3rd SUN LENT – Thirsty people…

We are thirsty people.  Where do we go to slake our thirst?  John’s gospel highlights this conundrum by using two different Greek words for “well.”

…So [Jesus] came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.  Jacob’s well [pēgē – ‘fountain’] was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well [pēgē]. It was about noon…

Jesus answered her, “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 said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well [phréar – ‘pit’] is deep. Where do you get that living water?

Jesus identifies himself as the fountain of living water:     John 4:14: … 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 [pēgē] of water gushing up to eternal life.”

What kind of fountain, you may ask?  The kind that flows from divinity itself.

Psalm 36:9: For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.

Psalm 104:10: You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills…

SO: What the deuce does it mean to seek Jesus, the fountain of living water, as thirsty people?  Not theory.  Practice.  What does it mean?