The Following is the first of 31 readings I have prepared for a series called "Filling our Jars"
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The Enduring Promise
"I came that they may have life, and have it to the full." Jn. 10:10 NRSV
Why did Jesus come? This is an important question. After all, our view of Jesus impacts the direction of our spiritual pilgrimage. We may believe he came primarily to be an example for us; or he came primarily to identify with the poor. Yet he himself articulated another purpose: “I came that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Jesus saw his purpose as life-giving: He came so that he could give his spiritual life to human beings. This life, he claimed, is abundant and fruitful. He sometime used water to help explain this spiritual phenomenon. One day he said to a woman whom he met at a well, “Those who drink the water I give them will never thirst.” Jn. 4:14
Ancient Middle Eastern civilizations were familiar with thirst and drought, being surrounded by desert. Thirst could be a harbinger of death. Yet the woman at the well did not know what Jesus meant. To help her, he probed into her private history - her sexual life of all things. She had had many men; and now here was Jesus, dipping into the well of her dark secrets. In other words, he got to the core of her heart; and this is where, without any condemnation, he offered himself to her. She drank deeply - and was radically changed. Her shame flew away, and she leapt with joy - all the way to her village where she blurted out the news about this amazing man who knew all her secrets. For her, Jesus’s promise was coming true: “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” Jn. 4:17
The water metaphor may have less impact for us, where fresh water is abundant. Still, we easily recognize many symptoms of spiritual dryness in our society, such as in reports about how young adolescent girls are obsessed with making their bodies sexually attractive to males. They think that by offering themselves sexually, they can gain a sense of worth. But they do not see the potential pitfalls. Today’s adolescents have been labeled as the generation at risk.3 Really, they are thirsty for the same living water Jesus offered the woman at the well. Likewise, his Spirit seeks to probe their private lives – the place they assume is no one’s business. But this is indeed Christ’s business, because this is where he touches their soul’s thirst; and he cries out:
“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me!” Jn. 7:37