“Living Water!”

“Living Water!”(Jn.4:1-15).
If you bury yourself in the past you may not fully appreciate what the present offers and the opportunities which it holds for the future. However, whoever forgets the past suffers from amnesia. The past indirectly determines who we are and who we shall become.
Jesus was passing through Samaria. Out of fatigue he stopped by Jacob’s well in a town called Sychar. This was near the plot of land which Jacob gave to Joseph as an inheritance.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus asked her for some water to drink. This request led to a theological debate between Jesus and the woman as she asked Jesus, “How can you ask me for a drink?” She asked this question because Jews did not associate with Samaritans whom the Jews considered to be unclean.
Apart from this, the woman may have thought that Jesus’ request for water was kind of flirtatious. This is a woman who had been married five times and was presently living in concubinage. Women fetched water at sundown, but she came to fetch hers at mid-day. And Jesus was alone.
Even in Africa the place of fetching water is a flirting spot. It was the same in Old Testament times. It was at a well that Abraham’s servant saw Rebecca and took her as a wife for Isaac (Gen.24:12ff). It was also at a well that Moses met his wife(Ex.2:16-21).
Water point flirtation aside, Jesus answered the woman, “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.”
The woman who was still immersed in the past asked Jesus, “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 her that everyone who drinks of ordinary water will thirst again, “but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst again. Indeed, the water I give to him will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
You see, “God is in the Other!” We meet with Jesus every day; we bypass him and we sometimes ignore him. We see him smaller than our ancestors and the legacies they bequeathed to us. We cling on to old animosities that ends up in the deaths of our Romeo’s and our Juliets.
But Jesus beckons us saying, Forget the past and live in the present. Recognise me, come to me let me give you the water which, if you drink becomes in you a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
We recall that Jesus found himself in that town because he was moving away from the jealousy and envy of the “Monitoring spirits – Pharisees” They heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John. This is what we call “Success leading to opposition.” Sometimes you are hated not because you have stepped on anybody’s toes, you are simply hated because you do what you do better than them.
Jesus is without borders. He embraces whoever comes to him. With the Samaritan woman Jesus tried to bridge the gap of hatred that existed between Jews and Samaritans.
One of the first converts to Christianity was an Ethiopian eunuch(Acts 8:26-40) who eventually introduced Christianity in Ethiopia. This may be the reason why Ethiopian Christianity is unique within the continent. We visited an Orthodox Church in the outskirts of Addis Ababa and I saw that there were more mats than benches. Ethiopian Christianity predates the 19th Century Missionary Enterprise. Alexandria was one of the first centres of theology, and some of the outstanding theologians and Church father’s were Africans.
Everything that happens through Jesus was in God’s plan for all humanity; including us Africans. Some of our ancestors played dominant roles in the biblical story of salvation.
Dear friend, when you see and recognize Jesus for who he is, make this request like the nameless Samaritan woman: “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty…”
Sunday prayer: Lord Jesus Christ thank you for being the Living Water that refreshes our souls welling up to eternal life. Amen!
Have a blessed Sunday! Peace be with you!
Prayer point: Pray against all man-made barriers that hinder the propagation of the gospel.
Rev Babila Fochang.