“Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” John 4: 15

What I loved most about teaching literature was explaining figurative language, helping students differentiate among similes, metaphors, and symbols. Writers can say volumes in a few words with figurative language. Symbols especially carry significant weight, having both literal and figurative halves.

In John 4, Jesus talks about literal water and wells and thirst, but every one of those has a figurative or symbolic counterpart. Poets and novelists rarely explain their symbols; that’s the richness of literature (and the necessity of lit. profs!). Jesus doesn’t explain either. But how I wish the Samaritan woman had pointblank asked: What exactly is living water? How is it possible to never thirst? We know she’s listening to His words literally, for she doesn’t want to be thirsty or return to the well ever again (v.15). 

Symbols always have a literal component: water sustains all life; we can’t go long without it; it relieves thirst. Wells have to be dug; water lies below the surface; wells belong to other people. But what is Jesus really saying? What are His figurative points? What do water, wells, and thirst symbolize?

Thirst becomes a symbol for seeking fulfillment, wells a symbol for all the places we seek it, water a symbol for what we really need. Jesus is helping this woman recognize that what she figuratively thirsts for - romantic love and relationship - will never be satisfied in someone else; she’s tried five wells already. Jesus is suggesting she can have her own well - no more wondering if different wells have enough water, are fresh enough, are deep enough to satisfy. He can be her living water.

This is not a new symbol. In the Old Testament, God laments over His wayward Israelites: “My people have forsaken Me, [wait for it…] the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jer. 2:13, emphasis mine). The Israelites turned to their own wells instead of God to satisfy their deepest needs, even if it meant work (digging) instead of accessing a readily-available spring. Have we done the same?

The Samaritan woman is literally walking to a literal well for literal water, but figuratively, she's been drawing from the wrong cistern for satisfaction and purpose. But it’s a broken cistern, and she doesn’t know it. But soon, living water will wash over her as Jesus reveals Himself to her, and she can’t tell others about it quickly enough (v.28). 

Teaching at the Feast of Tabernacles a few chapters later, Jesus will confirm the Samaritan woman’s experience can be anyone’s: “‘whoever believes in Me, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this He meant the Spirit” (7:38). 

“Sir, give me this water.”

We’re all the Samaritan woman, thirsty for satisfaction, meaning, purpose. What wells are you drawing from?