Exodus 17:3-7; Romans 5:1-2,5-8; John 4:5-42

What is worse – hunger or thirst? As many people are currently fasting, we realise that we can cope without food for quite a while. However, we can’t do without liquids for more than about two days.
The Israelites were fearing that they would die as they had nothing to drink. Was God putting their faith to a test? Why would God lead them out of Egypt and help them escape from Egyptian soldiers if they would then be abandoned?
God surprised them when it looked like there was no escape from the Egyptians. Now, God asks Moses to take the same staff he used then to perform the miracle of parting the water and strike it against a stone for water to come out and to save the Israelites from certain death again.
Both miracles involve moving, living water. Both miracles demonstrate God’s power over water, the very essential element for human survival.
God uses Moses to liaise with the Israelites in Exodus. God knows them so well. When God tells Moses what to do, the Israelite tradition of having witnesses is not overlooked. Moses is to take respectable witnesses with him so that Moses could not be accused of any wrongdoings.

The men would have recognised Moses’ wonderful staff that he used to part the waters. Now, water is coming out of a stone. Stones are known to be shaped by living waters. Water coming out of a seemingly dead and impenetrable structure such as a stone? Impossible!
For God, nothing is impossible.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul mentions that the ‘love of God has been poured into our hearts’. The expression implements a special kind of thirst – the thirst for the love of God. We often talk about someone having a heart of gold or a heart of stone. In both cases, we don’t expect anything to be poured into the hearts.
Through our belief in Jesus Christ, we are filled with the Holy Spirit, and it is the Holy Spirit who has poured the love of God into our hearts.
In Exodus, the people survive thanks to the water provided by God which quenches their human thirst. Here, in the letter to the Romans, it is about more than purely surviving. The love of God that fills our hearts will transform us. It is an act of grace.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus promises the woman at the well ‘living water’. In the account, it is not mentioned that Jesus was thirsty. He wasn’t looking for anyone who could give him water. Instead, he is tired from his journey and rests at Jacob’s well, a well that is said to have been dug by Jacob. Jesus is in the land of his ancestors.
In many cultures, wells are meeting places. In the times before the water came from the tap, people had to go to a central place to draw water. As it was usually only one person who could draw the water, there would have been always queues, and the people would talk while waiting and while drawing water. The wells as meeting places, sharing information and at the same time places that provide nourishment for the families.

When Jesus sits at the well, it is the sixth hour. Only one woman is mentioned. A Samaritan. Why is she on her own? Is it too hot for the others? Is she not supposed to draw water from a well that Jewish women used?
Jesus meets her at bright daylight. This is a contrast to Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus. Nicodemus was curious about Jesus. He didn’t want others to see that he was drawn to Jesus. He would have been seen as a righteous man of the Jewish ‘establishment’. The Samaritan woman, on the contrary, is not named, is powerless and as a Samaritan woman in a Jewish society, not respected. In addition, she has had several husbands. It seems like she has nothing to lose. She is thirsty and goes to the well to draw water.

When Jesus addresses her, he breaches protocols. When he asks her for water, she doesn’t know what to think about him. The Samaritan woman knew the culture and the laws of her time that didn’t allow her to interact with a member of the Jewish community. She could have just walked away to avoid any misunderstandings. Yet she stays and asks questions. Her questions are clear, logic and direct. She listens to Jesus’ answers and concludes that he is a true prophet. That’s the moment when she asks him for advice: ‘Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, while you say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.’
This question might have been on her mind for a long time. She doesn’t hesitate but asks her challenging question, and Jesus replies: ‘God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth’. The woman listens and draws the right conclusion. She has understood that Jesus is the Messiah. She asks the right questions. Jesus doesn’t hide his true mission and person to her. It is daylight. The woman understands immediately.
When she hears him talk about ‘living water’, she realises what she was really searching for. She forgets about her intention to draw water. When the disciples arrive, she leaves – and she leaves her bucket behind. She has found the ‘living water’.
Is this the love of God that has been poured into her heart as Paul tells the Romans?

The disciples don’t understand what has happened. They are confused. They don’t understand Jesus. They don’t know why he spoke to a Samaritan woman, a stranger who is not part of their Jewish culture. They don’t understand what happened and why he doesn’t want to eat.

The Samaritan woman is filled with the Holy Spirit and is spreading the Good News that Jesus is the saviour they have all been waiting for. She has quenched her thirst with living water. The water of eternal life.
Jesus’ disciples, however, are still struggling to understand Jesus and his mission. As long as they are not filled with the Holy Spirit and are trying to understand Jesus as a human being only, they will not understand what he is referring to when he talks about harvesting without reaping. They might think that they know Jesus so much better than the woman, but they don’t seem to have understood his mission.

Jesus had told the woman about the living water that would never make you thirst again. Now, he refers to the food which consists of doing the will of his father.
The disciples don’t seem to understand. Is this the reason why Jesus arrived at the well, being tired?

BM