How are you surviving this April heat-wave? I trust that you’ve been taking on board plenty of fluids, keeping cool by any means possible – frozen peas under the arm-pits is my tip. Down on the sea front, the oppressive English sun beating down upon your heads, the sweat pouring from your brow, the glare from the relentless sunshine, it’s enough to send you barmy. So I’m sure if you are mad enough to go out in this Saharan sauna you must be very relieved to see this water fountain, just outside Fusciardi’s the Ice Cream parlour.
Have you noticed this before? You might have thought it was a mirage but no. Here is a water fountain to slake your thirst. And you know what the inscription says?
“Whosoever drinketh of this water shall be thirsty again.”
It’s a direct quote from our passage this morning. It’s verse 13 of John 4, read it with me:
13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
Now I was being a tad sarcastic about the English weather, I don’t know if you picked that up. But I’m trying to get you to imagine yourself in warmer climes. Imagine this water fountain in the desert.
I grew up in Canberra, the driest city of the driest continent on earth. But even though we’ve gone through terrible droughts there in recent years, still Australians don’t really know about true thirst. We don’t know about true thirst. But billions today do. I was looking up some statistics on the availability of drinking water this week.
Over a billion people have inadequate access to water in the world.
Of the 1.8 billion people who have to travel to get water, they use only 20 litres of water a day. We use many times that amount and think nothing of it – because we don’t have to carry it!
At any one time, half of the world's hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from water-borne diseases. In developing countries, 80% of all diseases are linked to poor water and sanitation.
It’s a huge issue we rarely consider. We think nothing of showering in pure drinking water. But imagine yourself in a dry, hot land. No domestic plumbing. You get what you can and you carry it on your shoulders. Now imagine Jesus saying these words:
13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
Jesus is saying as desperately as we thirst for water – and we desperately need water – we have a deeper thirst. And Jesus has a deeper satisfaction. Think of the hottest, driest day, the deepest most desperate thirst and then the coldest, purest most refreshing drink – that’s what Jesus offers in John chapter 4. That’s what Jesus offers today in your life and mine.
To prepare us for John chapter 4, let me very briefly tell you four little Old Testament stories about water in the desert.
The first one is in Genesis and it concerns Jacob. Verse 6 of our passage tells us that John 4 takes place at Jacob’s well in Samaria. Well the OT doesn’t record the time Jacob dug that particular well. But it does tell us about Jacob and another well. In Genesis 29 Jacob met his bride to be – Rachel – at a well. It was the hottest part of the day and Rachel came with her sheep to the well. But there was a massive great stone over the top of the well. As she came in the hottest part of the day she must have wondered to herself, who will roll the stone away. Well when Jacob saw the beautiful Rachel for the first time, he fell over himself to offer to roll away the stone and to water the sheep – like a Good Shepherd. And this was the first step towards Jacob winning his bride.
In fact Moses did a similar thing – that’s the second story I want to share. In Exodus chapter 2 Moses was in the desert by a well and the beautiful Zipporah came with some of her sisters to water her flocks. Some other shepherds tried to chase the women away but Moses stood up for them and saved them and he watered their flocks. Again at this well in the desert, it was the first step towards Moses winning his bride.
The third story occurred later in Exodus. Moses led the people out of Egypt into that same desert. They were parched with thirst – can you imagine it? They grumbled bitterly that the LORD couldn’t be trusted. The LORD stood on a rock and commanded Moses to take his rod and instead of striking the grumbling people, to strike the rock upon which He stood. And water came out of the rock to slake the thirst of the people. From then on the LORD was known as the Rock – He was just like that physical rock – He would be struck to slake the thirst of His people.
Finally in Jeremiah chapter 2 there’s a striking picture of water in the desert. It was our Old Testament reading this morning.
“Be appalled at this, O heavens and shudder with great horror” declares the LORD. “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own wells, broken wells that cannot hold water.”
Can you picture this scene in your mind? Here is the LORD Almighty standing before a people with outstretched arms – offering living water. And we have all walked past Him and instead, to satisfy our thirst, we have taken a shovel to dry ground and we have dug our own little wells that can’t even hold the water we so desperately crave. All the while the Spring of Living Water stands, arms outstretched, to provide eternal satisfaction for our thirsty souls. And all the while we work to make our broken wells a little less broken.
Now the water here symbolizes the Holy Spirit and the fulness of life we experience in Him. So here the LORD is saying “I provide overflowing satisfaction for your soul. But instead you trudge on past Me and decide to try to make your own fun. And it will not work.”
We are like a desert people, looking for water everywhere except to the Fountain of Life Himself.
