I Thirst, Part II
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
(John 4:15)
* * *
She trudged uphill slowly, balancing empty water jugs which clanked and collided with each heavy step.
She was thirsty. It was noon, the brightest time of day which guaranteed her hiddenness—who else would be foolish enough to draw water from a well in the heat of the day?
She was unclean, and she felt it to the very depths of her. Most of the villagers who knew her despised and rejected her. The same men who pursued her at night turned their faces in disgust by day, as if they couldn’t bear to look upon the one who reminded them of their sin. Used and exposed, she bore her shame and theirs—a burden far heavier than the clay vessels she carried alone each day just to ease her unquenchable thirst.
Her whole life, it seemed, had been marked by this burning thirst: for love, for belonging, and yes, for power over those who made her feel powerless.
At the top of the hill, she paused to wipe her brow as she turned to look at the village below her. A bit of space to breathe, at last. A moment of freedom from judgment and scorn. There was little pleasure in the thought of going back down the hill, yet she had nowhere else to go. Sighing, she turned towards the well then froze, a knot of fear forming in her stomach.
Who is this strange man? She’d never seen him before.
Didn’t he know what kind of woman she was? He wasn’t turning away.
She approached the well slowly, covering her head like the modest Samaritan women who avoided her in the village. Her eyes lowered as she felt his gaze—not judging or lustful, but peaceful and kind. The anxious tension in her body eased yet still she wondered,“What does this Jewish man want from me? And then the man spoke.
“Will you give me a drink of water?”
Startled, she quickly recovered with her own question:
“Why are you asking me for a drink?”
“If you really knew me,” he said, “You would be asking me for a drink. And the water I would give you would satisfy your thirst forever.”
Playing along, she responded: “Alright—if this miracle water exists, then I want it. I never want to climb this hill under the burning sun again.”
And then he asked the one question she hated most—a question that cut her to the core:
“Where is your husband?”
She paused, breathless with pain. One simple question exposed everything she was ashamed of, scraped the raw places of her soul which could never be soothed.
He spoke again: “Go get him and come back. I’ll wait.”
She had lived at the bottom of an empty well for so long—what did she have to lose? Swallowing her pride, she said,
“I don’t have one.”
She looked down in shame, wondering how he’d respond.
“You’re right.” He said. “You don’t have just one husband—you’ve had five. And the man you’re with now is not your husband.”
Tears stung her eyes as she turned to leave. What did she owe this man? Nothing. But the curiosity burned within her: How does he know I’ve had five husbands? How she longed to trap him in the same way he’d trapped her.
Defensively, she challenged: “If you’re so prophetic, then tell me this: where is the best place to worship God? We Samaritans think it’s here on this mountain, but you Jews think it’s in Jerusalem.”
Calmly, he replied: “Where you worship doesn’t matter. There is coming a time when it won’t matter who you are or what you’ve done. What matters most is how you worship. Those who know God will worship him with their whole selves—in spirit and in truth.”
His answer surprised her. She had hoped to bait him with the age-old argument Samaritans and Jews had been having for years: Does God dwell with us, or with them? His answer only left her with more questions.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “All I know is that I’m waiting for the Messiah. When he comes, he’ll explain everything. He’ll have all the answers.”
And then, a moment that changed everything:
“I am the one you seek—the one you are thirsty for.”
Countless years of living with different men taught her to tell in an instant when they were lying—he wasn’t. She could see it in his eyes; something about him was different. For the first time she could remember, something welled up deep inside her: Hope, overflowing—too good to keep to herself. So she ran back down the hill, filled with wonder, emptied of shame. For the first time, she was eager to reach her village. As she ran, she yelled,
“Come meet the man who knew everything about me yet did not turn away from me! He is the one I’ve been waiting for: the Messiah. Come and see!”
In the years that followed, her village would never forget that it was she—the thirstiest woman they knew—who led them to the well of Living Water.
* * *
He staggered up the hill, slowly, struggling for breath with each step. Blood streaked down his forehead, mingling with sweat and making it difficult to see.
The Living Water was thirsty. It was almost noon, and the brightness of the sun mocked the darkness which tormented his spirit.
He was alone, and he felt it in the very depths of him. His heavy burden pressed into his shoulders as he balanced the weight of sin and shame between them. On this hill outside the city he loved, he was despised and rejected by the same crowd who worshipped him only days earlier. They laughed as he stumbled, and tears burned his eyes.
He hung exposed for hours, naked and ashamed. He thought of every thirsty person in his life who had come to him, longing for more than what they could taste with their lips or see with their eyes. He thought of those to come, whose insatiable thirst would lead them to him. Whetting his dry and cracked lips he said,
“I thirst.”
He remembered the words of his ancestor David and felt them to his very bones:
“I stretch out my hands to You; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.
Answer me quickly, O LORD; my spirit fails.
Do not hide Your face from me, or I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.”
The sour vinegar they gave burned his lips. If they only knew who they were crucifying, they would be asking Him for water. With the taste of vinegar in his mouth, the Living Water took a final breath and spoke the words which meant his followers would never thirst again:
“It is finished.”
Sometime later, they would pierce his side. Then, blood and water would flow like a fountain from the Well of Life.
Water and blood. Spirit and truth. Death and life.
* * *
Jesus declaring his thirst moments before he died has always been striking to me.
Didn’t he know his suffering was about to end? Didn’t he know the Roman soldiers would just give him vinegar? Why did Jesus use some of his final moments to express his thirst? It is likely that Jesus is evoking the prophetic words of Psalm 22, which he references throughout his crucifixion:
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
You lay me in the dust of death.
(Psalm 22:15)
But in addition to fulfilling prophecy, could it also be that Jesus was modeling for us the holiness of thirst?
I cannot imagine anything more vulnerable than hanging naked on a hill for all to see. Yet he opened himself up to even more humiliation and pain by expressing his need, knowing it would not be met: “I am thirsty.”
How often does my thirst go unexpressed because I am ashamed to admit it? I confess I am afraid of being exposed and vulnerable in my need. Yet Jesus knew he would not be given the water he needed, and he asked anyways.
The book of Hebrews says that because Jesus can relate to us in every way, we are free to come to him and express our own desperate need:
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16)
If we never acknowledge our thirst, we will never know what it is like to be filled with Living Water by the One who meets us at the top of our own lonely hills—in our places of shame—and beholds us with eyes of Grace. In her thirst, the woman at the well came face to face with Jesus. Because of her thirst, an entire village came to know Jesus as the Messiah—the source of a well that will never run dry.
Thousands of years later, Jesus’ invitation remains:
“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:37)
Are you thirsty?