Are You Thirsty? - The Dry Heart
- Paul Downie
- Mar 30
- 13 min read
John 4:16-18 NIVUK
[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.’
I recently read two news stories that tell you everything you need to know about where our culture is at right now.
Firstly, dating apps and sites fear a massive loss of members due to the use of AI, filters and editing in profiles. People are shunning these services because they can’t believe anything they see online anymore.
Secondly, and perhaps in relation to the first one, people are increasingly turning to AI powered apps that mimic a romantic partner to find love. They are, quite simply, falling in love with an online server, instead of becoming involved in the altogether messier process of getting to know a human being.
We are one messed up people.
To quote American alt-rock band Switchfoot, ‘Look what a mess we’ve made of love’.
But before we stand in judgement on our culture, we need to remember that it was always this way – and perhaps even worse. Human beings have been making a mess of love since the Fall.
Consider Abraham who, for all his status as patriarch of three world religions and a great hero of faith, married one woman, took another wife, who was mistreated by his first wife (Genesis 16:1-6), sent away his second wife with her son (Genesis 21:8-14), and then took a third wife (Genesis 25:1).
Consider Jacob. Oh, Jacob! There was a man whose love life could have bettered any soap opera. Four wives. Thirteen kids. Chaos up to his ears (Genesis 29:14-35, 30:1-24, 35:16-18).
Consider Judah. Got married to one wife – an improvement. Had three boys. Better. Loses two because they were evil. Less good.
Then he sleeps with a ‘prostitute’ who happens to be his daughter-in-law (Genesis 38).
You couldn’t make it up.
Consider Moses. It took the intervention of his father-in-law to save his marriage (Exodus 18).
Consider David. He was already married to at least three women and lost one of them (1 Samuel 25:39-44), but that did not stop him taking the wife of one of his best warriors and arranging for her husband’s death (2 Samuel 11). On top of this, he also had a harem of concubines (2 Samuel 16:21-22).
Consider Solomon. He had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (1 Kings 11:3). And this is the guy who famously prayed for wisdom from God (1 Kings 3:4-9) and built the Temple of Jerusalem (1 Kings 6). So it seems to me that clearly that wisdom was applied to time management, but maybe not so much in other areas of his life.
These are all great leaders and father figures in Biblical history. All of them – every single one of them – had a messed up love life. That doesn’t make it right. Of course it doesn’t. It’s just plain wrong.
But it puts into some context the messy love life this woman had.
Because we see reflections of this in modern culture, especially the lives of the rich and (in)famous. They ‘fall in love’ with someone. They are together with them for a while. The ardour dims. Then they are tossed aside like a dirty rag and divorce lawyers buy a yacht.
This woman doesn’t seem to be a woman of any great financial heft. But something has gone very badly wrong in her love life. And it is that we will examine in this post, as we firstly look at The Missing Man.
The Missing Man
John 4:16-17 NIVUK
[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.
Now, here is where our twenty-first century cultural lens might cause us to misinterpret a first century situation.
We cannot conceive of a situation where a man and a woman should not be able to talk, especially in a public place. We see nothing wrong with it – in general.
In fact, in 2019, Republican politician Robert Foster refused to travel with a female political reporter unless she had a chaperone out of respect for his wife and to avoid any accusations of impropriety, and he was accused of sexism. Most people saw absolutely nothing wrong with it at all.
Yet in Jesus’ day it was highly inappropriate. In many ways, it would have made her situation much worse, because, as we have seen, she was already not exactly in a brillian position.
So Jesus requiring her to get her husband is actually highly appropriate. It protected both His reputation and hers from accusations of immorality or impropriety.
And we should see this not as act of chauvinism, but of charity. Her reputation seems to already be mud – why else would she be collecting water at midday? She is also plainly aware of the issue. So Jesus treating her gently, with respect and honour, is quite something.
Of course, there is a glaring problem: she has no husband.
And for most women that would have been highly problematic.
I know all about Proverbs 31:10-31 – the depiction of a wife of noble character. I’m sure some women nowadays would find this very hard to take. After all, what we have depicted is an almost impossible standard to reach: a woman who is a skilled mother, home-maker, craftswoman, businesswoman, teacher... It seems impossible that anyone could possibly do all those things.
A woman like that would be independent, though, wouldn’t she? She wouldn’t really need a husband.
However, I think this description was likely given to King Lemuel by his mother to prevent him from marrying badly. It made sure that he married someone who was worthy of the title of queen. Given he was royalty, we can understand why such a standard was necessary.
But back in Jesus’ day, I think it’s pretty safe to say that most women – or even most men – would not be able to meet that lofty standard. And so, in common with many women in the first century Middle East, this woman would have been dependant on her husband to provide for her.
Yet she had none.
So this was, for her, a very difficult situation.
But this wasn’t just a case of the missing man, it was also a case of The Many Men.
The Many Men
John 4:17-18 NIVUK
[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.’
The legendary Hungarian actress Zsa Zsa Gabor was known as much for her love life as much as her acting. She accumulated nine husbands before she died.
But then, that’s what famous people do, don’t they? They accumulate spouses or romantic partners like trophies and throw them aside when they lose their shine. And we think nothing of it.
But let me explain a little simple mathematics to you. In Genesis we read this text:
Genesis 2:23-24 NIVUK
[23] The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called “woman”, for she was taken out of man.’ [24] That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
So, you have two people and they unite to become one person.
Tear them apart and what do you have?
Two people?
How can you? You are dividing one person into two!
No, what results is two half-people.
Now let’s take one of those half-people and unite them with another half-person. So now you have one person, right?
Wrong! When we united our first two people, they were two people and they became one. So by the same logic, what do you have when you unite two half-people?
One half-person.
Tear then apart and what do you have?
Two quarter-persons.
Okay, my logic might not completely hold. If it did, all that would be left of Zsa Zsa Gabor would be a painted toenail.
But the point I’m trying to make is that uniting in marriage and disuniting in divorce does not build people up, it diminishes them. If does not strengthen them, it weakens them. It does not help them get richer, it impoverishes them.
Why?
Because after each break-up, they leave a little of themselves behind
To say nothing of the havoc and the damage they wreak on their family.
That is why Jesus told His disciples that divorce should be out except in cases of marital unfaithfulness (Matthew 5:31-32, 19:1-12; Mark 10:1-12; Luke 16:18). And look how the disciples reacted – with shock. Why?
Because even in those days it was customary for a man to discard his wife like a dirty shirt.
But Jesus was firm: among His followers it was not to be that way. It was one man, one woman, for life.
Then we go back to this Samaritan woman.
Now, I know that nowadays we are taught not to judge. And there is a lot of truth in that (Matthew 7:1-5). We should not judge. I agree.
But we cannot suspend our critical faculties and simply agree with everything, when it’s as plain as the nose on our face that something is just wrong. This generation has done enormous wrong and permitted enormous damage to happen to people simply because, in their worldview, they had no right to disagree.
But I’m a balding man in his upper forties from another generation, so I am going to say it: I do not agree. What has happened to this woman is wrong. It is hurtful. It is painful. I don’t doubt for a second that it diminished her as a person.
It is wrong.
Note that I didn’t say ‘she is wrong’.
We don’t have enough information to apportion blame for her broken marriages. It could be that she was just a spectacularly poor wife. Or could also be that she’d married spectacularly poor husbands. It could be that she was spectacularly unfortunate and that all of them had died. We just don’t know.
All that Jesus said is that she had married five separate men and now was with none of them. He did not respond in judgement. He did not apportion blame. He did not point the finger.
He simply stated what had happened and left it at that.
This isn’t even a one-off. Jesus often met with people whose personal situation was a bit of a mess: tax collectors, prostitutes, a woman caught in adultery. Not once – one even one time – is Jesus ever recorded as giving them a lecture on their morality.
But He really has a go at religious hypocrites (Matthew 23).
Jesus does not see this woman as someone who should be condemned.
That’s not to say that He agrees with and condones what has happened to her. It would be the utmost hypocrisy to agree with it in Samaria, but condemn divorce in Judea.
Jesus neither came to this to condemn nor condone, but to save people from their sin (John 3:17-18). All people. Including this woman.
And this presents a huge challenge to the church. Personal and love lives these days are incredibly messed up. That is the reality.
The son of friends of ours discovered this when he dipped his toe into on-line dating. He was looking for a potential long-term partner. What he got instead was a huge number of girls who were only looking for a one night stand.
I have even heard of families and friends holding interventions – as if for drug addicts or alcoholics – with people whose dating practices have become dangerous.
And do you know something? Increasingly people like these will end up in churches: broken, bruised and not knowing where to turn, their reputation in tatters, their relationships in pieces.
So what will we do?
Will we approach them like Jesus?
Apart from the missing man and the many men, we also see The Unmarried Man.
The Unmarried Man
John 4:17-18 NIVUK
[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.’
Here, again, we see a hot topic on which Christians have preached and pontificated for a long time: cohabitation.
Speaking as someone who has been around churches pretty much since I was born, I get it.
It’s not God’s ideal. It absolutely gives the wrong impression. Nowadays, it’s tolerated to the point of being normalised.
It would rarely happen in Jesus’ day – certainly in Judea. It would have been looked down upon most severely.
Judging by the fact that this woman feels it necessary to fetch water during the heat of the day, I think it’s relatively safe to say that it wasn’t exactly condoned in Samaria either.
Both cultures considered it to be wrong.
Legally, it was also quite questionable. Marriage wasn’t as legally protective as it is here. If secular UK law makes a difference between married and cohabiting couples – and it does – then it’s safe to assume that the differences in Levitical and Samaritan law were even greater.
Remember: Jesus went even further than Rabbinical law. He said that a single act of divorce, followed by remarriage, would cause either the man or the woman to become guilty of adultery (Matthew 5:32; Mark 10:10-12), because in His eyes, marriage is for life, with the caveat of unfaithfulness.
This woman has been through five such marriages, and is now cohabiting with a man with whom she is not married. In the eyes of Jewish law, this is adultery. Adultery, again under Jewish law, was a capital offence (Leviticus 20:10).
Jesus knows it is happening. He knows it is continuing to happen.
Yet He does not condemn her.
Not because He is condoning it. He wouldn’t. Jewish law condemned it outright. But He did not condemn her because He wanted to save her.
There is also another side to this – something where we Christians must learn to react with compassion and understanding. This woman has endured five failed marriages. We have no idea what went wrong. Jesus knew. He knew full well. But He didn’t say.
If she has tried something five times and it hasn’t worked, surely we can understand why she is very reluctant to try it again?
I don’t doubt for one second that this encounter would have been highly controversial back in Judea, and for multiple reasons: her religion, her race, her situation. There was so much that would militate against Jesus having anything to do with this woman.
Yet there He is, in open conversation with her as if nothing is wrong, while acknowledging that it absolutely is; not condemning her at all, but gently trying to move her towards the realisation that He has something far superior for her.
We will struggle to find a better model for evangelism in modern culture than this.
Conclusion
John 4:13-15 NIVUK
[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.’
A burning question that should be in our minds as we read this is ‘Why did this woman end up with five failed marriages?’
And the truth is: we don’t know.
But there is one very big reason why some marriages fail which may apply here.
Imagine a young couple, in first flush of their relationship. Romantic gestures are frequent. They seem completely entranced with their beloved. Both sides feel wanted and needed and loved and respected.
And valued.
As time goes on, maybe financial issues set in. And family responsibilities. And energy. And the pressures of life. They are not so romantic anymore. Life is a challenge. A strain.
They feel less wanted or needed or loved or respected.
Or valued.
It might not be true. It might be far from the truth. But in the battle stations of life it becomes way more difficult to express these things. So they go unexpressed.
And what happens?
A reckoning takes place. And then a transaction. A terrible transaction that is used to justify something God says is unjustifiable. The person who feels unvalued and unloved simply turns aside to find value and love from elsewhere.
Please don’t think for one second that I am excusing infidelity. I absolutely am not. Neither am I victim-blaming.
But what I am pointing out is that when romantic, considerate gestures take place, we feel valued and respected.
However, if we depend on them to feel valued and respected, it could be that we were seeking from people the validation we should be seeking from God. It could be that we are anchoring our self-esteem to what other people think of us and how they treat us, instead of to what God thinks about us and says about us.
That is not a good idea. It is like anchoring a tanker to a plate of jelly. It won’t work. It can’t work.
All that will happen is that we will place a burden on the shoulders of our partner that they were not made to carry. The end result of that is someone breaking – potentially us – and the marriage crumbling.
If our need for romance is what drives our sense of self-worth, then as soon as we hit the point when its embers start to wane, we will cast our spouse aside and find someone else who will give us those feelings. We will go back to the romance well again, and again, and again, and again, until eventually that well will run dry.
The Beatles were wrong. Love is not all you need.
Jesus is.
This woman had kept coming and coming again to romantic relationships with men, even though her previous one ended badly. She was treating the men like she treated that well – she kept coming back for more even though her thirst was never quenched. That was why she came to the well at midday to collect water: there was a missing man in her life. There had been many men, but now she was with an unmarried man.
And still she was thirsty.
But Jesus came to give her the one thing that would quench her thirst: a new identity as a vessel for living water that would flow into her and through her and out of her to affect others.
She would cease to be someone who lived her life to gain significance and purpose and identity and value from others.
She would find them all in Jesus Christ.
Which is the best place of all.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I see now the absolute folly in defining my self-esteem in the broken mirror of other people’s opinions of me – not even in love. Help me to find myself in You and You alone, and to care about what You think of me more than any other. Amen.
Questions
How many husbands had this woman had? Why was that significant? Who was she living with now?
Why did Jesus not judge her for this, since, by law, she was in the wrong? What can we learn from this?
What difference do you think Jesus would make to her life and why?
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