A Bride To Die For | January 14 2024 | John 4:5-42
By Pastor Clifford Reinhardt
Part A: Warm-up
1. How do we speak about life with God? What images do we use?
2. Here are a few that might be familiar: Shepherd & Sheep; Vine & Branches; Vineyard Owner & Vineyard; Potter & Clay; Father & Children; Friends.
3. What about Groom & Bride, or Husband & Wife? When I first started studying these various models a few years ago, I thought that this one would be rather obscure — that it’s a minor player among all the other models. I was wrong. Judging by the frequency of Biblical references, the most prevalent model in the Bible is that of Husband & Wife or Bridegroom & Bride: God or Jesus as the bridegroom/husband, and God’s people as the bride/wife.
Part B: Pulpit
Years ago I attended a wedding celebration in which the Best Man, in his toast to the marriage couple, said that his good friend, the groom, had found himself “a bride to die for.” That was a powerful and eloquent tribute to her beauty and character. A bride to die for.
There is a Best Man in the gospel story, too. He’s not named as such, but he certainly serves that role. It’s John the Baptizer. Listen to a speech from the episode that precedes our gospel lesson for today, where he speaks to his own followers:
“You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.’ He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled.”
John is talking like a Best Man! Of whom is John speaking? Who is the bridegroom? Jesus. And who is the bride? The object of his love – that is, all who are embraced by Jesus, through faith. Is this a bride to die for?
What about the Samaritan woman at the well in Sychar? Is she a bride to die for? She has had five husbands, and the man with whom she was currently living was not legally her husband. What happened to all those other men? It’s conceivable that one or maybe two – or maybe even three – died and left her a widow. But all five?! That sounds absurd. It’s more realistic to assume the only other option: they divorced her. And indeed, the men would have done the divorcing, because in that time and place only men could undertake the legal action of divorce.
Why would they have divorced her?
Well, consider the details of today’s story. She came to the well to draw water at the sixth hour of the day – that is, at noon. That’s a most unusual time of day for that chore. Drawing water from the well was indeed women’s work, but they usually came to the well at the beginning of the day when it was still cool. At that time only, the men stayed away from the well. Public space was usually male space, while private space (like the interior of family dwellings) was typically female space.
It may sound strange to us, but the ancient Jewish world was sharply divided along gender lines. There were various reasons for this arrangement, but of course the ultimate reason for keeping women indoors, in private space, was to ensure that they were available to their husbands and to no one else. It was part of the social contract that at one time of the day – at the first hour, or 6:00 AM – women left the privacy of their homes and went to the village well to draw water.
But not this woman at the well of Jacob, in Samaria. She’s coming at noon, when respectable women were indoors, in private space. Why didn’t she come with the other women at the first hour of the day? Maybe she had been shunned. Or maybe she’s what today we call a “cougar” – that is, a woman who is clever in the weaknesses of men and prowls about looking for prey. After all, she has already had five husbands and is currently with another man. If she doesn’t know how to keep them, at least she sure knows how to attract them.
Is such a woman a bride to die for? I’m not so sure. She might turn heads with her good looks, her alluring attire, or her attention-getting ploys. But I don’t think it would be much fun ending up as “cougar-prey”; because once the prey has been slain the predator typically moves on to the next conquest. In a similar vein, I don’t think it would be much fun ending up as “wolf-prey”; for there are also men who launch hunting expeditions. Like cougars, they can inflict tremendous misery.
So, it’s really quite a shock that it is Jesus who initiates the conversation with the woman! Now, that’s provocative! As a devout Jew and a villager from the countryside, Jesus knows what’s proper and what’s improper. Moreover, as we learn in the story, Jesus knows this woman’s character, the details of her life, and her secrets. Jesus knows everything. He is, after all, God-Incarnate, the Word made flesh. So why is he violating social taboo?
The woman is very surprised, too – not so much because he was a man initiating a conversation with her at midday at the well (after all, that’s probably precisely what she wanted), but because he is a Jew asking her, a Samaritan, for a drink of water.
You who are familiar with rustic life know what this entails: she will have to take a dipper, scoop water from a bucket, and then give it to Jesus. She knows that this is very unusual, because Jews, who are very scrupulous about what enters their bodies by way of their mouths, ordinarily would not even touch something handled by a Samaritan. And yet, here is Jesus, a Jew, asking her, a Samaritan, for a drink of water!
Then something else happens that I’m sure she likewise did not expect: the conversation turns to matters of God and religion! The Samaritans and the Jews actually both worshipped the one, true God. But whereas the Jews had established Mt. Zion for the site of the Temple (this was the legacy of King David and his son, King Solomon), the Samaritans had developed Mt. Gerizim as their shrine, and for very good reason: Jacob, the father of their shared ancestral nation Israel, had met his wife, Rachel, at this very site. But the Jews refused to accept the Samaritans, mostly because centuries earlier they had intermarried with the conquering Syrians, and so were tainted with foreign blood … and foreign gods, too.
So, you see, when Jesus and the Samaritan woman speak of the woman’s many husbands, there is a double meaning: they are also speaking of taking many gods. It’s not so evident in English, but in their language it is clearer: the word that was used for husband was the same word that was used for lord.
There is deeper meaning here. The conversation is as much about idolatry as it is about marital relationships. The Jews were quick to accuse the Samaritans of such spiritual infidelity, but in reality they had little to brag about; for the Jews, too, had lusted after other gods. There were times when they, too, had forsaken the one, true God – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – the God who had called them out from among all the nations of the earth and had taken them to the divine self … just as a husband takes a wife to the exclusion of all others.
This is really what’s at stake as Jesus and the woman talk. She knows Jesus is a Jew, while she speaks self-consciously as a Samaritan. And thus at one level their conversation threatens to become another battle in an ancient and contemporary war for the right to speak for God.
Jesus eclipses that never-ending conflict. He shifts the conversation to a time when all people will worship the one, true God in Spirit and in truth – to a time when Mt. Zion and Mt. Gerizim will no longer compete with each other for the honour of the supreme holy site on earth.
For Jesus is the holy Bridegroom!
All along, there has been something in the air while he’s been talking with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well – the place where Jacob met his future wife, Rachel, and was so bold as to kiss her. All along there’s been a certain electricity between Jesus and the woman. The woman, forever in the role of the not-so-blushing bride, thought she could add another conquest to her list. Well, we shouldn’t heap blame on her, for if she was like a stalking cougar, then Jesus was just a little like a prowling wolf.
But he doesn’t have in mind the kind of union that we usually imagine when we think of weddings. Jesus is looking for a bride to die for.
His disciples, who had been away buying food, are doubly scandalized that he has been speaking with this woman: (1) first of all, because she is a woman who ought not be out in public; and (2) secondly because she’s a Samaritan. They must have been scandalized even more when Jesus decides to stay at that Samaritan village two more days, instead of moving on to Galilee, where they intended to go in the first place.
The disciples knew that Jesus was the holy Bridegroom, but they thought that he was married to themselves to the exclusion of all others. No-one understood – not even his own disciples! – that Jesus’ quest for a bride to die for will break through all boundaries and barriers.
His bride will certainly include the people of Judea … but not just Judea. His bride will include the woman at the well … but not just her. His bride will include all the Samaritans … but not just them. His bride will include the Galileans, the Greeks, and even the Roman occupation force. His bride will include the entire Jewish and Gentile world; cougars and wolves; male and female; binary, non-binary, and transgender; people in perpetual relational turmoil as well as people in long-term, stable relationships.
His bride even includes you and me.
Jesus is seeking a bride to die for. And die he will – not because his bride is ravishingly beautiful, but because of his own sacrificial love, the same love by which his heavenly Father gives him up to the whole world.
And when his work is accomplished, then the Bride indeed will be worth dying for.
The Bridegroom is at hand! Because of Jesus, the Bride is beautiful in the eyes of God. Because of the Holy Spirit, the Bride is proving herself beautiful to the world.
Lift your eyes! A great marriage feast is coming!