“Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

— John 4:14

Water is basic and fundamental to life. I once heard a biologist say that when God decided to create water, the rest of creation was details. This is not meant to minimize all the complexities of God’s creation, but it can help us to see how important water is.

When Jesus asked the Samaritan woman for a drink of water, he was breaking two social taboos. He was talking to a woman, and he was talking to a Samaritan. Jewish people thought of the Samaritans as half-breeds and heretics, and the Samaritans did not have much respect for the Jews. But by asking the Samaritan woman for water, Jesus wanted her to reconsider all the things she thought she knew.

She said, “You have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep. . . .” But Jesus wasn’t talking about H2O; nor was he talking about the kind of life that H2O makes possible. He was talking about himself—the water that brings eternal life.

Jesus offered the woman everlasting life. And when she drank in the living water of Christ—that is, the good news of eternal life in him—she was filled with new life.

Though we still have to drink enough H2O each day to keep our bodies going, we need only to drink the living water of Jesus to receive eternal life.

O God, thank you for the gift of new life in Christ. Fill us with your living water, that your good news may flow from us to all the world, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.