10 Jesus responded, “If you recognized God’s gift and who is saying to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would be asking him and he would give you living water.”
11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you don’t have a bucket and the well is deep. Where would you get this living water? 12 You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave this well to us, and he drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks from the water that I will give will never be thirsty again. The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life.”
Reflection
Celebrating All Saints Day coincides with bleaker, grayer November skies. It also means daylight savings time, where we set the clock back, and we rise and return from work in the dark. It feels as if the light is waning all around us as we’re swallowed by darkness. So lighting a candle in church as we name those who have left us this year, lights a spark of hope that reminds us, our hope is in Jesus Christ. This time of remembrance is a poignant time as we are reminded of our own losses, and we celebrate our loved ones who have gone onto glory. We are comforted because we know that even though they are physically gone, they won’t mourn, or hunger or thirst anymore. We are still together, in Christ, all of us part of the great cloud of witnesses.
Jesus often uses the example of our human physical needs of hunger and thirst as metaphors, because we understand that they represent life giving needs. But we are more than flesh, we are spiritual beings made in the image of God. Nourishing our spiritual needs is just as important as our need for food and drink. Praying, reading the Bible, worship and communion are ways our spiritual needs are satisfied by God.
When Jesus asked the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well for a drink of water from her cup, she couldn’t have believed that Jesus would be offering her “a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life.” Spiritual thirst requires spiritual water that comes from God through Jesus. Jesus offers God’s gift, salvation, to each of us. This eternal spiritual water that continues to bubble up within us, comes from the Holy Spirit. This living water continues to nourish our spirit,
teach us and guide us as we follow Jesus.
by Jeneene Reduker
For Pondering & Prayer
All around us people are thirsty for God. They may not recognize it’s spiritual thirst, just as the woman at the well didn’t
understand what Jesus meant. People look to external things to fill that thirst, to drown out the emptiness inside. We can offer a cold cup of water to those who are thirsty for more. We can share the good news of Jesus with them. Today look for people who are thirsty to hear the good news of Jesus.
Prayer: Holy and Loving God, thank you for the gift of living water, salvation in Jesus. Help us to see those who thirst, so we can share the Good News of Jesus. Amen.
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