Jesus Is Still Offering Living Water, By The Water, in Trafalgar Square, Today.

Jesus sits down by the well, alone. It’s midday, it’s Palestine and it’s very hot. He’s weary (and hungry) from His journey and the disciples have gone into the town to buy something to eat. He’s thirsty too but the well is deep and he hasn’t got any means of drawing water. A woman arrives and she’s equipped with suitable utensils and he asks her for a drink. It’s free - and it’s customary for women to draw water.

Customary? Yes.  But this is no ordinary scene. You see the woman is that kind of a woman. I mean, one has to ask the question, what was she doing here at noon? Usually water was drawn at sundown, in the cool of the day. Was she trying to avoid someone? Or some people? Was she, in some way, ostracised by women in her social grouping? As the story unfolds, we find out she’s led a loose sex life, she’s had six partners ...

So, Jesus, what are you doing? You’re a Jew after all and you’re asking a Samaritan for a drink of water? I mean, have you forgotten that you can’t drink out of Samaritans’ buckets or utensils? They will make you defiled. But you don’t seem too bothered. And then, your disciples come back and wonder what on earth you’re doing because you’re talking to a woman, a Samaritan woman at that, on your own and in public. Whatever is happening here? These things really are not done.

But is all leads to a revolution in this despised-by-Jews Samaritan town. Jesus offers her the gift of God, free living water, and she takes up his offer – as do many in her town. He even ends up staying for a couple of days. Such a thing is not done.

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He sits there, by the fountains, in Trafalgar Square, breathless, uncomfortable. It's hot, very hot. He keeps on dipping a finger into the water and wiping his forehead.

“Do you want some water?” I ask (hoping he’s not going to pass out).

We find him a bottle of water and he offers to pay. Of course not.

We get talking about this uncomfortable ailment and find he's got whooping cough; he’s had it for months and the doctor has told him to travel to warm climes aboard as this will be the cure but he can’t because of commitments. But there’s sunshine in London today alright and he’s out, soaking it in, uncomfortable as it is.

We offer to pray for him and he accepts. He tells us every reason why he doesn’t believe that Jesus is God incarnate. Yes and we find out that in the past some of his family have been, one can only imagine, rather too law-abiding, religion-upholding Christians - too much for a young man and he reacted. 

We listen. We tell him about Jesus. We pray.

Jesus is still offering living water, by the water, in Trafalgar Square, today.