The Fount of Living Water

{This is the ninth part of a twelve part series attempting to answer the question "Who is Jesus?". The song "I AM" by Mark Schultz is utilized in this series as a reference point, and the lyrics can be found in the "I AM series" post found earlier.}

The Fount of Living Water

"Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters." (Isaiah 55:1)

The invitation had been sent out long before the time of Jesus, but it was during a conversation with a Samaritan woman at a well that made it all clear. This passage presented will be extensive, but it is all significant.

Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaris called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
Jesus answered, "Everybody who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."
"I have no husband," she replied.
Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."
"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship in is Jerusalem."
Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirt and in truth."
The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he." (John 4:4-26)

That was quite long, the longest consecutive passage I've used thus far, but it is one of my favorites and it is the only major one I will be using in this installment.

Jesus claimed to be able to dispense living water, the kind of which will satisfy the spirit, the kind that will satisfy the soul. The person who drinks of this water will still need to drink water to stay alive, but will thirst no longer in spirit, and will no longer feel an emptiness of the soul. Not only will this living water fill the empty spaces in one's spirit, but it will overflow, running over and will influence others.

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. (John 7:37-39)

The Holy Spirit has been discussed in earlier posts, so suffice it to say that this fullness we will feel is the dwelling of the Holy Spirit in us. Our spirit will long for nothing else, the void inside of us will have been filled by God. In this way, we will thirst no longer for philosophies, fleeting romances, the bottom of a bottle, for our thirst for meaning and fullness will be slaked by God.

Finally, the Book of Revelation paints a bucolic picture of the New Jerusalem.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city....
....The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life. (Revelation 22:1-2, 17)

Are you thirsty?


POSTSCRIPT:

I have two extra thoughts on this topic.

First, the living water referred to by Jesus is said to the the Holy Spirit. The picture portrayed of heaven is of the Father and Son seated on their thrones, with living water (God's spirit) flowing from the thrones. I just thought of this, but it is curious to me that alcoholic beverages are sometimes referred to are 'wine and spirits'. Does this have some sort of Biblical background, or is it just a coincidence?

Second, I have talked about the story of the woman at the well (the passage from John 4 up above) with my brother Ryan and he noted that he thought the song Killing Me Softly was about the woman at the well. I tended to agree. See the lyrics here: http://music.yahoo.com/Roberta-Flack/Killing-Me-Softly-With-His-Song/lyrics/572673

Turns out, if Wikipedia is correct, that the song was originally written about Don McLean performing a blues song called Empty Chairs. Well, when I hear the song, which is usually the Fugees cover of it, it reminds we of the story of the woman at the well.