John 4: 1-30

Like Jesus, the Samaritan woman came to the well thirsty. Jesus wanted to quench his bodily thirst; so did the woman, but the story hints at deeper layers of meaning. Perhaps Jesus thirsted for souls, and the woman for at-long-last love. “Give me a drink,” Jesus said, a scandal; Jews were forbidden to share anything in common with unclean Samaritans. When she questioned him he replied, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

Living water must have sounded good to the ex-wife of five, now shacked up with a sixth paramour. She took a long, deep drink, never to thirst again. Photini became one of Christianity’s earliest evangelists, telling everyone she knew what Jesus had done. She teaches us that no matter how parched our dry soul places, love can make a surprising appearance and quench all our thirsts.