The Well of Life

TODAY: Offer this prayer: Lord, you know everything about me, even the things I’m hiding from myself. Give me the grace to admit my sin, believing that though you see me, you still love me. Help me to let go of anything that keeps me from experiencing the living water of your Holy Spirit welling up inside me. Amen.

This window embodies the theme of the First Testament God: a God of might and power, who created order out of chaos. The colors are a blend of earth tones, the texture rugged yet fluid. The forerunner of the staff, a simple rod, reminds us of our earliest perceptions of a God of justice and even wrath.
— Jay Hanke

I have learned in my study of Scripture to pay attention whenever a well is mentioned. God likes the setting of a well. In Genesis, Abraham finds a bride for his son at a well. Jacob meets Rachel, the love of his life, at a well. After fleeing from Egypt, Moses meets his wife at a well. In the Bible, life-changing things happen at the side of a well.

In a desert community, water is a big issue. It would have been for the Jews and Samaritans, living in a hot and dusty land. I spent a summer working on the Hopi Native American reservation in Arizona. Water was central to their spirituality; it was precious to them. To waste it in any way was disrespectful, and I remember telling the youth I worked with over and over, absolutely no water or ice fights in public. Water is commonplace to us, plentiful, ordinary. But for people who live in a society where water is scarce, it is a symbol of life itself.

So Jesus is sitting alone by the side of a well in Samaria. A Samaritan woman approaches the well to draw water, and Jesus talks to her as if he has known her all her life. He speaks to her of Living Water, water that will never run out. How appealing that must have seemed to her, to never have to go to the well again. And Jesus offered that Water of Life to her, a foreigner, a woman, and an immoral woman at that. He did not condemn her but instead offered her a glimpse into who he was and what he was sent to do. In spite of her faults, in spite of her sin, Jesus chose her to become a missionary. After their encounter, she proclaimed to her community that Jesus was the Messiah, the one they had been waiting for.

Once again, beside a well, a life was forever changed. Are you thirsty? Are you in search of something to fill your life with joy? Jesus promises Living Water to those who believe, no matter what our faults are and no matter what we’ve done.

— Mary Beth Sams