Jacob’s well is still there in Samaria. It’s 75 feet deep, and at the bottom of it there’s a spring of fresh water. It was dug by Jacob 2000 years before the time of Jesus, and now 2000 years later on it’s still there. And we can picture Jesus sitting beside it. It was the middle of the day, and Jesus had been walking all morning. He was tired, and he was thirsty.
It’s good to have these reminders that Jesus was just like us. He needed rest and refreshment just as much as we do. He was no supernatural superman.
So there he is, sitting by the well, and of course unless you’ve got a bucket and a rope, you’re not going to be able to draw any water from a 75 foot well, however thirsty you are. But then, along comes a Samaritan woman with the necessary equipment.
Two things we need to notice here. Because of an ancient feud, Jews and Samaritans had as little as possible to do with each other: different tribes and different religions, like many a situation still today. And the second thing is that men and women who were strangers just wouldn’t speak to each other in that way. As much as anything in fact, this was because a man wouldn’t lower himself to speak to a woman. Women were very much second class citizens. And indeed when Jesus’ disciples turn up, we’re told that were astonished to find that he was having a conversation with this woman.
But Jesus, then as now, transcends all such human-made barriers. He’s a real bridge-builder. We could do with his here in Colwall.
So Jesus asks her for a drink The gospel makes it sound rather stark, impolite: Give me a drink. But if he’d been speaking in English in our time, I’m sure he would have said Please. Then and there that wasn’t necessary. Please give me a drink, and her answer shows her surprise: What, you a Jew asking me a woman and a Samaritan!
And rather mysteriously Jesus replies that if it were the other way round and she’d asked him for a drink, he would have been able to give her living water, so that she’d never be thirsty again. The water he gives to people, he says, becomes in them a spring that gushes up to eternal life.
We, who most of the time take water for granted - we have it on tap, and sometimes of course far too much of it, we can easily forget what a precious and vital commodity water is. If you live in a semi-desert area like Samaria, to have a spring or well on which you can always rely is immensely valuable and comforting and indeed life giving.
Life giving. That’s what Jesus is offering us. We needn’t be parched; we needn’t be dried up: Jesus gives us the water of life. What water is to physical life, Jesus is to the fullness of life. If we ask him, he will be like a spring within us perpetually enlivening us, a spring welling up to eternal life. He offers us an inner joy and peace and gladness, which can overflow in praise and service and love. These are things that defy precise definition, but they are surely things for which we have a deep longing. And they are offered to us by Jesus.
Well - and that’s an appropriate word in this context - well, water has a role in our service today. It is with water that Megan will be baptized. Let’s think of it as the water of life, opening up to Megan all the benefits and promises there for the followers of Jesus.
Megan’s parents, Verona and Gareth, together with her godparents, will promise to do what they can to bring her up as a member of God’s Family. And the rest of us, who are God’s Family here, will promise to do what we can to encourage and support them in this task. The best way we can do that is by showing that our lives, whatever our weaknesses or disabilities or shortcomings or just age, that our lives are like a succulent plant in the desert: that our lives sparkle and bubble like fresh, effervescent Malvern Water.
Well, something like that. Though, perhaps after last Monday’s Panorama, we shouldn’t be thinking of bottled water at all, but just tap water. Though, again, here in Colwall, we can make out a special, historic, even royal case for our Malvern Water.
It is all, whatever its source, the water of life. So, at least every now and then, let us appreciate its physical life-giving quality as much as desert people do, and give thanks to God for it. And on that other level, let us daily open our lives to Jesus, who offers us all that we need for fullness of life, not just now, but springing up to eternity.
Amazingly, his life, his love, his strength, are all there, on tap, for you and for me.