The Story of WaterShembull

Water in the New Testament

Jesus was God, so He did things in the same unexpected way God did them. Once, at a well, Jesus encountered a Samaritan woman. On the surface, it made no sense to talk to her. In that culture, men and women didn’t speak to one another unless they were married or family members—and Jews and Samaritans didn’t speak to one another ever. The Jews and Samaritans had a complicated and hate-filled history and did not speak to one another.

But Jesus asked her for a drink anyway. She was startled and wondered how He could ask her that when Jews and Samaritans wouldn’t even drink from the same cup.

Jesus responded that she should ask Him for water. After all, He had water that would make her never thirst again. She probably thought they were talking about physical thirst, but they weren’t. They were talking about her soul’s thirst. Jesus knew all the ways life had left her parched, and He invited her to see who He really was: the One with Living Water. With one encounter, her soul went from bone-dry to overflowing.

This same Jesus who dared to speak with a Samaritan woman did plenty of other things that raised eyebrows, like walking on water. It was as if the waters remembered Him. After all, He was there at the beginning when they were told to exist. The waves simply became a floor beneath His feet.

Another time, He calmed a threatening storm with just a word. He’d been sleeping (perhaps it’s easy to sleep in a storm when you know every molecule is under God’s control), but when the disciples shook Jesus awake, Jesus spoke: “Peace! Be still.” At once the waters calmed. The disciples marveled, saying, “Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey him?” (Matthew 8:27, Mark 4:41). Who, indeed?

At a religious celebration, Jesus stood up and cried out for people to come to Him for Living Water. What prompted Jesus’s strange behavior this time? Well, this celebration was designed to help the Jewish people remember their ancestors' years in the wilderness—how God provided water and sustained their lives over and over again in incredible ways. Jesus wanted the people to see how that rescue pointed to something bigger: He was the Rock who would be struck.

This was the most unexpected rescue: God Himself yielded His body to death so that the thirsty could come, drink, and never thirst again. With His sacrifice, God’s love was plain. But what about God’s sovereignty? What about God’s life-giving power? How could those parts of His character still be intact when Jesus was…dead?