Jesus Christ blends in one sentence, startling in its boldness, the
gift of God, and Himself as the Bestower. This Man, exhausted for want
of a draught of water, speaks with parched lips a claim most singularly
in contrast with the request which He had just made: 'I will give thee
the living water.' No wonder that the woman was bewildered, and could
only say, 'The well is deep, and Thou hast nothing to draw with.' She
might have said, 'Why then dost Thou ask me?' The words were meant to
create astonishment, in order that the astonishment might awaken
interest, which would lead to the capacity for further illumination.
Suppose you had been there, had seen the Man whom she saw, had heard
the two things that she heard, and knew no more about Him than she
knew, what would _you_ have thought of Him and His words? Perhaps you
would have been more contemptuous than she was. See to it that, since
you know so much that explains and warrants them, you do not treat them
worse than she did.
Jesus Christ claims to give God's gifts. He is able to give to that
poor, frivolous, impure-hearted and impure-lifed woman, at her request,
the eternal life which shall still all the thirst of her soul, that had
often in the past been satiated and disgusted, but had never been
satisfied by any of its draughts.
And He claims that in this giving He is something more than a channel,
because, says He, 'If thou hadst asked of Me I would give thee.' We
sometimes think of the relation between God and Christ as being
typified by that of some land-locked sea amidst remote mountains, and
the affluent that brings its sparkling treasures to the thirsting
valley. But Jesus Christ is no mere vehicle for the conveyance of a
divine gift, but His own heart, His own power, His own love are in it;
and it is His gift just as much as it is God's.
Now I do not do more than pause for one moment to ask you to think of
what inference is necessarily involved in such a claim as this. If we
know anything about Jesus Christ at all, we know that He spoke in this
tone, not occasionally, but habitually. It will not do to pick out
other bits of His character or actions and admire these and ignore the
characteristic of His teachings—His claims for Himself. And I have only
this one word to say, if Jesus Christ ever said anything the least like
the words of my text, and if they were not true, what was He but a
fanatic who had lost His head in the fancy of His inspiration? And if
He said these words and they _were_ true, what is He then? What but
that which this Gospel insists from its beginning to its end that He
was—the Eternal Word of God, by whom all divine revelation from the
beginning has been made, and who at last 'became flesh' that we might
'receive of His fulness,' and therein 'be filled with all the fulness
of God.' Other alternative I, for my part, see none.
But I would have you notice, too, the connection between these human
needs of the Saviour and His power to give the divine gift. Why did He
not simply say to this woman, 'If thou knewest who I am?' Why did He
use this periphrasis of my text, 'Who it is that saith unto thee, "Give
Me to drink"'? Why but because He wanted to fix her attention on the
startling contradiction between His appearance and His claims—on the
one hand asserting divine prerogative, on the other forcing into
prominence human weakness and necessity, because these two things, the
human weakness and the divine prerogative, are inseparably braided
together and intertwined. Some of you will remember the great scene in
Shakespeare where the weakness of Caesar is urged as a reason for
rejecting his imperial authority:—
'Ay! and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,
Alas! it cried, "Give me some drink, …
Like a sick girl."'
And the inference that is drawn is, how can he be fit to be a ruler of
men? But we listen to our Caesar and Emperor, when He asks this woman
for water, and when He says on the Cross, 'I thirst,' and we feel that
these are not the least of His titles to be crowned with many crowns.
They bring Him nearer to us, and they are the means by which His love
reaches its end, of bestowing upon us all, if we will have it, the cup
of salvation. Unless He had said the one of these two things, He never
could have said the other. Unless the dry lips had petitioned, 'Give Me
to drink,' the gracious lips could never have said, 'I will give thee
living water.' Unless, like Jacob of old, this Shepherd could say, 'In
the day the drought consumed Me,' it would have been impossible that
the flock 'shall hunger no more, neither shall they thirst any more, …
for the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall lead them to
living fountains of water.'