It is a well-known fact that water is one of the most essential elements on earth. No living organism could survive without it. In today’s readings we see how God provides this resource and, more so, the way in which Jesus enhances this fundamental gift of life.
In the First Reading from the Book of Exodus (Exod. 17:3-7) we hear the grumbling of the Israelites as they journey through the Wilderness of Sin on their way to the Promised Land. Encamped at Rephidim and thirsting for water, they complain to Moses, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt? To have us die of thirst with our children and our livestock?”
In response, a frustrated and despondent Moses cries out to God: “What shall I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me!”
The LORD then provides a solution for Moses to quench the thirst of the people and rescue them from what they perceive to be certain death: “Go on ahead of the people, and take along with you some of the elders of Israel, holding in your hand, as you go, the staff with which you struck the Nile. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb. Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it for the people to drink.”
This is just one example of the many times God must intervene for the sake of the Israelites as they murmur and grumble in their travels through the desert on the way to Canaan.
In the Gospel for today Jesus is also on a journey, traveling north from Judea to Galilee (John 4:5-42). On the way he passes through the town of Samaria and stops to rest at the well of his ancient ancestor Jacob. The disciples have gone into town to buy food and sitting alone he is approached by a Samaritan woman who has come to draw some water.
As their conversation ensues Jesus tells the woman, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
This confuses the woman. When Jesus uses the term “living water” she assumes that he is talking about fresh water that flows, as in a stream or a river. This would have been considered superior to the stagnant cistern water of Jacob’s well. The woman questions his ability to provide this water; Jesus doesn’t even have a bucket!
Jesus then makes an unusual comment to the woman about his special water. He says, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
There are other passages in John’s Gospel where Jesus speaks of this water and the life that it brings, but here he adds another component.
To Nicodemus, the Pharisee who seeks Jesus under the cover of darkness, Jesus remarks, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” (Jn. 3:5).
And standing in the Temple area after the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles Jesus references the book of the prophet Ezekiel (Ezek. 36) saying, “Whoever believes in me, as scripture says: ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.’” (Jn. 7:38)
The author of John’s Gospel clarifies for the reader, “He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive.” (Jn. 7:39a)
The life-giving water that the LORD had offered to the Israelites in the desert now takes on new meaning with Jesus and the gift of the Spirit at his resurrection. It is water which when sprinkled upon the recipient “makes you clean from all your impurities” (Ezek. 36:25) and creates “a new heart and a new spirit within you.” (Ezek. 36:26)
It is the purifying water of Baptism, the living water of Christ, which each of us receives at some point in our lives and which confers eternal life on those who believe in Jesus. We are reminded of this every time we attend Mass, dip our right hands into the water of the Baptismal Font and make the sign of the cross.
We pray in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty.”
