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Leaky Vessel at Jacob's Well
Article Summary
Just like you can’t drink salt water to quench your thirst, you can’t use material stuff to heal spiritual sickness; but we still try. We fill our lives full, avoid bad stuff, and try to escape from betrayal and pain. We buy stuff to pad our lives with comforts and fill our schedules with lots of distractions hoping to quench our spiritual thirst. But these things are leaky buckets, they cannot fulfill or enrich our lives for very long. We are like the woman standing at Jacob’s well in John 4, in the right place trying to solve the problem but putting our hope in a leaky bucket made from clay that will only run dry again. We need a better way.
Just like you can’t drink salt water to quench your thirst, you can’t use material stuff to heal spiritual sickness; but we still try. We fill our lives full, avoid bad stuff, and try to escape from betrayal and pain. We buy stuff to pad our lives with comforts and fill our schedules with lots of distractions hoping to quench our spiritual thirst. But these things are leaky buckets, they cannot fulfill or enrich our lives for very long. We are like the woman standing at Jacob’s well in John 4, in the right place trying to solve the problem but putting our hope in a leaky bucket made from clay that will only run dry again. We need a better way.
Leaky Vessel At Jacob's Well
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In 2004 I was standing on the shore of Loch Ness in northern, central Scotland. The tour guide had spent 20 minutes recounting stories of people who had scene Nessie, the mythical sea monster who allegedly lives in the lake.
While standing on the shore of Loch Ness, I’m embarrassed to admit, I wanted to believe in Nessie, and I hoped she would surface. I lingered just a little past when most of the normal people went back to the bus and finally lost faith and turned away.
I’d been bitten by the story of Loch Ness. When you’re there, looking at it, you can’t separate the place from its history – it affects you; at least it affected me. There are a lot of places like this – Stonehenge, the Moai on Easter Island, the Mayan Temples, and the Egyptian pyramids. Places like, the tomb of the unknown soldier in Washington, D.C. or the 9/11 Memorial in NYC capture our attention when we see them.
But no matter how memorable or sacred a place may be, it will lose its luster if you pass it every day. I’m pretty certain daily commuters in Scotland aren’t trying to spot Nessie on their way to work in Inverness. Just like People who work in D.C., live in Tribeca, or work on cruises to Easter Island stop noticing the special places they see all the time too.
The woman at the well in John chapter four was guilty of this blindness. She was drawing water from Jacob’s Well – a historically significant place to the people of God (see Genesis 29). But since she was there every day, it had ceased to be Jacob’s Well and had become just a place to get water.
Perhaps she was coming to the right place for the wrong reasons. Rather than searching for God in the story of her people and waiting in faith for Him to keep His promises, she was just filling her leaky vessel made from temporary materials with water that would only sate her thirst for a moment. Then she’d go home to face the arid reality of her broken life, only to come back again the next day.
Are we very different? Our modern world has promised us happiness and fulfillment, “just keep dipping into the well (your bank account) and take one more drink.” Have we forgotten our history, too? Have we turned our backs on God and His transcendent reality, settling for the stuff He made rather than seeking Him? This woman at the well certainly had.
Then, one day, Jesus showed up. Just like Jacob had showed up to find Rachel at that same well, hundreds of years earlier, Jesus was there, and He asked this woman for some water, “Can I have a drink?”
She was suddenly caught up in a history that God had been planning all along. A story about a nation, and also a story about her. A man speaking to a woman. A Jew speaking to a Samaritan. A Rabbi speaking to one without faith. None of these things should have happened. She was dumbfounded; seemingly on the edge of a fairytale she’d forgotten.
Jesus compassionately told her all she’d ever done, and then she saw the truth, or rather, met Him, and in an instant, she was no longer thirsty. In John 4:28 it says, “[She] leaves her water jar” and tells everyone about Jesus. Of course, she left her water jar, struck by the awe of the place. It was no longer just a well. It was Jacob’s Well once again, and why would you need a water jar when you’ve found Jesus who made water at the beginning of time?
Matthew 6:31-33 says (paraphrased), “Don’t worry about what you’re going to eat, drink, and wear like worldly people do, God knows you need those things. Instead, seek Him first, and He’ll give you all that stuff too.”
Don’t forget the places you find yourself in are part of the story of God. Stay put and wait for your hope to be revealed. Lift your head and make each day about more than just getting your fill. Jesus is waiting for you at the well ,and He knows your story. He longs to fix your leaky heart and give you His living water.
“That person is like a tree planted by streams of water…”
Westminster Christian School, located in Palmetto Bay, Florida, is a private, college-preparatory school for children from preschool through twelfth grade.