Now we recognize that not everything that we eat or drink can give us life, not everything can satisfy our needs. No matter how hungry we are, if we do not eat something that is fresh and nutritious it will not give us what we need for life. In fact, if it is spoiled it may even lead to death. Not all water will quench our thirst. We who live by the ocean know that the oceans of salt water will not do the trick. There are also other sources of water that are polluted by sulfur, alkalis or other toxic substances. Our society offers many different sources of water to try to quench our thirst but much of it is toxic and will not give life. We need fresh and healthy sources of life that nourish and refresh us.
Today in our gospel Jesus speaks to us about the true sources of food and drink that will satisfy our deepest longing. Jesus is standing at the well of Jacob asking for a drink from a Samaritan woman. The well represents ancient traditions and it is certainly a place of life for the people but the well is a cistern and the water is still and perhaps contains contaminants from the many who come to drink from it. There is a subtle accusation here. God speaks through Jeremiah the prophet to the people of Israel about sources of water that do not satisfy thirst or give life, “Two evils have my people done: they have forsaken me, the source of living waters; They have dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water.” (Jer 2,13) Jesus speaks to the woman at the well about a new sort of water that comes forth from a spring and is “living water”, water that flows from a pure source and remains clean, fresh and life-giving. This water is given to us by God as a gift. Just as God was able to make water spring forth from a rock in the desert for the people of Israel, so can God give us fresh, living water that springs forth from within us and is always being replenished. This water is God’s gift and grace. The grace of God that flows forth from his Holy Spirit that dwells within the baptized is a source of never-ending life. This woman at the well is someone who has built many “broken cisterns” that will not hold life-giving water. Our world today is full of broken cisterns that cannot give us the life for which we thirst. Our needs cannot be satisfied by empty promises and broken institutions.
The “spring” is a sign of origins, new beginnings, life refreshed and pure. The water that comes out of a spring is “new” water. Jesus offers to the woman at the well today a water that is “living water”, a gift that becomes for the believer an interior source of life, an interior spring: “the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” This “water” gives new life and is ever a source of this new life. It is a water that comes from God for it is the water that is poured out through his Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a source of life that dwells within the baptized believer. As St. Paul tells us today, “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” This Holy Spirit is like an interior spring of new water, new life, that becomes a source of life that flows forth from deep within the soul of the baptized. This Spirit gives life to believers and also to those around them. God gives us freely the gift of new life and bids all those who are thirsting to come and drink at the spring of new life welling up within the believer. Because this spring is within us and comes from the source of grace we will never thirst again for we will never be without the gift of divine, eternal life.
If we hunger, God also wishes to satisfy our need. Just as God gave his people manna in the desert, he gives us food to eat that will give us Eternal Life. Jesus speaks to his disciples about this “food” that is also an interior gift and is always available. Jesus tells his disciples, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.” Our spirit is fed on the true spiritual food of God’s will. Eternal Life comes to those who live the law of God, the law of love, and who unite their will to the will of God. To conform to the will of God is to be fed on his Word and draw our life from that Word. As Jesus reminded the devil in the desert, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” This Word that feeds us should dwell in our hearts always.
During this Lenten period we experience hunger and thirst. Our hunger is for God’s Word and our thirst is for the new life of His Spirit. Let us open ourselves to these true gifts of life, that we may come to “know the gift of God,” and have that gift always within us. “Is the Lord in our midst or not?” Can God bring fresh, new, life-giving water from the rock of our hardened hearts? Harden not your hearts as the people of Israel did in the desert of their journey from slavery to new freedom. Now is the time for true conversion in which we uproot the tree of our life from the lifeless desert grounds of sin in this world and plant the tree of our life beside the river of life that flows forth from the throne of God. Our Lord promises to be a stream of life-giving water that will not run dry. Planted by the living stream of God’s eternal grace we do not need to continue to seek to satisfy our thirst in the empty cisterns of this world. We need to sink our roots in the waters of God’s grace that will allow us a share in the divine life of God’s Spirit that will continually well up in Eternal Life. Drawing from the living stream of the divine life within us and doing the will of God we will be led to the true worship of God in Spirit and Truth. Jesus thirsts for those souls that truly seek to worship the Lord in Spirit and Truth and to share in the fruits of the work of the One who sows the seeds of Eternal Life, the One who is the Christ, Jesus our Lord! Come to the waters and let us worship the Lord as true worshippers of the living God who provides for all of our needs! Amen!