So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” -John 4:5-10 NRSV
Do you not love the way that a tired and thirsty Jesus begins a conversation with such an ordinary woman. If it were me I would not wanted to be bothered. I would have got the water myself. Yet later in the narrative Jesus gives us a peak into his actions when he tells his disciples that his nourishment came from doing the will and work of the Father.
I love how Jesus gives us the example of one filled with the life of God and how such inner life spills out to others. He tells the Samaritan woman, and I believe us as well, that the living water of heaven is available to anyone (of any nationality, gender or race) when we simply ask for it. And perhaps that is the message that the world needs the most.
We are thirsty Lord. Fill us today with your living water. Let a river of life flow from us.
... this devotion is part of an ongoing series on the Gospel of John.
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