The Woman at the Well

When God Meets Us in Our Hiding Places: Lessons from a Thirsty Woman

Year A: Third Sunday of Lent

Exodus 17:1–7; Psalm 95; Romans 1:16–32; John 4:5–42 

The Purpose Behind Our Spiritual Struggles

         How is your Lenten discipline going this year? Are you crushing it with a sense of "Man! I never really needed that anyway! Good riddance!" Or perhaps you're in that space of saying, "oh wait. It's Lent. I totally forgot I had given up social media"? Maybe you're somewhere in between, feeling "a deep sense of longing for whatever you gave up."

         This morning—the third Sunday in Lent—"we find ourselves nearing, if you can believe it, the midway point of this Lenten season and its discipline." And wherever you find yourself in your spiritual journey, I want you to know something profound: God doesn't meet us in our cleaned-up, shiny perfection. He meets us in our need, our hiding places, and our sinful reactions to both. Whether you're feeling triumphant, neglectful, or guilty about your Lenten practices, "you're in good company. Each of these mentioned was present in Adam and Eve in the garden after they ate the forbidden fruit."

         You see, "these practices of deprivation, supplication, and donation are meant—like all means of grace that we employ in the Christian life—to reveal to us before God the true state of our hearts and where our treasure lies." They're not meant to make us feel superior or defeated, but rather "to be the means whereby God brings forth out of us a clearer sense of our need for Him and His remaking work in our souls and bodies."

         Think of it this way: "These disciplines we employ are meant to serve as a sort of sounding down into the depths of our souls. Because the Spirit of God is down there, and Romans 8 tells us that the Spirit there searches our hearts and gives wordless voice before God to the things down in those depths."

A Woman's Journey from Shame to Freedom

         This brings us to one of the most beautiful encounters in Scripture—Jesus meeting a Samaritan woman at a well, recorded in John 4:5-42. This woman, whose name we never learn, provides us with a powerful picture of how God meets us in our hiding.

         "It is not difficult to argue that this Samaritan woman has come to the well in this moment as a way of hiding. At the sixth hour, it is nearing the heat of the day and a time when most would be taking a break from work—much like Jesus was doing as he rested from his travels." But this woman chose the most uncomfortable time to do "this difficult work of drawing water from a deep well not when others would be there, but perhaps when she was pretty sure she would not have to interact with anyone else."

The Conversation That Changes Everything

         When Jesus speaks to her of water, she's confused—because he isn’t really talking about physical water. "Jesus is, of course, speaking of spiritual water—or more specifically, the Holy Spirit Himself as we learn just a few chapters later in John 7:39 when this living water is equated with the Holy Spirit."

         "And as Jesus offers her this everlasting thirst-quenching, she opens her hot, weary shamefulness to him as she asks for this water to save her from the toil of coming to that place in this way to gather water for herself. Here is the sounding down into the depths of her soul."

         But then Jesus does the unexpected: "Jesus responds by bringing up her sin and her shame. Here is the reason why she comes to this deep well at such an arduous and lonely time. He brings her out of hiding and shines light upon her brokenness and need."

God's Pattern Throughout History

         This is the way God often works. Look at the Israelites in our reading from Exodus 17:1-7. "He has done the miraculous and saved them from the incredibly powerful Egyptians; he has fed them with the miracle of manna—the bread of the angels that descends upon the earth like dew to feed them. And how do they respond? With gratitude and praise? No, with grumbling and complaining."

         God had just delivered them through incredible miracles—turning the Nile to blood, parting the Red Sea, providing food in the desert. Yet "their hearts habituated by their slavery in Egypt reveal them to be actually longing to go back into bondage."

         How does God respond to their thankless grumbling? He graciously “gives them what they need: water out of a rock in the middle of the desert, and eventually, just a few chapters later, His very self through his covenantal offering at Mount Sinai."

Worship in Spirit and Truth

         Returning to the woman at the well, we see Jesus leading her in the same way. "He has led her into the truth of herself; he has called out of her very spirit the true worship in the truth of who he is in the truth of who she is. Here is the worship in spirit and truth: from the fullness of who we truly are in the depths of our spirits in the worship of who he truly is in our desperate need for him."

         Jesus wasn't content to leave her in shame. "He despised that shame in her just as he despised it in all of us such that he took up the cross to defeat it." And in the climax of their conversation, he reveals himself to her: "I who speak to you am he."

The Gospel We Need Not Be Ashamed Of

         This connects directly to Paul's words in Romans 1:16-32. Paul, "no longer a murderous, self-righteous Pharisee, he is not ashamed of his weakness and desperate need for God." And when he lists various sins in Romans 1, he provides us “with a litany such that each of us ought to find our weakness included there somewhere." Paul is building toward the truth "that 'all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.' We were made for glory and we have exchanged that glory for the empty promises of the world, the fleeting pleasures of the flesh, and the wily prevarication of the devil and his minions."

The Transformation That Follows Truth

         "But these truths of ourselves are not the end." The wrath we deserve, God "has taken into Himself by taking upon Himself a body capable of death. Death is the wages of our sins, and He who is life itself, the living water that springs up to eternal life, assumed a body for the express purpose of showing us life and taking upon Himself the death that we all have earned for ourselves."

         Look at what happened to the Samaritan woman after her encounter with Jesus: "Her shame is gone, and she comes out of hiding from the people in her community. 'Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did' she declares to them. Her shameful past lies open before her as she admits that it is through this god-man's sight of it that she has found a new freedom." Her spirit has come alive in the Holy Spirit.

Putting It Into Practice

         As we continue through Lent, "let us follow her in the way we employ our Lenten disciplines."

·      Embrace Your Need

"Let us allow this season to lead us into penitence for the way we love the fat and rich foods we gave up for Lent. We love our televisions, our social media, and all the other distractions that draw us from the love of God." Don't be ashamed of discovering how much you think you need these things—let that revelation drive you to God.

·      Stop Hiding

Like the woman at the well, many of us cover our struggles even from ourselves due to our guilt and shame. "Let us, each one of us, not be content as this Samaritan woman most surely was, to live in shame and fear, hiding and covering our sin from ourselves and those around us."

·      Allow the Spirit to Search Your Heart

"The Spirit through these disciplines—these soundings into the depths of our souls—stirs up those depths to cleanse them with the living water of Himself." Don't resist when God's Spirit reveals areas that need His touch.

·      Become a Spring, Not Just a Well

The goal isn't to keep God's grace to ourselves. When we receive His living water, it "becomes now no longer a deep well, but a spring that lies on the surface, such that the water flows out from us to all those around us in the love of God and the love of neighbor."

"This is the gospel of which we are not to be ashamed, my friends." Come to God in your honest need. "Come, in the light having been shown all that you ever did, and receive the only thing that really satisfies."