Now Jacob’s well was there. John 4:6

Summer is in full bloom in my gardens. The purple clematis billows over the trellis like a queen’s fancy mantle. Snow-white Shasta daisies and golden Rudbeckia reach waist high below. Oregano, thyme and rosemary have overtaken the allotted herb garden space and even fussy roses are showing off . Dan says the gardens’ colors are brilliant this year. I agree. Monet hangs outside my door.

Heat, sun, water and fertilizer have done spectacularly, especially watering the gardens and the hanging baskets in the coolness of the morning. I don’t have an in ground sprinkler system and have to rely on the tangle of hoses and plastic sprinklers strung throughout to turn the water on and off. Pot and baskets get my personal hand sprinkled attention. And yes, it is a big pain to keep it up. On days when I’m lazy and want to skip, the effect is immediate: dried out roots, wilted flowers and plants in shock. So I have learned to water regularly and faithfully.

We are equally fragile and dependent on water to sustain life. Water slakes our thirst down to the deepest parched roots in both body and spirit. I’m not a water drinker naturally. I have to consciously force myself to drink even half of the 1.9 liters recommended. So I’ve learned to gulp several glasses early in the mornings – (after my coffee) just like my fuschias!

Likewise and much more so, don’t we need the living water of God’s Word to pour spiritually into our thirsty souls early in the morning? Long before scorching noon heat sucks the spiritual life from me, I need the reservoir of Jesus Christ to draw from.

I think of the Samaritan woman who went to Jacob’s well for water at noon “the sixth hour”. She must have walked a long way from her village of Sychar through blazing desert heat. Hot, parched and thirsty, she finds Jesus sitting at the well as if he were waiting for her. Looking for water for herself, she encounters a thirsty Jewish rabbi who says to her, “Give me a drink.” There follows one of my favorite dialogues in Scripture where Jesus deftly turns a request for a drink of well water into a revelation about Himself, “the living water. “

There is a sweet spot in this story which is often overlooked. Jesus too was thirsty. He’d traveled through Judea with his disciples and was tired and hungry. At that hour the sun beat down fiercely. He rested at the well until the woman came. In His humanity Jesus was thirsty for water. In His divinity the Lord thirsted for her soul and for her townspeople. He offers her a promise:

“Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst” John 4:14.

I wonder went through her mind at that point. No more trudging through the heat every single noon when no one else is around. No more carrying this heavy water jug all the way back to the village. No more wondering if I carried enough home for the day. No more thirst? Impossible.

Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life.” John 4:15

Jesus was speaking prophetically, pointing to Golgotha. Only one other Scripture describes Jesus’ thirst and it is on the cross. Crucified and dying, he cries out:

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” John 19:28

Messiah whom the Samaritan woman met, bore all suffering upon the cross, even our unquenchable thirst. He thirsted first for us so that our souls would receive “living water” and be thirsty no more, forever. It is Jesus’ promise made at a well in the desert to the Samaritan woman, to you, me and to all believers.