Sermon: April 19, 2026

John 4:3-39 – The Woman at the Well

Sermon by Mark Elliott Miller, Presented at Eastman First Methodist Church, 4/19/26

Good morning. It’s a great day to be in the House of the Lord. I’d like to begin my teaching by asking two questions…First, reflecting on where you are in your relationship with God, does it feel more like digging a well to reach hidden reserves or drinking from a bubbling spring? Next, are you comfortable with your intimacy with God or do you desire more or less intimacy in this season of your life? These are two questions I and a group of other men were asked in a transformation group I attend online. There are no right or wrong answers, but I challenge you to think about these questions as you seek to draw closer to God.

Water is something we often take for granted. We turn on the faucet in our house or the spigot outside and water flows freely. At times, we face droughts and water becomes more precious as we seek to conserve this resource. Farmers’ livelihoods depend on water to nurture their crops. In scripture we learn of the significance of living water through the eyes of a Samaritan woman as she encounters Jesus at a well.

Please rise if you are able as we read John 4:3-39.

Jesus Talks with a Samaritan Woman

4  ³ So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. ⁴ Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. ⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ⁸ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” ¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” ¹⁶ He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” ¹⁷ “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. ¹⁸ The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” ¹⁹ “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” ²¹ “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴ God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” ²⁵ The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

²⁶ Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

The Disciples Rejoin Jesus

²⁷ Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”²⁸ Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” ³⁰ They came out of the town and made their way toward him.³¹ Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”³³ Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”³⁴ “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. ³⁵ Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. ³⁶ Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. ³⁷ Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. ³⁸ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

Many Samaritans Believe

³⁹ Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”

THE WORD OF GOD FOR HIS PEOPLE. THANKS BE TO GOD.

Jesus revealed himself to a woman who most likely was not an upstanding member of local society. She had a history of five husbands and lived with a man outside of holy matrimony. She was a Samaritan; a group not held in high esteem by Jews at the time. Yet Jesus knew she thirsted for the Messiah. He knew her heart.

This story illustrates the growth of a soul in the knowledge of Christ. As we focus more closely on the scripture, in Verse 9, she declares, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” How dare a Jew ask a favor from her! We can almost see the sneer on her lips. Then, in Verse 11, her tone softens, she becomes inquisitive, and we see a sign of respect. “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?” In Verse 19, a sense of reverence arises. “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.” Then, in Verse 29, Jesus’ words and presence finally pieced the armor of her soul. She runs to her neighbors and testifies: “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 

The Samaritan woman asked questions of Jesus because she could not rationalize how God loved her so much that his only son would go out of his way into a community that the Jewish people hated, only to forgive her sins at the well. 

Do you know a woman or man today who has a similar rocky road they travel? Are they wounded by poor life choices? Do they know that all sins are forgiven through Jesus Christ or do they feel unworthy of God’s grace?

Reflecting on where you are in your relationship with God, does it feel more like digging a well to reach hidden reserves or drinking from a bubbling spring? I believe the Samaritan woman at the well would say: “Yesterday I was endlessly digging a well and searching for forgiveness. I got so dirty. I became exhausted. I finally gave up and went home to be alone. Today, I met Jesus and received living water from a bubbling stream that will never go dry. My soul is clean. I have hope for the future. And I’ll never be lonely again.”

In my men’s group, when it was my turn to answer this question, I said my relationship with God is more like digging a well to reach hidden reserves than drinking from a bubbling stream. I, like some of you, want to dig a deep well where the purest, most delicious water can be found. This makes sense on an earthly level, but not on a spiritual one.

God gave us his only son so we could be forgiven for our imperfections and never thirst again. Through Christ, you and I can savor the refreshment of a bubbling stream in this life and through eternity.

And are you comfortable with your intimacy with God or do you desire more or less intimacy in this season of your life? I consciously changed my relationship with God last November when I became a Global Methodist Church Lay Minister, started a New Year’s Resolution in January to read the Bible every morning with the goal of completing it at year-end, and continue to pray every night before I go to sleep. This is my plan for greater intimacy with the Triune God.

As we close, I pray that each of us will have our thirst quenched by a father who loves us more than we can imagine. I pray that we can receive God’s grace and, most importantly, share Him with everyone we meet. Amen.