Lent 3 2026
John 4.5-42
Give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.
Famously, human beings are mostly water: about 60% of our body mass is made up of the stuff. And we are hardly alone among creatures in our wetness. Most mammals and birds contain about as much water as we do. Insects tend to be drier than mammals and birds; but fish are, as you might imagine, wetter than we are. And considering that, by biomass, there is much more plant, fungal, bacterial, and other microbial life than there is animal life, all of which are really mostly water—upwards of 80% of their mass—it is no exaggeration to say that life is mostly water. It is not for nothing that when scientists search for extraterrestrial life, they are mainly searching for water. After all, life on Earth evolved in water; and it is essential to life as we know it: we know of no lifeforms that can live without water.
Water happens to be an excellent solvent: and this means that it can serve as a medium for a myriad of biochemical processes, chemical reactions essential for life. It is also relatively stable in changes in heat, remaining in liquid form in a wide temperature range: this is also important for biochemical processes. And water is “sticky”, though that seems odd to say: its molecules stick to each other and to other things, and this makes water useful for moving chemicals around via capillary action. It is a marvellous thing that so simple and therefore abundant a thing—just two hydrogen atoms and one of oxygen—can play so vital a role in the universe.
No wonder that water appears in lists of fundamental elements across cultures, whether Greek or Indian or Chinese. Thales of Miletus, considered the first philosopher of the Greek tradition, even argued that water was the originating principle of all things. Everything owes itself to water. And so, when water turns up in the Bible as an element of chief theological significance, we should not be surprised. It makes perfect physical and physiological sense that this should be so.
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We enter the Church, the Body of Christ, by water; a clear reference to the amniotic fluid that accompanies our physical birth, itself 98% water, baptismal water ushers our spiritual birth. And, in traditional funerary rites, we leave the world also sprinkled with the holy water that connects death and baptism.
The asperges—as the act is called—is also a part of some churches’ normal Sunday services, specifically their penitential rite: you might know it from the equivalent action during the Easter Vigil, after the Blessing of the Font. And those of you who have had me come to bless your homes will also recall the sprinkling with holy water in various rooms, a sign of blessing.
And we do here, at our parish eucharists, involve water in the preparation of Holy Communion. Water is added to the wine, and the priest says sotto voce: “By the mystery of this water in wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” And before the Eucharistic prayer, the priest’s hands are washed in water, again with a prayer: “Wash me, O Lord, from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin”.
All of which is to say that water is ubiquitous in Christian liturgy, a reflection of our deep-seated intuitions about water’s elemental potency.
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And yet, there seems to be, in our text this morning, a sort of abolition of water, and its displacement by a new dispensation.
Give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water, is the woman’s request. Make our normal water redundant, and all that it requires: this toil to obtain it, to prepare it for our use. This is, of course, not what Jesus actually promised. It is too bluntly literal an interpretation of his claim that “whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst”—clearly, Jesus is not talking about hydration. And yet, there is some notion of displacement going on, some sense the obsolescence of one mode of being, making way for a new mode of being. This sense is strengthened further on in the passage, when Jesus says that “My food is to do the will of him who sent me”. Again, not literal—Jesus continues to eat—but there is a clearly a sort of competitive contrast presented here.
It is, I think, much less to do with the physical element itself—water—and its physiological functions, contrasted against something more spiritual: but, as already implied, to do with labour. Given me this water…so that I may never have to keep coming here to draw water. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water.
And as it happens, the word “liturgy” means “work”: it is a compound of the Greek laos (“people”) and ergon (“work”): it is the work of the people. And to understand Jesus as saying that his living water replaces the woman’s work of drawing water compels us to think about liturgy differently, as infused as our liturgical acts are with water.
Baptism in water. The penitential rite and its ritual cleansing. House blessings with holy water. The washing of priestly hands; the mixing of water into eucharistic wine. These too will one day pass away, one day be found to be themselves redundant, displaced by the final fulfilment of the work of Christ. After all, these are all signs of that living water that he promised; when the destination is in full view, signs will no longer be necessary.
Lent being a season of humility, it is important to remember that as ancient and venerable as our religion is and its practices, they too are temporary. Even our most sacred of sacraments—baptism and eucharist—are placeholders for a greater glory, the one to whom they point, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the living water, life itself.