IT IS NOT SURPRISING that the various images of water used throughout scripture are so elemental to the long arc of the story of God and man. From ancient Egypt up to Assyria, from the Mediterranean Ocean to modern Syria, Iraq, and Iran, the prominent geological feature of the desert and a people of the desert dependent upon water for life is woven into the narrative. The earliest is this: “A river watering the garden flowed from Eden.” (Gen. 2:10) This image is inserted after the description of the Garden of Eden and all of its oasis likeness. “The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.” (Gen. 2:9)
Our longing imagination sees this time before the fall, the curse, and the expulsion as an existence in a former/future perfect life—a life of ease, but not indolence; a life without concern for personal safety or provision for needs; a life in balance with the creator and with creation. But this entire worldview is confused throughout linear time by the pain and despair of an act of rebellion and resultant consequences. “So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.” (Gen. 3:23-24)
Because of the exclusion of Adam and Eve from this idyllic setting, there is an ache in the heart of man. A perennial quest begins to find such a place and such a state of being. Out of the dim mists of time, the oral history of a people and the archetypal imagery of water continue in confluence, flowing into the story of the nomadic chosen people of God. He covenants with Abram. “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates.” (Gen. 15:18)
It is not Abram, but his descendants some four hundred years later that will begin to realize this inheritance. As far as the Nile in Egypt north to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates river boundary west to the Mediterranean, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants hunger for this place of peace, this Promised Land, bounded by water. It is Moses, four hundred and thirty years or so after Abraham, who will part the Red Sea (cf. Ex. 14:21-31), and lead the people to the place of the promise.
The Psalmist, some eight hundred years after Abraham, during the reign of David and the rise of the kingdom of Israel with Jerusalem as its capital, continues with this imagery. “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.” (Psa. 46:4) Throughout the story, where there is water in the desert, there is life; similarly, where God is present, there is abundant life. (cf. John 10:10b)
The metaphor continues to expand as the history of the people of God and the prophetic future of the people of God become more clearly defined as analogous with a progressive spiritual revelation that unites the physical with the metaphysical. The river of life that is literally necessary for sustaining the body of men and women is also clearly figuratively necessary for nourishing the spirit of mankind. The angel of the Lord speaks to Ezekiel twelve hundred years after the promises to Abraham. He reveals a vision of “water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east.” (Ezek. 47:1) As the water flows, it grows into a great stream: “now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross.” (Ezek. 47:5) And the angel says to him, “Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows.” (Ezek. 47:9)
Nineteen hundred and some years after Abraham, the Apostle John also records an angelic visitation. “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city.” (Rev. 22:1-2) The imagery from the Garden of Eden, distorted by the original sin that attached itself to the DNA of all mankind, is now not just restored, but perfected through the incredible redemptive purposes of God to a universe that finally enters “Shalom.” A more perfect peace is revealed; the ache in the human heart is resolved. Paul says, “For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” (Rom. 8:19-21)
Nowhere in scripture is the water of life imagery more clearly stated and impactful for us as individuals than in John’s story of Jesus interacting with the woman at the well in Samaria. All of the elements of the archetypal imagery are here. The rebellion of sin and its consequences are clearly depicted in the life of the woman. The desert setting, with its palpable heat and dust, is in tension with the cool water of the well; it only needs to be brought up from the depths to fulfill its purpose of sustaining and refreshing life.
The metaphor is inescapably spiritual, as Jesus deftly turns this not-by-chance encounter into a turning point in the woman’s life. If she will give him water, he will give her life. “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” (John 4:10) She has the means to give him water from the well; he is the means by which she can receive the water of life from above. “Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:14)
Each of us goes through dry times in life. It’s part of being nomads. We are on pilgrimage through this desert world, seeking our heavenly home, but must most-often settle for an occasional oasis spot. Jesus is our spiritual oasis, and always he beckons us out of the desert. “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” (John 37-38)
Q. Is my life sustained by well-water, or by artesian spring?
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