Water and Marriage

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today you have heard about the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. Like most of the vignettes in the Gospels, a great deal of ink has been spilled in attempting to tease out the meaning and significance of this account.

The structure of this account bears striking similarities to the account of Abraham's servant seeking out Rebekah for marriage to Isaac. Only here the bridegroom is not the far-off son of an unknown master, but the Great Bridegroom Himself, the very Son of God, only-begotten of His Father from all eternity. And the Bride is not just one beautiful woman, but the one most desirable to the Bridegroom – the bride whom He has washed clean and sanctified by His own blood and with His innocent suffering and death.

Today, our Lord gives us a lesson in the importance of the Church. This unnamed Samaritan woman whom our Lord courts, after a fashion, is emblematic of each and every sinner in this world, after whom our Lord Christ comes courting as a lover for His beloved. Our Lord does not compel anyone to come to faith. He does not place demands upon His bride, but comes to her and courts her gently, opening Himself up to her and supplying with everything and every reason she needs to receive Him in faith, and thereby to receive the blessings He comes to give.

This is the example of evangelism and instruction that our Lord gives us in the Gospel of John. Evangelism is not something divorced from the Church, and catechesis is not secondary.

In order to take Jesus as the Bridegroom, one must enter into the Church and join in the body of the bride. So much of what passes for evangelism throughout the Church forgets this fact. There is no Church apart from Christ, but there is no way to be joined to Christ, except for in the Church. After all, Christ joins Himself to no other than His bride.

But we face a repeated temptation to do something other than draw people into this corporate relationship with our Lord. Programs and systems and methods and strategies abound for how to do evangelism, but they nearly all miss the point. Evangelism is not about generating a personal feeling about Jesus – it is about bringing a person into the Church to receive the Gifts that our Lord gives here.

In the midst of this encounter, the woman asks Jesus about where one ought to worship – on Mount Gerizim, as they did, or on Mount Zion, as the Jews do? Jesus refuses to enter the fray between the Samaritans and the Jews, but rather introduces a whole new category in which to speak of worship. For the location of worship is not upon a particular rock on a hill, but upon the Rock, which is Christ, as St. Paul tells us. This is the Rock who will be fractured and from whose side will pour the streams of living water.

And where do you find these streams of water? The Lord provided streams of water for His people in the land of Samaria at Jacob's well, showing them to draw from the hidden underground streams. But that stream ebbed and flowed, waxed and waned. However, the streams of living water that flow from the Rock do not abate, and they do not stop and collect merely in one place, but flow over the whole of creation, watering it and creating new life wherever the Spirit is poured out. And those streams flow from the side of Christ and into the holy Font, where the streams of living waters overtake you and carry you from death to life in the Spirit and in the Truth.

Too often, the Church – and her Sacraments – are treated as incidental to the Christian faith. It is as though one may come to faith in Jesus Christ and be joined to Him, but yet live outside the Church, without the Holy Sacraments or the preaching of the Word.

The core task of the Church is reduced to “Preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ”. While that is certainly central to the Church's mission, her preaching and proclamation flow out of who she is and to whom she is joined. The Church only exists because she has been formed by her Lord and Head into His holy and perfect Body. There is no salvation apart from the Church, because there is no Christ to be found outside His Body.

We confess the Church to be the place in which and the instrument by which our Lord calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies believers in Christ. Within the Church the Holy Ministry of preaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments is given, that faith may be obtained. And yet, so often people express a desire to be holy without the Church. The evangelist's task becomes some sort of other thing, the job of bringing people to Jesus, but not to His Gifts.

To take this tack would be akin to Jesus having asked this woman for water, talked to her about living waters, and then answered her question about worship locations with some inane prattle about God as a spirit in the great blue beyond, to be known in your heart by the burning in the bosom, or some other nonsense like that.

That is not how you come to know God. God is Spirit and Truth. That is, He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You come to know God in the face of the Truth by means of the Spirit. In other words, you know the Father because the Holy Spirit makes known the Son – the Truth incarnate – who has made known to the world the Father, with whom He is one in majesty, glory, and Godhead. You worship God in Spirit and Truth when you worship Him as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – just as He has revealed Himself to you in the water and the Word.

Jesus brings the woman to faith not by making her quake in her boots about her eternal salvation, and not by embracing her in some holy hug-fest. He does not point her to the skies or the wonders of creation. He does not even point her to the Temple, even though salvation is from the Jews.

He points her to the living waters, and to the One who gives them. He tells her to worship the Lord in Spirit and Truth by embracing the Truth who stands before her by faith. And so He does with all His saints.

He does not bring you into the Church under your own steam. He does not bring you willy-nilly wherever you might like to meet Him, like some dude to be picked up in a bar. He brings you to the wellsprings of living water and He pours into you His Holy Spirit, who enlivens you with the grace won for you on the Cross. Our Lord washes you clean and sanctifies you with the living waters that flow from His own pierced belly, flowing from the cross where He bore your sins unto death.

Likewise, it would be unhelpful, bordering on deceitful, for us to treat evangelism as the main thrust of our existence. You must not be tempted to think that once you have spoken the Gospel to a person, that is the end of the matter. Christ did not leave you to your own devices once He called you to faith, but He has incorporated you into His Body the Church. We confess that it is within this Christian Church that “He daily and richly forgives all my sins, and the sins of all believers.”

But thanks be to God that He has committed no bait-and-switch upon His people. He has not given you warm-fuzzies, and then left you on the mountaintop. Rather, He has incorporated you into His Body, brought you into His house, united you with Himself through His Church, in which flow the living waters that bring forgiveness of sins.

The Church is not incidental to salvation. The Holy Ministry is not a creation of mankind or a functional what-not that serves whatever purpose you would like it to. The Sacraments are not appendages left over from some bygone era, like an appendix or or a sixth toe. Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and the Holy Communion are the means by which the Holy One of Israel makes His holy people. Assimilation into Christ means assimilation into the Church. The Gifts of God come through Christ, and Christ gives them through His Bride. And He gives to you His ministers, that you may be certain that you are receiving what He has to give you according to the way He desires to give it.

Do not look for God on Mount Gerizim. Do not look for God on Mount Zion. Do not even look for God on Mount Calvary. Look for God where He has promised to be – in His Church. And look for Him doing the things He has promised to do: forgiving your sins day after day, week after week; making you holy and perfect by His Spirit; filling you to overflowing with living waters of salvation; incorporating you into Himself.

Evangelism is good. Go forth and tell the Good News of what God has done for you, of the salvation He has won for you and the forgiveness of your sins He has accomplished. But do not stop there. Bring those whom you tell to the same font, to the same altar, to the same God in Spirit and Truth. Bring those you find to church, not because we need the money or the butts in the pews, but because they need Jesus just as much as you do. Bring them with you to be cleansed and fed and taught, that we may all together share in the salvation of our God, who lives and reigns to all eternity.

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.