Living Water

One of the earliest church songs I remember, other than “Jesus Loves Me,” is a Sunday School song called “River of Life.” The lyrics I learned are as follows:

The song is most likely inspired by a verse from today’s Gospel reading, John 4:14. Jesus is speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well. He utters these words, “…whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (ESV) Spring up, O well!

I’m sure one could do an exhaustive study of water imagery in Scripture, that would be well beyond the scope of this humble blog post. But just to mention a few water images in the New Testament off the top of my head, we have some of the following:

• Matt. 10:42 — “…if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”
• John 2:9 — “…the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine.”
• John the Baptist, dunking people in the Jordan River (described in all four Gospels)

The living water in Jesus’ chat with the Samaritan woman, though, strikes me as a bit different than the images listed above. In those examples, water is just…water. Sure, it becomes wine at the wedding in Cana. And it’s a symbol of repentance in John’s baptisms. But the water itself is water…2 atoms of hydrogen, and one of oxygen.

The living water Jesus describes is powerful, eternal, it does more than quench literal thirst. It fills the person who receives it, and flows out of them like a spring. And those who receive Jesus’ water of life will be able to share that water with others.

I am reminded of a beautiful sequence in C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Towards the end of the book, as the ship is nearing the farthest edge of the ocean, drawing…

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