Jesus was weary. Just consider that for a moment: the Creator and Sustainer of everything in this universe, the One who created time and space, the Almighty, Omnipotent, Eternal I Am... was bone tired. While traveling through loathsome Samaria with His disciples, "Jesus, wearied as He was from His journey," sat down heavily beside a well. (John 4:6) "It was about the sixth hour"--meaning noon--so it was in the middle of a hot, dusty, sun-drenched day. No one much would be at the well at that hour, for only the most desperate (or despised) would go to get water in the heat of the day.
But Jesus, the Omniscient, knew one person would be there. And for Him, that one was enough. One woman. One Samaritan woman. One five times divorced woman. One living-with-a-6th-man but now unmarried woman. And for the sake of that detestable one (in the eyes of any good Jew), the perfect, sinless, loving Lord of the Universe came and sat down and asked for a drink of water.
Just the fact that He, a man, would even speak to her, a woman--and a Samaritan woman at that--was shocking. Even wildly improper and inappropriate. Isn't the Gospel always just a bit scandalous? How on earth could the Sinless Son of God associate with a seeped-in-sin woman such as this?
O, but for such a one as this, He came to conquer sin and death and despair and futility and emptiness. And for such a one as me. There is no pit too deep, no darkness too oppressive, no sin too wicked, no circumstance too desperate that His love, His power, His grace, His sacrifice cannot bridge and cover and forgive and redeem. With Christ there is always always always hope.
So when Jesus asks her for a drink, the stunned woman asks why on earth a Jew would ask her for a drink. He responds that "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." (John 4:10)
And now it gets really interesting, for this lonely, rejected, despised woman is now intrigued. "Living water?" "Gift of God?" "Who is this man and what is He offering and how do I get it," she must have been thinking.
Any woman married five times and now living with another man is clearly desperately looking for something... and not finding it. Marriage after marriage. Failed relationship after failed relationship. Can you imagine all the sorrow and suffering and backwash of bitterness and hopelessness behind such a litany of failure? The old cliche, "Looking for love in all the wrong places" might have been her theme song. Always looking. Always searching. Always hoping "maybe this time!"--and then once again, disappointment and failure and despair.
In Screwtape Letters, the senior devil Screwtape aptly described it as "an ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure." Isn't that so true? The new dress, the new relationship, the new piece of chocolate cake all inexorably deliver less and less satisfaction for an ever increasing desire.
Surely this Samaritan woman suffered from a different kind of weariness than that of the exhausted traveler; she was weary of soul. Weary of living. Weary of searching and never ultimately finding. Desperately discouraged, disillusioned, and defeated.
She was thirsting for something that always seemed to just elude her grasp.
Sound like anybody you know? Addictions to drugs or alcohol or food or fame or fortune. Needing just one more.... of whatever: one more outfit, one more drink, one more TV show, one more new car, one more accolade, one more vacation, one more relationship, one more dollar... and then life would be fulfilling and successful and satisfying.
C.S. Lewis wrote (one of my favorite quotes): "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."
And we are. God put eternity in our hearts, declares, Ecc.3:11. St. Augustine confirmed that the God-shaped hole He placed in our hearts will never be filled or satisfied by anything less than Himself.
Jesus tells the woman at the well, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water 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." (John 4:13-14)
"You are thirsty," Jesus tells her, "with a thirst that will never be satisfied save by the Living Water of the Son of God." Your relentless thirst for love and significance will never be met by another man.. or another anything... or another anyone... or another new this or that. Only one thing, only One, only the Way the Truth, the Life, only a life-giving relationship with the Lord Jesus will ultimately and eternally fulfill and satisfy and fill to over-flowing that empty hole. That God-shaped hole.
For what are you thirsting? Upon what are you building your life? As C.J. Mahaney asks, "What's really the main thing in your life? Only one thing can truly be first in your priority; so what's at the top of your list, second to none?"
Jesus makes it abundantly clear: only one thing, only ONE, will truly and completely and eternally satisfy your thirst and give abundant, joyful, LIFE."
And it is Him. "Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Mt.11:28)
Come. Come and drink of Him. Drink of His Living Water and never be thirsty again. Come and drink and discover true rest and security. Fill that seemingly bottomless hole... with Him and His overflowing, infinite abundance.
"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." The Samaritan woman found that world--that heavenly Kingdom. Jesus still offers His Living Water that always satisfies, that always saves, that always sustains. Come and drink of Him and find rest and joy and hope and fulfillment.
To the Savior who fully satisfies, fully saves, and fully sustains, be all the glory.
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