Living Water is Real!

John 4:14: “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

From Amy Frykholm's lectionary essay for Journey with Jesus:

One of my favorite stories in Joy Williams’s book Ninety-Nine Stories of God is only a few lines long. God was drinking water out of a glass. The water tasted terrible. So God went to the engineers who had built the pipes through which the water flowed.

“What have you done with my water? The Lord asked. My living water....”

“Oh, they said, we thought that was just a metaphor.”

That’s the end of the story, which both makes me want to laugh and raises a lot of question. Is living water a metaphor? Is it a substance? What’s its relationship to actual water?

This story challenges me mightily as a frequent user of figurative language and one who encourages readers of scripture to recognize the non literal translations and instead relish the beauty of the vivid imagery of it which engages readers senses and emotions. As the narrator inquires...is living water a metaphor or is it a substance?

Over time I have developed an insatiable desire for fresh water, so much so that it tastes sweet and soothing unlike any other liquid. I drink an excessive amount and feel at a loss if I don't have my jug with me. Water can satisfy me not only if I am thirsty but also if I am hungry. I am often reminded that having running water in my house is a luxury, and I am especially grateful for a hot shower.

The woman at the well was denied water for political, social and theological reasons and Jesus frees her from those conditions. What he offers her is substantial; it is love, abundance and spiritual power. It is real. It is the equivalent of the tankless water heater we have in our houses today!

Oh that I might recognize and honor my insatiable desire for that "spring of water gushing up to eternal life" and live out my days in gratitude that it is endlessly not only next to me but within me. May the journey of Photine, the illuminated one, be on my mind and in my heart, and may I do as she did...go out into the world spreading the Good News of the Living Water.

Diego Rivera, The Woman at the Well (1913).