Life as a Fountain
“Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” — John iv 14.
I IS nine months’ tour in Judasa was too successful to please the Pharisees; and it became necessary for our Lord to transfer the scene of his ministrations to Galilee, where the authority of the Sanhedrim was less rigorous, and the people were liberalised by the larger admixture of Gentile residents. There were two roads thither from Jerusalem, the circuitous one along the Jordan valley, and the more direct one through Samaria. Jesus selected the latter for reasons which dated from the council-chamber of eternity.
It was the month of January. The weather bright and warm the copses vocal with sweet-voiced birds; the brooks murmuring along their beds; the pasture-lands bright with flowers; and all the land astir with the sounds of industrious toil. After a morning’s walk, about noon, the little band reached the neck of a narrow valley that lay between the mountains of Ebal and Gerizim. And there the embrasure of an ancient well lent a ready resting-place for the Master; whilst his disciples went forward to the town of Sychar, lying some mile and a half further up the valley, to purchase food.
He sat there, deeply musing on the beauties of the scenery and the historic associations of the place, and in fellowship with his Father. Few came to the well at that hour, though later it was thronged with women, bringing their pitchers to obtain a supply of water for their homes. But, presently, the solitude was broken by a woman of Samaria, who, avoiding her sex came at an hour when she would be unobserved, and escape the taunt, the sneer, the averted look, of those who had not fallen, perhaps because they had never been tempted, as she had. To this woman, on that spot, our Lord spake words which are immortal.
That well-head is, indeed, a pulpit from which He addresses all who wearily seek after life and joy and blessedness, bidding them to Himsel£
I. The Contrasts of this Chapter. — He is evidently under constraint, for the word must (4) is applied to Him; yet He speaks with the accent of unhmited prerogative.
He is weary; yet He proposes to give rest from heavy burdens and wearisome pilgrimages (15).
He asks for a drink of water; yet He offers to set flowing wells and fountains of water (10).
He is a suppliant for the gifts of another; yet He talks of being able to give with unlimited munificence (14).
He is an obscure stranger; yet He is greater than the venerable patriarch whose name had lingered for long centuries round that spot (12).
He hungers; yet He eats of meat of which no one knows, and finds sustenance in the act of doing the will of his Father
(34).
He is surrounded by the signs of sowing time; yet He proclaims that He is amid the joys of harvest (35).
But chief among these contrasts is the one drawn by Himself between the cool, deep, dark depths of Jacob’s well, about a hundred and fifty feet below, and the springs or fountains which He was prepared to open up in the heart of this woman, and of whomsoever else He could induce to accept them.
TAe “/t’vz’no- water” should be a fountain. — At the best the water in Jacob’s well was stagnant; but this should rise up with all the spontaneity and freshness of a spring, whose sources lie far up among the hills, and which is ever flashing up with graceful beauty from the surface of the ground.
// should be within. — The inhabitants of Sychar, like us, had to go out to get their supplies. Like the woman, they all (Bttvnal ant ^afisfgittg. 95
went thither to draw; they have thus become types of all the world (for it is the universal habit of men to go outside themselves for their delights and pleasures); but this should be within, like those springs of water in the castles of Edinburgh and Dover, which are beyond the reach of the invader, and flow with perennial blessing for the beleaguered garrisons (14).
// should be eternal. — Jacob’s well would dwindle in its supplies, choked with stones and debris; but this would rise up in the hearts where it was opened, unaltered by the flight of years, unstanched by summer’s heat or winter’s frost, descending from the timeless life, and returning to it again, eternal as the nature of God (14).
// should be satisjyino. — ^’■Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again,” is a legend that might be engraved on the low stone wall of Jacob’s well; and equally on every theatre, and other place of worldly amusement or sin, the votaries of which get sips, not draughts: but this would satisfy. In the failure of human love, in the absence of blessed friendships and companionships, in the subsidence of every Cherith brook, those who received what He longed to bestow should never thirst.
Oh, brother-men, have ye received this blessed gift, with its fresh spontaneousness, its inner hidden blessedness, its eternal timeless essence, its power of entire satisfaction? If not, why not seek forthwith from Him by faith a boon so inexpressibly precious, to have which were to make wildernesses flower and deserts sing? How foolish to barter this for jewels, pearls, or gold; for earthly delights; for worldly success!
And if you ask me what it is which He describes under this charming imagery, I reply. It is true religion; nay, better, it is the love of God in the soul; nay, best of all, it is Himself. Jesus in the heart — living there by the power of the Holy Spirit; descending thither in great humility; and rising up in us ever fresh, ever refreshing, ever fertilising, amid the droughts and desolations and wildernesses of our mortal life.
II. The Independence of Christ. — (i) He is independent of race. — It was of no consequence to Him that this woman was a Samaritan, He being a Jew. At one bound He overleaped the barriers of national prejudice, and offered his most precious wares to an alien. He is the Son of Man, and deals with that one human heart which beats under all breasts alike. In Him is neither Jew nor Gentile. His Gospel, like bread, water, spring flowers, love, is independent of race.
(2) He is independent of religious bigotry. — In the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, these mongrel Samaritans had sought to be included with the Jewish people; a proposal which met with strong rebuffs. They resented the affront; built a temple of their own at Gerizim to rival that at Jerusalem; claimed for their mountain a superior holiness to that of Zion; favoured the Romans because the Jews hated them; and even defiled the Jewish temple by scattering bones there at the time of the Passover. The Jews therefore had no dealings with the Samaritans, and held that salvation was only from themselves.
But the Lord Jesus brushed all this aside, as a man might a cobweb swinging across a garden pathway. What were these distinctions to Him, so long as those who sought the Father did so in spirit and in truth? (24). The flock was more to Him than the folds; the army than the device on the banner of any single regiment. And so it will be with us, in proportion as we partake of his spirit. Surely the time is coming when we shall see Christians of all schools drawing into an outward unity, and viewing with comparative indifference the various names by which they have been tarred.
(3) He is independent of character. — The people who possess a character of which they are proud, who can produce first-rate testimonials as to their flawless conduct, and who can trace back a long pedigree of religious ancestry, do not stand so good a chance with Him as this woman did; because, though hitherto she had been abandoned and fallen, yet of late there had been gleams of desire for better things, which proved her capacity for the richest bestowments that He could make. It is to the worthless, and sick, and hopeless, that our Lord is primarily sent.
(4) He is independent of payment. — “The water that I shall give.^ The white-robed company clustering around the throne cannot give it, nor the morning stars that rejoiced over the birthday of the young world; nor the venerable elders; nor the living creatures with their ceaseless chant. But the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne pours forth its ceaseless floods from the very heart of that throne. And He can give, because He gave Himself up to the death of the cross. By the agony that issued in the cry, “I thirst,” He was enabled to open fountains adequate to banish thirst from the universe of God.
(5) He is independent of apparatus. — “Thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.” Yes, it is deep — deep as the nature of God; as his deep tilings; as the excellent height of glory; as the bottomless pit of human need; but He needs nothing with which to draw the waters. He speaks, and it is done. He utters his voice, and the earth melts. He breathes a wish, and life pours into the sea of death, and sweeps it away for ever.
III. The Probing of the Sinner’s Heart. — “Go, call thy husband!” What a train of memory that word evoked! Beneath its spell, she was back long years; again an innocent girl, courted by him in the sunny vineyards of Gerizim; going with him to his home as his loving wife. Then perhaps there came a growing coldness, leading to alienation and dislike, ending in infidelity. That husband might have died of a broken heart. She had tried to banish his memory and his face, though they would haunt her. What a spasm of remorse and fear seized her, as she remembered that grave within her heart, where her first love lay buried, trampled down by the unholy crew of wilder later passions!
But why awake such memories? Why open the cupboard door and bid that skeleton step down? Why unsod that grave? Why lay bare that life-secret? It could not be otherwise. The wound must be probed to the bottom and cleansed, ere it could be healed. There must be confession before forgiveness. The sin had to be called to remembrance, ere the son could be raised from death by the prophet’s hand. This woman must
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judge her past sins in the light of those pure eyes, ere she could know the bhss of the fountain opened within the soul.
So it must be with us, if we would have the living water. Go, call thy husband; pay back those dishonest gains; make up that long-standing feud; recal those violent, uncharitable words; summon husband, wife, child, that bright-eyed boy whom you misled, that pure fame you tarnished, that nature, like virgin snow, which you trampled under foot. Call them, I say. Will they not come? Then call them louder and louder yet. Ah, they cannot come; they will never come till summoned by the archangel’s voice! But, though //ley come not, Jesus says to thee, “Come hither.” At his feet there is forgiveness and plenteous redemption. His hands can scatter benediction. His lips are laden with messages of comfort and peace.
But there must be complete confession. — “The woman said, I have no husband.” It was quite true; but there was a further truth. She was living in illicit union with one not her husband, having had five husbands. Ah these fatal secrets which no man has the right to pry into! — shame bids us hide them; but in dealing with the great High Priest we must not hide or cloak one of them.
If we will not do this of our own accord. He will do it for us, extracting the whole black story from our lips by questions; or Himself telling us, as He did this woman, the naked story of the past. Nothing that has ever occurred in our lives has escaped the keen notice of Christ, or been forgotten by Him; and here or hereafter we must hear every detail told with circumstantial clearness by his lips. But it is a thousand times better to hear it now, when the dread recital may be followed by the loving announcement: “Thy sins, which were many, are all forgiven thee.”
How we wince when our Lord comes into such close quarters with us! — as the bloodshot eye dreads the light, or the broken iimb evades the touch, or the bankrupt hides his ledgers. Like this woman, we start some old worn-out theological controversy, to put Him off the scent (20). There are plenty of people who spend their lives in theological disputes and (itottf£saitt0 in. 99
refinements, because in this way they dexterously manage to pass muster as religious people; though, all the while, they dread anything like definite appeals to their hearts.
But when the ordeal has been borne, and the confession made, the soul receives the blessed inrush of the living water; and, unable to contain itself, speeds to tell the wondrous story to those who have been most familiar with its former life; and, as it narrates the marvellous experience of what it has discovered Christ to be, a whole cityful of people are stirred with the throb of genuine revival, and hasten to the feet of Him who is Priest and Prophet both — Prophet to tell us of all things that ever we did, and Priest to absolve.