John 4:13-14 (ESV)
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The Samaritan woman was confused. Here sat this man, talking about giving her some kind of “living” water, yet he had no way to attain it without his own bucket and cord. Maybe it was another location he was referring to? As he did with Nicodemus, Jesus had turned the conversation in a spiritual direction, and just like Nicodemus, the woman had yet to make the turn with him. The Apostle Paul would later write that, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). Thankfully for this woman—and for us—Jesus does not stop engaging us when we fail to understand his point.
The woman was stuck in the natural, while Jesus was leading her towards the supernatural. Yes, the world has many wonderful things in it for us to enjoy, but none of them can fully satisfy. As a result, we roam from experience to experience…relationship to relationship…mountaintop to mountaintop…in search of what? Why do most people have such a hard time finding contentment? In a penetrating interview, superstar quarterback Tom Brady revealed his own dilemma with this struggle:
Why do I have three Super Bowl rings, and still think there’s something greater out there for me? I mean, maybe a lot of people would say, “Hey man, this is what is.” I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think: God, it’s gotta be more than this. I mean this can’t be what it’s all cracked up to be. I mean I’ve done it. I’m 27. And what else is there for me?
The interviewer, Steve Kroft of 60-minutes asked him, “What’s the answer?”
Brady replied, “I wish I knew. I wish I knew…”
C.S. Lewis once wrote, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” Indeed, we are. So is Tom Brady. In this prophetic vision of the age to come, given by Jesus to a woman at a well, the promise was: “They shall not hunger or thirst” (Is. 49:10). “With thee is the fountain of life,” the Psalmist had cried (Ps 36:9). It is from the very throne of God that the river of life is to flow without ceasing (Rev 22:1). It is the Lord who is the fountain of living water (Jer. 17:13). When Jesus spoke about bringing her the water which quenches thirst forever, he was doing no less than stating that he was the Anointed One of God who was to bring in the new age. She had yet to figure that out…but she would. Have you?
