The Water Boy

Around here I sometimes think of myself as the water boy.  There is no thirsty worn down football team that needs me to take water out on the field, but there are animals that depend on me.  Before our dog of fourteen years died, one of my daily chores was to make sure she had plenty of water in the dish.  Whenever we keep some chickens around as we are prone to do, their watering needs become a daily concern.  And even now, the cows that graze out in the pasture go to a couple of 300 gallon metal troughs numerous times during the day and they always expect it to have plenty of water. 

 

As I tend to this basic need here on the farm, I am constantly reminded of the importance of water to everything that lives.  All the animals and everything that grows in the field needs water.  Even the one who does the watering needs water.  We all do.  One of my favorite water stories in the Scripture is found in the 4th chapter of John.  I found it decades ago when I was just a boy about to become a man.  When I started trying to preach, I went to that text many times.  I remember preaching it one Sunday at the morning service and then again at the evening worship time.  I cannot imagine what a young green preacher could have come up with for two sermons on the same text, but I have never been one to shy away from offering a lot of verbage.  Ask anyone who has had to listen to me preach more than a few times.

 

But, I guess it is also true that even as a young preacher, I recognized this story of Jesus at Jacob's well as a powerful life giving passage.  Those words from the 14th verse are such words as we hear Jesus saying, "...The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."  I am particularly partial to the word "gushing."  It creates images of more than a sufficiency, more than just flowing but overflowing, and a source of life giving power that has no end.  Sounds just like something Jesus would offer poor sinners like me and, maybe, you.