Third Sunday in Lent: Gospel, John 4:1-25                     

John 4:1-25

This meditation requires you and I to read once again the account of “the woman at the well.” It is interesting how we title certain passages of the Bible or should I say carry on what others have titled them. And of course, that’s alright because it does help us remember salient points. But as you read this account again I want to draw your attention to some of the words our Savior speaks to this woman, who while religious and devout, doesn’t have an altogether accurate perspective.

 Jesus loves her. And by extension her people whom many would have shunned as ethnic and religious “half-breeds” at best. Seated by the famous family well of Jacob, Jesus says to her, “Give me a drink.” Earthly water for earthly thirst. Jesus is setting the table. Amazed, she calls Jesus out thinking before the fact that He would have nothing to do with her. He wants her attention. He adds, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” Second drink reference but this time for her benefit. And the move has been made from earthly to heavenly. Her head begins to spin.

Fighting to stay in the realm she understands she challenges the traveler by saying in effect, the water you speak of cannot exceed the refreshing power of our ancestor’s well. She’s grappling and also faces the pressure of being moved to consider the position of one of those “Zionists.”

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” There you have it. The best the woman can hope for in her limited and inaccurate understanding is a thirst quenched by earthly water, which in itself is a gift to us. But Jesus has something far better for her. Living water. Or perhaps better, “the water of His life.” He is life eternal on every plane. For every need. For every thirst. Jesus would say to us what he encouraged this dear woman to do: take a drink. We won’t be sorry.