Living water

Playing in water that is fun in summer when it is warn. It is refreshing to swim in a lake or even in the sea. We feel comfortable and free and enjoy this other kind of element. Apart from the air for breathing, water is most important for the human beings in order to survive. Yet the water shall also be fresh, not old or dirty. Otherwise we might even get diseases from it.

Living water that is what we need, water that is sparkling, from which we gain strength when we drink it.

There is a very thrilling story about the living water.

Jesus came to a town called Sychar near the plot of ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph and the spring called Jacob’s well. It was about noon, and Jesus, tired after his journey, sat down by the well.

The disciples had gone away to the town to buy food. Meanwhile a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." The Samaritan woman said: "What! You, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman?" (Jews and Samaritans, it should be noted, do not use vessels in common.) Jesus answered her. "If only you knew what God gives, and who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." "Sir," the woman said, "you have no bucket and this well is deep. How can you give me ‘living water’? Are you a greater man than Jacob our ancestor, who gave us this well, and drank from it himself, he and his sons, and his cattle, too.?" Jesus said, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water that I shall give him will never suffer thirst any more. The water that I shall give him will be an inner spring always welling up for eternal life." "Sir," said the woman, "give me that water, and then I shall not be thirsty, nor have to come all this way to draw."

Jesus replied, "Go home, call your husband and come back." She answered, "I have no husband." "You are right," said Jesus, "in saying that you have no husband, for, although you have had five husbands, the man with whom you are now living is not your husband; you told me the truth there." "Sir," she replied, "I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain but you Jews say that the temple where God should be worshipped is in Jerusalem." "Believe me," said Jesus, "the time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship without knowing what you worship, while we worship what we know. It is from the Jews that salvation comes. But the time approaches, indeed it is already here, when those who are real worshippers will worship the Father in spirit an in truth. Such are the worshippers whom the Father wants. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." The woman answered, "I know that Messiah"(that is Christ) "is coming. When he comes he will tell us everything." Jesus said, "I am he, I who am speaking to you now."

At that moment his disciples returned, and were astonished to find him talking with a woman; but none of them said, ‘What do you want?’ or ‘Why are you talking with her?’ The woman put down her water-jar and went away to the town, where she said to the people, "Come and see a man who has told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?" They came out of the town and made their way towards him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, have something to eat." But he said, "I have food to eat of which you know nothing." At this the disciples said to one another, "Can someone have brought him food?" But Jesus said, "It is meat and drink for me to do the will of him who sent me until I have finished his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then comes harvest’? But look, I tell you, look round on the fields; they are already white, ripe for harvest. The reaper is drawing his pay and gathering a crop for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. That is how the saying comes true: ‘One sows, and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap a crop for which you have not toiled and you have come in for the harvest of the toil."

Many Samaritans of that town came to believe in him because of the woman’s testimony: "He told me everything I ever did." So when these Samaritans had come to him they pressed him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. Many more became believers because of what they heard from his own lips. They told the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard him ourselves; and we know that this is in truth the Saviour of the world." (John 4, Verses 5 - 42)

In this passage Jesus speaks with a woman, a woman who is a foreigner. At that time this had been something revolutionary. Therefor his disciples had been quite surprised. Yet for Jesus social habits did not count.
Jesus also speaks a lot in parables. At that time the term "living water" meant flowing water, e.g. water that comes from a spring on the contrary to still water in a jar or a well. Such water is sparkling, bears energy, gives life. People that have personal faith in Jesus experience that this faith gives a great lot of energy in order to get along with all minor and major problems of life. These people indeed have a well of energy inside themselves, just as Jesus describes it with the well of living water.
By the way Jesus did not condemn this woman with regards to her relationships to several men. Jesus just speaks it out. He wanted her to be honest and not to have any secrets. It is precisely to this woman that Jesus for the first time confesses that he is the expected Messiah.

When now in summer you are perhaps lying somewhere on the beach, and you have time to ponder about this and that, take your time and think of living water. Jesus loves you, precisely you, and he would love to be that spring of living water inside you. Permit him to do so.