Living Water
John 4:1-26
Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman
1Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
All humans are seeking living water as we get thirsty physiologically and spiritually, and we are trying to find it out from knowing ourselves and also pursuing something we do not know, like knowledge or something else like material things, regardless of the seen, or the unseen. Not only this Samaritan woman, but also Steve Jobs seemed to have struggled to seek them all and found them all at last.
However, Jesus is telling that He himself is the source of it, and He is the Messiah and through Him, no one gets thirsty longer, if we drink it. He already explained the way to drink it, but many people even the Christians seem that they do not know it well as they do not know how to be the true worshipers: worshiping in Spirit and in truth. Oftentimes they do not know about the presence of the Spirit, and they try to get better or be better off in everything by piling up with goodness, wealth, and even knowledge, and so on.
We could be very proud of ourselves and the things we have or wear for a short time, but we naturally and spiritually get thirsty again and again, as it is not the living water welling up to eternal life. Sadly, we're spending too much time and energy getting more things or persons, like the Samaritan woman who has had a fair with 4 or 5 men. Luckily, she met Him with an honor and grace, but there are too many men who are dying without knowing Him or not drinking even one drop of it. Alas, I feel sad and sorrowful of seeing them, so I am willingly giving the water to them whenever I meet someone who is coming to draw water.
