In 2006, Alitalia Airlines, the official airline of Italy, made a slight mistake on its website regarding international airfare from Toronto, Canada, to the island of Cyprus. They advertised business-class seats for $39. It was supposed to be $3900, but somebody left two zeros. Two thousand tickets were immediately snapped up and it cost the airline $7.7 million. Somebody messed up.
In 1990, 75 million phone calls across the United States went unanswered after a single switch at one of AT&T’s Switching Centers suffered a minor mechanical problem and shut down. Like a domino, it sent a message to other centers around the country, which also caused them to shut down. The cause was a simple data entry, of one error, in a single line of code. American Airlines alone estimated they lost 200,000 reservations in that one-day. Somebody messed up.
In 1961, DECCA Records sent two executives in charge of evaluating new musical talent to London to check out a local rock-n-roll band. They spent two hours listening to this group perform 15 different songs at the DECCA studios. The band waited for several weeks to hear whether DECCA would sign them or not and finally their manager got this now famous response. “Not to mince words, Mr. Epstein, but we don’t like your boys’ sound. Groups are out, four-piece bands with guitars particularly are finished.” That group was the Beatles, who became the most popular band of all time. DECCA lost hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, because somebody messed up.
There are two things that I know are true of anyone I meet anywhere at any time on this planet. First, we have all messed up at times. We have all made bad choices. We’ve all made poor decisions. We’ve all taken the wrong path and we either all have learned or one day will learn that mess-ups are costly. It can cost you your marriage, your job, your virginity, a friendship, or piece of mind.
The second thing I know is that we all mess up, because to some extent we are all messed up, because of sin. We were all born spiritually messed up. People are stressed out, because they are messed up.
If you are one of those who would admit that you have messed up and if indeed you are living under the crushing burden of that mess up, and you are still stung with the guilt of that mess up, and you wonder whether there is a way out of your mess up this is what I want you to learn today. Just because you have messed up, doesn’t mean you have to stay messed up. In fact, Jesus specializes in dealing with messed up people.
We are in a series that I am so excited about called “On The Fringe.” One of the things that I love about Jesus so much is He gravitated to people that others ignored, ridiculed, hated, and rejected. Today, we are going to look at one of the most fascinating conversations Jesus ever had with a woman whose autobiography would have been titled, “The Mess Up.”
The Apostle John devoted 42 verses to telling the story of this amazing encounter between Jesus and a messed up woman. We are reading the longest conversation ever recorded between Jesus and any other individual. That alone tells us that the lessons in this story are extremely important.
When you first read the story, it seems kind of mundane and ordinary – really unimportant. A woman, whose name we never know, is performing the most mundane, boring, everyday task drawing water out of a well. She came all by herself and where no other man would give her the time of day, except for the wrong reason, Jesus takes the initiative and engages her in a conversation that will radically change her life.
As you are going to see, she was both messed up and a mess up, but her encounter with Jesus not only tells us how we should relate to these people who are “On The Fringe”, but gives us this wonderful lesson for all of us who have messed up at one time or another. Key Take Away: Fess up to your mess up and Jesus will clean up your mess. There is no mess up that Jesus can’t clean up. For all of us, who are in this category (Shock alert! We all are!) I want to share with you how you can get out of your mess.
I. We Should Understand Jesus Is Waiting To Meet Us
“Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.” (Chapter 4:1-6, ESV)
John records a lot of details in the story that are very, very important, because it is not just who is in the story, but where the story takes place that makes it fascinating. Jesus is at a well and it is not just any well; it is Jacob’s well. Any student of the Old Testament would immediately know where this was. This was a field that Jacob had purchased thousands of years earlier so that he could pitch his tent in the land of Canaan. This was the very first piece of real estate recorded in the Bible that any Jew ever owned in the promise land. You would think it would be a natural place for Jesus to visit – wrong.
Jesus was traveling north from Judea headed up to Galilee. Between those two regions was a territory known as Samaria. Even though it was the shortest path between Judea and Galilee, Jews never, ever, went through Samaria. If you accidentally put one foot on one square inch of Samaria you would never let anybody know it. For Jews, it was the other side of the tracks. It was no-man’s land. Any self-respecting Jew would always take a detour either to the west or to the east even if it added a day’s journey to keep from going through Samaria.
Why? Seven hundred years earlier the Assyrian Empire had invaded the northern territories of Israel, conquered it, took many of the Jewish people into exile, but in order to control the territory replaced them with Gentiles from other conquered territories. Gentiles began to intermarry with Jews and the Jewish race was virtually bread out of existence.
On the other hand, the Southern region of Israel known as Judah withstood this invasion and even though later they fell to the Babylonians they were not forced to intermarry. Southern Judah was represented by the pure race of Israel, while Northern Israel, known as Samaria, was populated by (excuse the term) half-breeds.
Even worse, the Samaritans out of their hatred for Jews and Judaism, rejected Jerusalem as the center of worship and built their own temple on Mt. Gerazim which happened to be the site of the original tabernacle. Fast forward to the time of Jesus and because of their inner-marriage and idolatry Samaritans were so gross to Jewish people they were seen as even lower than Gentiles. Between the Jew and the Samaritan was a fire of hostility and hatred that was so hot that to touch it meant a first-degree burn. For Jesus to be in Samaria at all was not only unusual, but it was bordering on scandalous! Samaria was considered a filthy, unclean area and the Samaritans were considered filthy, unclean people and a decent Jew wouldn’t be caught dead in Samaria. That is why it is so fascinating when John says, “And he had to pass through Samaria.” (John 4:4, ESV)
In fact to get to where he was going Jesus not only didn’t have to go through Samaria, but He shouldn’t have gone through Samaria (which tells us something). Sometimes the very places we think we should avoid are the very places God wants us to attend. It is in those places that divine encounters awhile us that God wants us to experience.
Jesus had to go through Samaria, not because of a place he had to go to and not because of a path He had to take, but because of a person he needed to meet. Now the story gets even more fascinating, because you won’t believe who Jesus was waiting to meet.
“Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (John 4:6-7, ESV)
Again, you’ve got to listen to the clues that John gives that tells why He did it. The sixth hour was at high noon and a woman, alone, comes to draw water. If you had lived back in that day, your eyebrows would have gone through the ceiling. Middle-eastern village women would always avoid the heat of the day. They would go and get water either early in the morning or just before sundown. For propriety sake, they would always go as a group. Never would they go alone. Because the jars were heavy when they were full and very difficult for a woman to lift on her head alone, they would help each other carry the water back to their homes. The fact that this woman comes at the worst time of the day and comes alone immediately tells us that she is a “bad” woman. She is an outcast. She is on the fringe. As you are going to see shortly, she was messed up.
What happens next is something that probably had not happened in Samaria for centuries and certainly had never happened to this woman. Jesus is sitting on top of the well. He gives this woman no choice, but to encounter Him. Yet, on seeing her, Jesus being a man, was expected to withdraw to a distance of at least twenty feet indicating it was both safe and appropriate for her to come to the well, but Jesus didn’t move. It is obvious He is waiting to meet her.
He then does the unspeakable by speaking to her. In that day, a man, particularly a stranger, not only would not talk to a woman, but he wouldn’t even make eye contact with her. Not only does Jesus break the sexual barrier He breaks the racial barrier. He ignores this 700-year hostility that had been going on between Jews and Samaritans and here is a Jewish man speaking to a Samaritan woman. That is why John adds this detail in verse 9.
“The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?’ (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)” (John 4:9, ESV)
She is saying in effect, “Are you blind? First of all, I am a woman and we know what the average man thinks of the average woman, but I am also a Samaritan.”
But that is just the point. It is amazing that Jesus choose this time, this place and this woman to have one of the greatest conversations He would ever have. She was the last person you would think you would ever talk to at the last place He would ever talk to anyone.
You are going to see in a moment this woman had a lot more baggage than just being a Samaritan woman. She was one messed up Samaritan woman, but just like that woman Jesus knows the worst about you and about me and yet He is still waiting to meet us. Jesus is not in the least bit bothered by who you are, what you’ve done, or what anybody else thinks of you. He is waiting to meet you.
If you are an unbeliever or not into church, would you just consider something? Is the reason why your friend invited you to church or the reason why that person has shared their faith with you or the reason why that person who moved in next door to you has shown a spiritual interest in you, is because it is really Jesus letting you know He is waiting to meet you? It gets better that that. For those of us who are messed up or we have messed up, not only should we understand that Jesus is waiting to meet us, but
II. We Should Believe That Jesus is willing to accept us.
John gives us another clue as to what this story is all about. Jesus begins by making an unbelievable request, “A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’” (John 4:7, ESV)
Jesus is asking a Samaritan for a drink out of her unclean, filthy, sin-contaminated Samaritan jug. Remember, Jewish men would have considered this woman lower than a tax collector, because she was a Samaritan and the lowest form of a Samaritan was a woman. Yet, here is a Jewish man speaking to her with respect and letting her know he would be honored to drink after her. For the first time in her life a man was not looking at her with the eyes of lust, but with the eyes of love.
Now, the story gets really interesting.
“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 nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.’”
(John 4:10-15, ESV)
Amazing! Where any other man who would have dared to talk to this woman would have had a sexual conversation, Jesus is having a spiritual conversation. On a dime, Jesus turns the entire conversation and situation completely around. At first, he was thirsty and she had the water, but now, He is about to show her she is the one really thirsty and He is the One that really has the water. She is thirstier than she even realizes and Jesus proves it by asking a question that Dr. Phil would have been proud of.
“Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come here.’ 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 now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.’” (John 4:16-18, ESV)
Now, we’ve got the full picture. Now we know why she came alone in the heat of the day.
Not only was she a woman, not only was she a Samaritan woman, but she was a five-time married Samaritan woman who was now living with a man who wasn’t even her husband. We don’t know why she had been married five times. Maybe all of her husbands had died, but even if that were the case and you met a woman and all five of her husbands died, would you marry her? I wouldn’t even date her! Maybe they ended in divorce. Maybe it was because the woman couldn’t have children. We aren’t really told, but here is woman who was a cross between Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, and Elizabeth Taylor. Now, that is messed up! Like a fly in a spider’s web she has been caught. There is no place to hide and nowhere to run. You’ve got to love the only thing she knows to say, “The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.’” (John 4:19, ESV)
You think! Brilliant deduction Sherlock! “You are a five time loser in marriage. You are now living with a man who is most likely married to someone else and he is just using you as a mistress on the side.” Now she is thinking to herself, “Well, now here it comes – the taunts, the putdowns, the “what-kind-of-mess-have-you-made-of-your-life lecture? She had heard it many times before and she braces herself. Instead, what ensues is a conversation about worshipping God. She changes the subject and Jesus lets her.
“The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 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 worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’” (John 4:19-24, ESV)
Jesus tells her something she never thought she would hear. Anybody, no matter what they’ve done, who they are, no matter how bad they have messed up can worship God if they do it in spirit and in truth. Jesus never brings up the woman’s past or present again. There was no look down your eyes at her condemnation and no holier than thou lecture. Jesus had just said to her in effect, “I know everything about you. I know how you’ve messed up and I know you are messed up, but I care about you. I love you and I accept you. I don’t care about where you’ve been. I care about where you can go, but you will never get to where you need to be if you don’t honestly admit where you are.”
Remember what I told you? If you will fess up to your mess up Jesus will clean your mess up. We live in a culture that teaches us to hide our mess-ups and to call them anything except mess-ups. We don’t sin – we make a mistake. We don’t steal – we just borrow for an unlimited time. Jesus is telling this woman and us that you will never get your messed cleaned up until you admit you are a mess that needs to be cleaned up.
Your life is an open book to Jesus. Your heart is an open window to Jesus. What you think you conceal and hide He sees in 3D IMAX. The skeletons in your closet hang like pictures on His wall, but He is willing to accept us anyway.
That woman came to that well that day after water, but what she needed to understand was it wasn’t just her throat that was dry, but it was her heart that was dry. That jug she was carrying represented the world’s water that will never satisfy our deepest thirst. Then, there was Jesus, the living water that can satisfy our deepest thirst. The last lesson tells us why any mess up can live happily ever after.
III. We Should Rejoice That Jesus Is Wanting To Change Us
Look at all the barriers that Jesus was willing to overcome just to meet this woman, to accept this woman, and to change this woman. He overcame the racial barrier between the Jews and the Samaritans to show that God will accept anybody. He overcame the moral barrier of her sexual past to show that God will accept anybody under any condition. He overcame the sexual barrier and showed that God’s love for men and women are completely equal. He overcame the geographical barrier and proved that anybody anywhere can worship God through Jesus Christ.
Then the conversation hits an astonishing climax.
“The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am he.’” (John 4:25-26, ESV)
What Jesus said in English is far more powerful in Greek, because what Jesus literally said was, “The One who is speaking to you is I am.” Anybody who knew the Old Testament would know that
“I am” is what God called Himself in the Old Testament. Jesus is not just claiming to be the Messiah (though He is), but He is claiming to be God. It is the single most incredible statement He ever made to anyone in His life. Never before in any biblical record had He ever come out so blatantly to anyone and declared exactly who He was and He doesn’t do it to a Jew, but He does it to a Samaritan. He doesn’t even do it to a Samaritan man, but to a Samaritan woman. He doesn’t even do it to a self-respecting, clean, pure Samaritan woman, but to a five-time married woman living with a man, not her husband. A total mess up! In that instant, she believed she was changed. How do you know?
“So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?’ They went out of the town and were coming to him.” (John 4:28-30, ESV)
Here is the first woman preacher in Christian history. She had come to get water that would quench the thirst in her throat for an hour or two. She left with water that had quenched the thirst of her heart forever. When you come to Jesus you never get what you come after. You get far more and far better than what you come after. This woman had been looking for temporary happiness; Jesus gave her permanent joy. The world had offered this woman a momentary thrill and Jesus had given her a lifetime change. Men had offered her one-night stands, but Jesus had given her an eternal relationship.
She leaves behind her water jar, goes into town, meets with the leaders of the community and testifies about Jesus. There are a couple of amazing things about that.
She told them that Jesus knew everything she ever did. She was no longer trying to hide her past, because her past had been forgiven. Jesus had replaced her guilt with His grace. Jesus had replaced her mess up with His clean up.
What is even more amazing is the men of the town listened to her! Five minutes before they wouldn’t have given her the time of day and if they had it would have been for the wrong reason. Normally, they would have blown her off, but not this time. Why? Something was different. She was different. This woman, who had been used by so many men for their own pleasure, was now being used by God for His glory.
“Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, ‘He told me all that I ever did.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there 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 indeed the Savior of the world.’” (John 4:39-42, ESV)
These Samaritan men who deep down had the same hang ups and the same mess ups this woman had -second-class citizens, unclean in the eyes of their Jewish half-brothers, not welcomed in Jerusalem the spiritual capital of the world said to themselves, “If Jesus accepted her, maybe He will accept us. If Jesus changed her maybe He can change us.” They came to this conclusion, “…and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” (John 4:42, ESV)
From that moment on, those Samaritans didn’t just love Jesus, but they loved Jews. They realized that Jesus is for everybody - the messed up, the stressed out, or the dressed-down.
No, Jesus really didn’t have to go through Samaria. He chose to go to an out-of-the-way-town to extend God’s grace and love to an out-of-the-way-woman. When she first met Jesus she had a messed up past, living in a messed up present, and all she had to look forward to was a messed up future. Because of Jesus, her past had been forgiven, her present had been transformed, and her future was secure all because she was finally willing to admit she had been thirsty all of her life, because she had been drinking the wrong kind of water. One thing that you will always need to clean up a mess is water. That is why Jesus said, “Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’”John 4:13-14, ESV)
You have a choice. If you are messed up you can continue to drink the world’s water, but all it will do is simply make you more thirsty, dehydrate your heart, and you will never find satisfaction. If you drink the living water you will never thirst again, because when you fess up your mess up, Jesus will clean your mess up.
