THE THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT

VIEW FROM THE PEW

Are You Thirsty?

Three of the assigned Scriptures for today deal with thirst but all proclaim the greatness of the One who is the Great Thirst-Quencher!

In Exodus 17:1-7, we read of Israel complaining against God because they had no water, but God, their Provider, had not brought them out of Egypt in order to have them dehydrated, so He commands Moses:

“Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.”

The psalmist in Psalm 95 refers to the unbelieving, stubborn people of God who questioned God’s good intentions toward them even after they had seen Him display His mighty acts before them in Egypt.

The physical rock in the Exodus narrative is symbolic of the Spiritual Rock as is implied by the Psalmist when he exhorts praise “to the Rock of our salvation”.

The apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:2-4 (not among today’s readings) makes a more explicit reference to this symbolic meaning:

They were all baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

Like the psalmist, Paul speaks of their behaviour and God’s response to them:

Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness (verse 5).

In today’s Gospel, we meet and hear from the One who is the very Fount of Water - the Living Water. To the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus declares:

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.

The woman clearly does not understand Him as He carries no bucket to catch water. Neither could she conceive Him to be greater than her ancestor Jacob at whose well she had come to draw water! Jesus then responds:

Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.  The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.

What does this mean? Does this make sense to you any more than it made sense to that lady? Thankfully, it did eventually make sense to her and because of her testimony, many came to Jesus and received the Living Water.

Well, we often sing about it, don’t we? Perhaps we need to pay more attention to what we sing:

From “Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer” we sing:

“Open now the crystal fountain whence the healing stream doth flow… “.  

And from CPWI hymn #598:

I hunger and I thirst, Jesu, my manna be/ Ye Living waters bust out of the Rock for me.

And from 607:

Life-imparting Heavenly manna

Stricken Rock with streaming side

Heaven and earth with loud Hosanna

Worship Thee the Lamb who died

Alleluia, Alleluia

Risen, ascended, glorified.

All these hymns speak to saving grace of Christ, the grace which gives to us the righteousness of Christ. This is what Paul in today’s Epistle describes as being ”justified by faith”, so then, when we come to trust Christ as our Lord and Saviour, to surrender to Him, to be saved, to be converted, to be born again, then we come to desire Him, to be thirsty for Him, to yearn for Him, and so enjoy the abundant eternal life he offers us.

Do you long for Jesus? Do you have a strong desire to please Him? Is He the most important figure in your life? Any earthly pleasure we are running after will mock us in the end if Christ is not central in our life. Let’s come to Him as He calls out:

‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them’ (John 7: 37b-38).



“I am feeding on the Living Bread

I am drinking at the Fountain-Head

And whoso drinketh, Jesus said

Shall never, never thirst again.”

Drinking at the Fount,

Jean