LifeSample

Life in Abundance

Once Jesus is on the road. At lunchtime, he sits down exhausted at a well. Shortly afterward, a woman comes to fetch water. His friends are on their way to the village to buy something to eat. Against all social norms, he approaches her and asks her for a drink. Full of skepticism, she hesitates.

Jesus seizes the moment. He introduces himself as the one who has living water to give. "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Imagine this literally. A woman sneaks to the well at the hottest hour of the day. Her thirst is insatiable. Shunned because of her life story, she always goes to fetch water when no one else is at the well. But on this day, Jesus is waiting for her. He knows her thirst, which goes beyond her physical need. He knows how guilt and social exclusion have dried out her soul. That is precisely where he meets her. In the middle of the heat of her life. He knows her, and he knows you too.

Jesus looks behind the façade into your thirsty soul. He knows your longing for belonging and self-worth. For love and recognition, justice and truth, peace and inner calm, meaning, and identity. He knows your past and your questions. Like the woman at the well. And he also offers you living water today. What he has to give is everlasting. It doesn't just satisfy you in the short term, like status, success, and likes. It quenches the thirst of your soul forever.

Jesus was already giving a glimpse of what would happen a little later on Pentecost. He would soon pour out the living water on all believers. The Holy Spirit himself would fill each individual. For real life in abundance.

“Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.” John 7,38 - 39