead of His own. As He told His disciples a short time later, He was in the process of consuming food by engaging the heart of this woman and offering her the means whereby she could feel much more alive than she had felt in many years. The joy that this kind of ministry produced in His own heart acted as the means of producing so much satisfaction in His soul that His own physical needs nearly disappeared in contrast.

How often do I miss enjoying this kind of overwhelming satisfaction because I remain too focused on meeting my own physical needs ahead of ministering to others? Too often I think that if I could just first get my own thirst or hunger or tiredness addressed, then I would be better situated to offer other people spiritual help. And I am not saying that this may sometimes be necessary. But there may also be times when opportunities only offer a very narrow window of time for me to act instantly, times when a person's spirit is only open and receptive for immediate initiative and the Spirit prompts me to take advantage of it before my own discomfort is dealt with. It is those times when my choices can make the difference between seeing miracles happen or missing out altogether because I allow selfishness to resist the promptings of God. And if I miss those opportunities I may not even know what I could have enjoyed, for many times it is only by allowing the Spirit of Jesus to move without hindrance through my life that I can become aware afterwards of the very existence of some opportunity that at first looked like just another chance encounter with an average person.

I want to surrender myself completely to the indwelling presence of Jesus so that my encounters with others no longer are apparently just coincidences. I want the kind of life where every engagement is ordained by God as an opportunity for Him to offer real life or joy or ministry to another thirsty heart. And as I do so I, like Jesus did here, will experience the overwhelming satisfaction of joy that will eclipse even my own physical needs and bring life and energy into my own being. And more importantly, I can be involved in seeing first hand what God may want to accomplish in the heart and life of some other person by using me as His agent of hope and blessing.

The Gift and The Water

If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water. (John 4:10)

Sometimes I am amazed at how dull I am. But praise God that He is faithful and keeps opening my mind to see things that maybe should be obvious. But because of years of trained filtering that prevents me from perceiving things differently than what I am used to seeing, it sometimes takes more time to become aware of very important links and insights that may be very easy for others to catch.

I am aware that John wrote this gospel by selecting the stories in it very intentionally for very specific purposes. This is not just a nice collection various stories about Jesus' life that John put together to add to the previous gospels. John wanted to reveal some deep, fundamental truths about God that are vital for us coming to know God very personally. So he put together stories that focused on these important concepts and presented them in such a way that the observant and open-hearted reader would pick up these vital messages and be convicted of the love and truth about God.

So it is not at all out of line to look for close connections between the stories assembled here in the gospel of John. I knew that, but it still remains that there are so many of them so tightly packed in here that sometimes they still catch me by surprise when they suddenly are brought to my attention.

When Jesus talked with this woman about the gift of God, I just realized that this is a direct reference back to the previous story about Nicodemus. In that discussion He very plainly shared what the gift of God is. In fact, if I read this phrase in English a slightly different way with the emphasis on God instead of the word gift, it becomes also obvious that the identity of the gift is literally God Himself. God is the gift in the person of Jesus Christ.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Then when Jesus adds the second part and mentions the identity issue of Himself, He is really amplifying the answer to the first part – what is the gift. In essence He is saying, “God has a gift for you. That gift amazingly is God Himself. And furthermore that gift of God is right now standing here talking with you. Can you believe it? Will you believe in me?”

The third item mentioned by Jesus in this initial answer to the woman is also linked back to the previous story with Nicodemus. When Jesus tells her that He is waiting to give her something called living water He is again referring back to His mention of water to Nicodemus.

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (John 3:5)

When I compare these two stories I find something interesting and informative. With Nicodemus He talks about water and Spirit. With this woman of Sychar He talks about truth and spirit. As I pondered this another verse was brought to my attention that helps to connect these together.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word. (Ephesians 5:25-26 NIV)

In this verse the Word of God is associated with the symbol of water. John often refers to Jesus directly as the Word made flesh. Clearly the Bible is also the Word of God simplified into human languages that is not quite as clear as the demonstration of God in the life of Jesus. But God has given it to us as a means to reveal truth about Him as we immerse ourselves under the guidance of God's Spirit in this symbolic water that has such powerful cleansing properties.

According to this last verse, this kind of water will lead us to be sanctified – made holy – whatever that really means. As part of that process we are cleansed in some important way to bring us into this condition of being holy. So if the Word has power to cleanse us from something and the Word is symbolized by water, which clearly in physical life is very much used for cleaning purposes both internally and externally, Jesus is offering this woman a great deal more than is at first apparent from just a casual reading of this story.

But in His interaction with this woman of Sychar, Jesus focuses more on the other aspect of water that is so necessary for life. He talks about water that we drink, that brings deep satisfaction to the thirst that we all were created to experience. Thirst is part of the makeup of our bodies that God designed in us to motivate us to search for and partake of something that our bodies must have in order to maintain life. Likewise, we are also wired to experience deep spiritual thirst whenever our souls feel a lack of the water of life. However, this kind of thirst is very often misunderstood or misdiagnosed because Satan has blinded our minds and hearts to what we really need to satisfy this thirst.

These two uses for water are not really separate. Drinking water to satisfy a deep thirst accomplishes the very same work as drinking water to cleanse ourselves internally. God designed water to be the most effective element of cleansing for us internally as well as externally. It is extremely important for very many reasons that we keep ourselves well hydrated by regularly drinking pure, clean water. Our bodies are designed to utilize this water partly to flush out toxins from our body to keep us in a better state of health. When we do not intake enough water we are liable to experience serious problems. And the same is true even more so in our spiritual nature.

In very many ways our bodies are actually given to us as metaphors of the even greater realities that we find difficult to comprehend in the spiritual realm of life. As we study the analogies that God has given us in nature and in our own bodies we can begin to comprehend better the spiritual truths that God wants us to understand so we can respond to His drawing power of love and perceive revelations about the spirit that are otherwise quite obscure to us. In fact, the Bible is filled with illustrations of the spiritual from the natural world to help us better understand what is actually quite plain to those living on the other side of the barrier that sin has created in our perceptions.

Father, I choose to accept the gift of God in the presence of Jesus abiding in me today. I want to know much better who it is that offers me this drink and I also want to experience the rich satisfaction that you have for me as I learn how to keep drinking of this living water. I want Jesus to be the well of water that continually springs up from inside of me and produces eternal life in my soul and spirit. Thank-you for these insights and revelations about yourself to my heart and mind. Dwell in me today, sanctify me, cleanse me and make me an instrument of your peace.