Living Water

One of the most popular films of the 1950s was the western film, ‘The Big Country’ - I’m old enough to remember it! It centres on the feuding between two families for control of a water source, without which their cattle would die of thirst. The need for water in a dry land is, of course, desperate.

Stagnant water is of little use and dangerous to drink. However Jacob the nomad had found a well, near Samaria, north of Jerusalem, and it was named after him. Some hundreds of years later, Jesus stopped there and got into conversation with a local Samaritan woman. Women were very much second-class citizens and the fact that Jesus was even speaking to a woman alone was deeply shocking. Jesus
asked the woman for a drink; this was also surprising as he was a Jew and not supposed to share a drinking vessel with her. He went on to tell her that he could give her ‘living water’ - the Hebrew phrase for fresh, running, drinkable water.

Jesus was shifting the emphasis of the Hebrew phrase to the sense of life-giving water. He was shifting the conversation to make the point that God is ‘life-giving’. Many of the Psalms refer to him as ‘the living God’ and indeed God is as essential to our survival as fresh water.

Hundreds of people die each day because of the lack of fresh drinking water. We find it tragic that so many people fail to experience God’s life-giving spirit in their daily lives. His spirit is freely and readily available to all - just for the asking.

Eric Wallington

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