Living Water

"Everyone who drinks of this wqater will thirst again." John Chapter 4

Cool, cool water on a hot day. Our human Lord is weary. Resting at Jacob's well, he begins his divine revelation by asking the lone woman drawing to give him a drink. She denies him and misunderstands him but keeps talking to him (Clearly he is harmless and she knows how to take care of herself.) Woman has no social position to keep up and so has left behind the necessary hyposcrisies. Perhaps having broken the social taboo against living in sin with a man she can more easily cross the boundary against conversing with a Jew.

Of course Jesus didn't save his Messiah-ship for outcasts only. His friend Martha whom he loved snd who fulfilled every duty of the home would confess him as the Christ (chapter 11). Today, though, at the well, this Samaritan woman received a spirit so powerful from the one who revealed himself to her ("the one who is standing before you, I am he") that she ignited the spirit of an entire town. "Come and see 'a man who told me all that I ever did; could this be the Christ?"

For yes, the Samaritans expected the Christ. Samaritans broke off from the Jews in--what?--the 7th or 8th century BCE and stayed with the 5 books of Torah. But prophets did arise among them, we have learned, called Ta'ebs, who prepared theirSamaritan hearts for Christ. One day our Bible group studied this passage by role playing, and I got to play her, the woman at the well. As the people came out and the disciples re-gathered, I rested quietly on the wall of the well and felt how my heart had been ploughed and softened to receive the Messiah.

And likewise the town! Their hearts were prepared by their prophets, and so they believed her, this outcast woman, enough to troup out to see for themselves. What what did they encounter?

............................. (we will have to see for ourselves..... until we also say): 

"We no longer believe because of your word but have seen for ourselves he is the Savior of the World."

So the beloved community begins--the community that produced this incredible Gospel from the spring of water they received from the Christ, the living water of the Spirit that is welling up to eternal life.