It’s a Sunday in our Lenten season, and this day is set aside as a day of celebrating the resurrection of Christ Jesus. Today, let’s meditate on Jesus as our “living water”.
“A Samaritan woman came to draw
water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink."
The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew,
ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?"
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."
The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is
deep. Where do you get that living water? Jesus said to her,
"Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
but 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" (John 4:7-14).
“On the last day of the festival,
the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, "Let anyone
who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As
the scripture has said, 'Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of
living water.'" Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers
in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not
yet glorified” (John 7:37-39).
A meditation on this living water,
by the 5th century great St. Augustine.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water
A woman came. She is a symbol
of the Church not yet made righteous but about to be made righteous.
Righteousness follows from the conversation. She came in ignorance, she found
Christ, and he enters into conversation with her. Let us see what it is about,
let us see why a Samaritan woman came to draw water. The Samaritans
did not form part of the Jewish people: they were foreigners. The fact that she
came from a foreign people is part of the symbolic meaning, for she is a symbol
of the Church. The Church was to come from the Gentiles, of a different race
from the Jews.
We must then recognize ourselves
in her words and in her person, and with her give our own thanks to God. She
was a symbol, not the reality; she foreshadowed the reality, and the reality
came to be. She found faith in Christ, who was using her as a symbol to teach
us what was to come. She came then to draw water. She had
simply come to draw water, in the normal way of man or woman.
Jesus says to her: Give me water
to drink. For his disciples had gone to the city to buy food. The Samaritan
woman therefore says to him: How is it that you, though a Jew, ask me for water
to drink, though I am a Samaritan woman? For Jews have nothing to do with
Samaritans.
The Samaritans were foreigners;
Jews never used their utensils. The woman was carrying a pail for drawing
water. She was astonished that a Jew should ask her for a drink of water, a
thing that Jews would not do. But the one who was asking for a drink of water
was thirsting for her faith.
Listen now and learn who it is
that asks for a drink. Jesus answered her and said: If you knew the gift
of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,” perhaps you
might have asked him and he would have given you living water.
He asks for a drink, and he
promises a drink. He is in need, as one hoping to receive, yet he is rich, as
one about to satisfy the thirst of others. He says: If you knew the gift
of God. The gift of God is the Holy Spirit. But he is still using veiled
language as he speaks to the woman and gradually enters into her heart. Or is
he already teaching her? What could be more gentle and kind than the
encouragement he gives? If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is
saying to you, “Give me a drink,” perhaps you might ask and he would give you
living water.
What is this water that he will
give if not the water spoken of in Scripture: With you is the fountain of
life? How can those feel thirst who will drink deeply from the
abundance in your house?
He was promising the Holy Spirit
in satisfying abundance. She did not yet understand. In her failure to grasp
his meaning, what was her reply? The woman says to him, Master, give me
this drink, so that I may feel no thirst or come here to draw water. Her
need forced her to this labor, her weakness shrank from it. If only she could
hear those words: Come to me, all who labor and are burdened, and I will
refresh you. Jesus was saying this to her, so that her labors might be at
an end; but she was not yet able to understand.”
Today we worship…drink in Christ
as the living water…take and drink for His is the blood of the New Covenant,
given for the remission of our sins…receive him anew, and celebrate His life within you.
Peace
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