Livng Water

 

"The water I will give will become in them
a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."
-- John 4:14
The vivid water imagery that Jesus uses in talking to the Samaritan woman at the well helps us to appreciate how very real the life is that Jesus shares with us. Jesus realizes that she is thirsty for more than water from the well. He draws her into conversation by asking for a drink. She is taken aback since a man did not talk to a woman alone and a Jew did not talk to a Samaritan.
Double and triple meanings are common in John's Gospel. The woman is thinking about the water in the well. Jesus says to her and to us, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink 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."
Resurrection makes Jesus himself a gushing spring of living water, the Holy Spirit. We drink this "living water" and are filled to overflowing with the life of the Spirit. Just as her encounter with Jesus inspired the Samaritan woman to share Jesus with others, this life of the Spirit gushes out of us into anyone we encounter.