Thirst-quenching Goodness

     I don't really know why, but the time when Jesus was talking to that Samaritan lady by the well really stuck out to me-- the symbolism of "living water" resonated in my mind and my spirit every time I heard it.


"If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee the living water" (John 4:10).

     The conversation starts of typical-- two people are at a common well, because they're both thirsty.  Now, Jesus, like the Person that He is, strikes up a conversation with a complete stranger (something good missionaries to quite often).  However, think of the conversation like this: a duke of a city talking to a sewage worker while eating at McDonald's.  The thing is, "Jews had no dealings with Samaritans" because of the ethnic differences of the two (John 4:9).

     As the talking commenced, this Man with authority offered the Samaritan lady God's Word; something a LOT of Jews would have a problem with.  And so, with Him offering her [and her family] the plan to eternal life and telling her her marital status without having met the person previously, the Samaritan woman, her mind having been blown beyond belief, went on her way home to tell everyone of this stranger that she had met (John 4:18).

      There's a couple of things here that I really liked.  Jesus Christ is shown to have unnaturally keen perception-- mind-reading at that level isn't something people can do every day.  This asserts the claim that Jesus has been endowed with power from on high enough to do something like that (and a plethora of other miracles). 

     Second, the meeting at the well and the symbolism of the living water-- a lot of people Christians complain that their pastors preach the same bible verses over and over again- with maybe a slight variation to correlate with the topic of that week in church.  The mundane repetitions of the words of the pastors, that God is love, faith will grant you eternal life, none other than Christians will be accepted into heaven, and even God hates everyone who disobeys His commandments, come from stagnant waters.  Jesus didn't teach so that people could hear the same morals over and over again.  Rather, Christ, the well of living water, taught so that His teachings weren't just universal, but could be expounded with a different perspective-- every word He had taught.

     The conversation between two people who are supposed to hate each others' guts (or at least the Jew to the Samaritan) is significant in and of itself, because of the compassion and ignorance of the false ideas of ancient discrimination.  Jesus was a man who did see the dealings of life a lot, working under His (Earthly) biological dad as a carpenter-- so He was very much aware of the hatred the Jews showed toward the Samaritans.  To have talked to one was something very VERY rare, and it quite frankly surprised the Samaritan, hearing the words of this Man talking to her.  On top of the grand scheme of this story and the moral behind it, there's another branch of a moral, sprouting from its side-- the second most important teaching of Jesus Christ is evidently portrayed here:

"Thou shalt love thy neighbor... and love your enemies" (Matthew 5:43-44).

     I might have been a bit thirsty when I found this gem of a scripture to be significant to me (as it may have been a day of fasting), but in any case, God's word is more than just a spiritual Gatorade.  It's something that'll keep you from asking for any more [figurative] water ever again.