Sunday, March 8, 2026 ~ Lent III
Water is one of the four primary elements — the other three being air, earth, and fire. The world is made up of 71% water. We are made up of 60% water. Without water, we would die. Likewise, too much water would kill us.
But there is another type of water that we need: living water. The Israelites needed water to drink in the wilderness, and their leader, Moses, under God’s direction, got it from the rock at Horeb. But that’s not the only water that is needed. Living water comes from Jesus and Jesus alone. As he told the Samaritan woman, “those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” Obviously, Jesus is talking about something spiritual not physical.
We thirst for this water. Our souls need it. They are parched, made dry by life itself. There is the suggestion that the Samaritan woman has been made dry by sin. According to Jason Elder, “’Living water’ in the Bible refers to the spiritual life, renewal, and eternal satisfaction offered through Jesus Christ.”[1] Is that not the objective of Lent? Aren’t we all looking to grow in our spiritual life, to have our souls renewed, and to find eternal satisfaction (and I take that to mean eternal life) in Jesus?
And yet we are like the Israelites, complaining in the wilderness. Maybe not the wilderness, per se, but certainly at work, and when we watch the state of the world on the news, and when we have to pay those bills each month. We are like the Samaritan woman going to the well, the source of what we believe will quench our thirst, but having to come again and again and again carrying our empty buckets.
But let’s go back to Jason Elder’s words for a moment, especially the idea that we thirst for spiritual renewal. I can’t speak to your experience — only my own — but, if I had to guess, I’d say that the following will sound familiar to you. There are times when it feels that the well is running dry: my spiritual well. Dry as a bone. Times when it feels as if my connection to Jesus is waning. Times when I get the spiritual blahs. It occurs when life gets the best of me: when the pressures mounts, when I’m stressed to my limit, when bad news and bad luck keep washing up on my shore. It is then, more than any other time, that I need a big gulp of the living water that only Christ can provide.
But the opposite is true, too. When my soul is rejuvenated — when I feel as if it is robust, alive, bubbling with the presence of the Holy Spirit, times when it is well with my soul — strangely enough, it is then that I also feel as if a deeper connection with Jesus is possible, and I want it! I want it bad. I am sure there is a reason for this that psychologists could explain far better than I can. I’m sure it has to do with knowing that the good times will come to an end, so we long for more a more intense pleasurable feeling in order to perpetuate the elation we feel. It also comes from knowing that everything is temporary. We know how the story ends, because we’ve seen it in the lives of others. We do not want the newness of a relationship to diminish. We do not want the vacation to end. We don’t want to die.
I think that part of the meaning of the story of the woman at the well is that when we put our trust and hopes in something material (like water) and we try to get it through physical things (like a bucket), we will eventually be disappointed; we will eventually thirst. However, when we set our sights higher and put our trust and hopes in something spiritual (living water), we will find that we have an abundance of the good. The mountaintop experience will not end. It does not mean that life will be all sunshine and rainbows, but it does mean that something greater awaits us.
But do we have to wait that long? What kind of deal is that! Life is tough, but we’ll get pie in the sky when we die by and by. Such thinking has often been used to justify the hardships people experience. Don’t worry about this life, because you’ll have a much better (not to mention longer) one when you die and enter the kingdom of heaven. Such thinking encourages people to be apathetic or complacent in the face of injustice. Just accept the bad, because it’s temporary.
The joy of Christ awaits us now. That living water is yours for the taking. If you imbibe it, you’ll never thirst again.
We often find the need to fill whatever void is in us with things: with material things. Living water is different. You can’t see it, but you can feel it. It isn’t something that you can point to, but you can sense it flowing throughout every corpuscle of your being. Locally educated New Testament scholar Merrill C. Tenney says the following about living water as mentioned in this passage from John. He writes, Jesus’ response to the woman at the well “emphasized the contrast between the water in the well and what he intended to give. The material water would allay thirst only temporarily; the spiritual water would quench the inner thirst forever. The water in the well,” he writes, “had to be drawn up with hard labor; the spiritual water would bubble up from within.”[2] Gail O’Day states that “Jesus’ gift of living water is associated with the gift of the Spirit.”[3] William Barclay concurs, writing that, “living water…was the gift of God.”[4]
Faith is a gift from the Holy Spirit. It is offered to all people. It doesn’t distinguish. Jesus was a Jew and the woman at the well was a Samaritan. The Samaritans and Jews were enemies. That didn’t matter to Jesus. Living water crosses the boundaries we construct. It gives life to all who drink it. It quenches the thirst that we acquire from the demands placed on us from all the obligations that we (and others) place on us. It saturates us to the core, nurturing our souls, proving an oasis for desiccate dreams, shriveled souls, and parched prayers.
Drink deep, my friends. Drink to the dregs, as they say. Allow the Living Water, the water of life that only Christ can provide, to bubble within you so that you never thirst again. Amen.
[1] Jason Elder, “What Is Living Water in the Bible,” from his website: pastorjasonelder.com. Published 2025.
[2] Merrill C. Tenney, John from The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 9 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), 55.
[3] Gail R. O’Day, John from The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 9 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 566.
[4] William Barclay, The Gospel of John from the Daily Study Bible Series vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Know Press, 1975), 154.