Jesus the Evangelist
Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says 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 nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4:10-14
By asking for a drink Jesus initiated conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well near Sychar.
The woman’s response showed that Jesus definitely had her attention. Already she recognized that Jesus’ speaking to her went beyond the ordinary. Jesus then gently engaged the woman’s curiosity by turning the conversation to things deeper than drinking water–spiritual things. Can she help but ask herself, “What’s this gift of God? And what does he mean by living water? And who is this man anyway?”
When the woman couldn’t seem to stop thinking and talking about ordinary well water (“You don’t even have a bucket!”), Jesus continued in a spiritual vein by contrasting the earthly and the spiritual in a way that was bound to lead her to ask the right questions. With just a few words what began as a simple request from Jesus for water to relieve His thirst became a request from the woman for water that only Jesus can give.
Lord Jesus, help me to know how to turn a conversation from ordinary things to spiritual things. Direct us to the gift of living water Jesus gives, namely, a living relationship with the living God. Amen.