Hunger and thirst must be satisfied again and again. There have been times when I have eaten so much at one meal that I said, “I will never eat again.” Such declarations proved themselves false within hours. 

Fasting is an intentional withholding of food and/or water in favor of prayer. Meals are replaced for a time with focused prayer. The hunger pangs and dry mouth serve as reminders to seek God’s wisdom and guidance, his intervention and resolution. 

Here a Samaritan woman comes to a well that is deep and dependable. A Random Rabbi is sitting there. He asks her for a drink. She points out a couple of problems with his request. First, Jews and Samaritans don’t get along. They avoid one another. Also, she is a woman and he is a man. They typically do not speak to one another in public. Oh, and they do not share drinking vessels. 

Jesus offered her Living Water. He would quench her thirst for meaning, purpose, and identity. The Random Rabbi initiated the conversation. She kept it going. She noted that he did not have a bucket and that the well was deep, around a hundred feet. She challenged him. “You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you?”

Jacob was one of the patriarchs, a rather fruitful one. He had lots of boys and girls. He lived a rather dramatic life. Indeed, he was a father to both their tribes. There was a greater father, however, and I do not mean Father Abraham. Isaiah put it like this: 

Jesus was, in fact, greater than their common ancestor. Jesus was ill-equipped at that moment to drop a bucket into the well, but he had depths and widths and heights she would never deplete. 

You know the rest of the story. She returned to her village with her thirst for meaning forever quenched. She herself became a deep well overflowing and made the way possible for everyone in her community to likewise taste the eternal refreshment of Living Water. 

Jesus was no Random Rabbi. John made this clear with his first words in this Gospel. Encounter by encounter, day by day, it was becoming clear to followers, wedding guests, temple servants, Jewish leaders, and Samaritans that Jesus was who John tells us he is. He was God in the flesh. He is our Savior. 

We will never know spiritual satisfaction until we know Jesus for who he really is. We will never experience true meaning and purpose apart from him. We can know and experience him now and forever. He meets us in our lonely moments of wandering and wondering. He meets us in crowded rooms when conversational cacophony cannot drown our worries and concerns. He meets us in moments of quiet contemplation and deep longing. 

This woman found him waiting at a well. Where will you find Jesus waiting for you?

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