Daily Dose of the Word of God - John 4: 13-14

Justin Paul-Lawrence, Executive Director

Transcript

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Welcome to Elmhurst CRC’s Daily Dose of the Word of God.  It’s Friday, December 12th, but Sunday is coming. I’m Justin Paul Lawrence.  Today’s reading is from the Gospel of John, as we journey through the Bible this year with the spotlight on Jesus and the Apostle John as our guide.   Here is John 4:13-14. This passage is when Jesus is speaking with the woman at the well in Samaria. 

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Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

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I’m trying to drink more water. Some claim that increasing your water consumption can help with a whole host of problems. I’m mostly just thirsty and don’t want to drink more than the 4 cups of coffee I already seem to have most mornings. I even have a special thermal mug from a conference that keeps it ice cold for hours. Bliss.   So while Jesus’s invitation to the woman at the well to never be thirsty again would mean a lot if I had to draw water myself from a deep hole, I’m pretty happy with my thirst. I like water. Water is great. What would I reach for when I eat dry cornbread? More cornbread?  But the second part. A spring of water welling up to eternal life. I want more of that. Yes, please Jesus. A spring is an amazing thing to behold. There’s a difference between having to put a bucket down a well and having that water flowing up and out as in a spring every day, all the time, year after year. None of this going back to the town well day after day.  In northern Florida is Wakulla Spring, the largest spring in the world is which releases 300 Million gallons a day. 300 million gallons - that’s over 3000 gallons a second! - That’s about ½ of Soldier Field - every single day.  Seriously abundant welling up.   But even more than 300 million gallons of fresh water -  give me a hot spring - water pre-heated naturally - I might even travel far for that. My brother and his wife get back today from Japan, where they visited a number of Onsen - traditional hot spring bath hotels. This is a long and living tradition there - one of the springs, Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan has been a hotel since 705 - that’s not eternal, but pretty close. There’s something amazing and refreshing about hot water.  And even powerful: In Iceland many buildings are heated and even power is generated from the natural hot water found there. They even grow bananas in greenhouses heated and watered by these springs  And it is this sort of abundance - of nearly free, thirst quenching, fruit growing, house warming, abundant water that begins to get at what Jesus is saying when he talks about springs welling up to eternal life. It is access to this sort of power in the spirit - a totally different way of looking at things that Jesus offers to the woman at the well and to us.   So drink from Jesus’s well this Advent. Drink from the water that he wants to give you. You might still need to hydrate, but the Spirit will overflow from your life.

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let's pray. Lord, give us your living water, not only so we can quench our thirst and still our hearts, but especially so we can overflow into lives around us out of the abundance of your provision in our lives, amen.