Lent Three - Living Water

Reverend Sue
Mar 4
4 min read

We are a thirsty hungry people, hard to satisfy for long, and so many of us are prone to restless searching. One of the gifts of Lent is the invitation to sit, even in the midday sun, by a well and meet the one who offers more than we knew we needed or was possible. (Lent Three. John 4:5-42.)

Sentence:

“Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ ” John 4:13-14

Collect:

Gracious God, giver of all good things,

Your son joined a woman at the well and offered her living water,

We pray that we would thirst for living water and come to know the life that gushes up within.

May we offer this water also to our neighbors in peace and hope

Until all are filled with eternal life. Amen.

Reflection:

We are a thirsty hungry people, hard to satisfy for long, and so many of us are prone to restless searching. One of the gifts of Lent is the invitation to sit, even in the midday sun, by a well and meet the one who offers more than we knew we needed or was possible.

You may like to read something I wrote in previous years.

Thirsting for Life

Many of us love this story from John’s gospel – for the central role of the unnamed woman, for the honest and earthy repartee between them, for the richness of the story with its layers of symbolism and resonance with the ancient stories of desert encounters, and for the image of a gushing spring of what we long for. Whatever draws us in we are likely to find something that speaks to needs deeper than we knew we were carrying.

We of faith know we have access to living water that will quench our thirst. And yet we are oftentimes as distracted by lesser thirsts and anxieties and ambitions as others are. Part of Lent can be about attending to our thirsts and hungers and sitting with them quietly and long enough to discern what is our deepest thirst. And then when we sit a little longer with the one who joins us by the well we discern again where our thirst is met.

I love the image of the living water being a spring that the divine spirit causes to gush up within our own self. That is, we are being reminded to look within for what comes from beyond. Let us consider that again – we are being reminded to look within for what is from beyond us. It is not so much that our fragile, flawed selves are the answer but that the eternal and life giving gushes up within us. We have access to the divine water of life because the divine is not distant to us but we have been made to be a receptacle to the divine upwelling of life. In this we are not separate to life but a conduit for what we long for. We are cleansed from within, we are healed and restored from within, and we are set free by what pours into us from the divine source of all life and love. I invite you to sit with this for a moment or two in your times of prayer and reflection and know in yet another way that we are not separate from God.

Intercessions:

Gracious God, creator and giver of all good things,

We give you thanks for the beauty and bounty of your world,

for all the myriad forms of life and culture.

We pray for places and peoples where there is thirst and hunger

for sustenance and justice and company.

We particularly pray for those places impacted by war and threat of violence remembering those in …

We pray for creatures who are endangered by development and climate change and pray that we might be wiser custodians.

Creator of all good things,

Hear our prayer.

Jesus our friend and saviour, who meets us by the well in mid day sun and in the darkness of night,

We pray for those who thirst and hunger in our community and far away.

We particularly pray for those who are afraid or lost or confused or angry …

May we find within the wellsprings of forgiveness, and grace, and healing …

May we in the church share with all the knowledge of the living water and encourage others in their journey.

Jesus our friend and saviour,

Hear our prayer.

Spirt that sustains,

Lift us up when we are parched and lonely,

bind us together when we are bruised and suspicious of one another.

Help us so to love the divine spark in one another that we can see beyond difference and dispute to what we share in common.

We particularly pray at this time that religious leaders in the community preach and teach peace and mercy until our leaders are led towards justice and hope.

Spirit that sustains,

Hear our prayer.

Living God,

Creator, Redeemer of all, Spirit that Sustains,

We pray in the name of your Beloved Son, the Christ, who came among us and offered living water. Amen.