Thirsty for Love

What does love look like? I mean, this week is Valentine's Day, right? Time to buy flowers and chocolates, maybe a card and some jewelry. Time to plan a romantic outing with the one you love or shower your favorite children with sweets and stuffies. When my children were small, I'd invite my mom and have a fun dinner with handmade placemats on the table and garlands of hearts strung across the entrances of the dining room. I'd hang lights in the window and dress up our boring old sofa with fluffy red pillows. One year, I even invited some of our friends --couples --I wanted to celebrate their marriages. Pausing to be with those we love and recognize our relationships is important. Love deserves to be celebrated. But is it always flowers and special dinners?

In John 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well. He asks her for a drink, and the conversation begins. She looks at His skin, His features. He is a Jewish man, she a Samaritan woman. The two do not socialize. He says He has water for her. She looks at His empty hands; He has no bucket with which to draw water. He says it is living water: the one who partakes of it will never thirst again. She looks at the hot sun above. Shame causes her to draw water in the heat of the day when others are not at the well. The promise of never having to come to this place again entices her: she thirsts for this water. 

Go, call your husband, and come here --Jesus' words to this woman who has had five husbands and is now living with a man. Shame. I usually wince when I get to this part. Jesus has plainly, forthrightly called her out. The nice Jesus who so graciously offered her water that would satisfy to the point of never thirsting again, has suddenly turned on her, exposing the very shame that has kept her from interacting with the others who require water from this well. How could You, Jesus? I want to know.

Because He loves her.

Every well must be dug, even the well into which living water is to be poured. This woman who wanted so badly to have what Jesus offered could not see past her human needs, her earthly circumstances to understand just what it was He was holding out to her. She looked at His features, she looked at His empty hands, she looked at the scorching sun. But He wanted her to see, the water He provided for her would fill her heart, her very soul, and she would never thirst again. But first, the well must be dug. Through layers of shame and infamy, through the overburden of unforgiveness and the mire of ungodly behaviors, through the murkiness of selfish, worldly thoughts, and through the bedrock of anger and rebellion. This is what Jesus was doing. He had begun to dig. 

Sometimes love needs deeper inquiry than How is your day? or Would you like to come for dinner? Sometimes love asks the difficult questions and places a mirror where a garland of hearts seems more pleasant. Sometimes love dredges up rather than dresses up. Sometimes love isn't sweet or stuffy, but nauseating and prickly. But love, when it bestows on others what they cannot give themselves, when it brings life eternal and everlasting joy, that is the love of an infinite God. And it is something for which we were all made to thirst.