Read: John 4:1-42
Where do you get that living water? (v. 11 NRSV)
It was a most unlikely sight. Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, talking with a Samaritan woman at a well outside Sychar, a Samaritan city. At high noon, just the two of them. The woman realizes the inappropriateness of the situation. Jesus, in response to her question, speaks of “living water,” but the woman misses his point. She assumes he refers to water from the ancient well, and wonders how he, without a bucket for a well so deep, will provide this “living water.” She also asks Jesus whether he thinks he is greater than their revered ancestor Jacob, who first dug this well and drank from it.
Jesus contrasts the water from the well, which for all its ability to quench thirst will nevertheless leave one still thirsty, with the water he gives, which will quench one’s thirst forever. Indeed, Jesus claims his water will become in those who believe a spring of water gushing forth eternal life. Jesus is greater than Jacob, for Jesus is the Source of Life, the Word who has become flesh and pitched his tent among humans (John 1:14). The woman’s response indicates she is starting to catch on: “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty.” May we also seek the living water that is Jesus.
As you pray, ask Jesus, the font of living water, to slake your thirst with his presence.
Steve Bouma-Prediger is the Leonard and Marjorie Mass Professor of Reformed Theology at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. A graduate of Hope College, his Ph.D. is in religious studies from The University of Chicago. His most recent book is Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue Ethic.
When not teaching or writing, he spends as much time as possible canoeing or backpacking in his favorite places in North America or simply hiking among the magnificent trees in southwest Michigan parks.
