How to See Life in 321 - a Guide to John's GospelSample

What are you thirsty for?

In the Bible, thirst is a picture of our deepest desires. We all crave life, joy, and satisfaction. But the Bible also says we look for it in all the wrong places. There’s a powerful image of this in the Old Testament book of Jeremiah. God is speaking and he says:

“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns [wells],
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
(Jeremiah 2:13)

The people had not been literally digging wells. This is a metaphor. But imagine the people in a desert wasteland, scouring the horizon for an oasis. Behind them bubbles an inexhaustible Fountain, brimming with life. Instead, they press on toward the horizon, shovels in hand. Some dig in one place, some in another, all dying of thirst. In their efforts, the best they manage is a mouthful of mud, and all the while, the Fountain gushes in easy reach.

We live for people’s love. We live for people’s respect. We live for the weekend. But those things don’t ultimately satisfy. We’re like thirsty explorers looking for satisfaction, going from one broken fountain to the next, thinking, ‘This time!’ But it doesn’t work. And it’s a double sin: to dig other wells is ridiculous, it’s also rebellious.

How does God respond? Ultimately, he responds with John Chapter 4!

In this chapter, we see the Fountain of Living Waters show up! Jesus is the LORD who spoke those words back in Jeremiah’s day. Now he has come in the flesh, and he is thirsty. It’s an amazing idea—the Source of life, empty and parched. Why?

John chapter 4 shows him meeting with a woman from Samaria. According to Jesus’ disciples, she was the wrong gender, the wrong nationality, the wrong religion, and the wrong lifestyle. In a conservative Middle Eastern culture, she’d been married 5 times and was now living with a sixth man. Jesus’ followers would have considered her wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! But Jesus befriends her. He identifies the metaphorical wells she’d been digging (John 4:16-18) and he offers her the Living Waters of his Spirit (John 4:10-14) — all for free!

What kind of God goes thirsty, so that we can drink? Keep reading. By the end of John’s Gospel, we will see him hellishly thirsty on the cross so that we can all receive his Spirit (John 19:28,34; see also 7:37-39).

If he’s that committed to pouring himself out, we can learn to trust him as the Source of our life and joy.