The Bible mentions water 722 times as streams, wells, and springs with the power to heal, purify, provide deliverance, and destroy evil and enemies.
"Water" is found in Genesis 1:2 and streams its way through the Bible to Revelation 22:17.
At Jacob's well, water's power is about healing a person's vulnerability.
When Jesus appears at Jacob's well tired and thirsty and meets a Samaritan woman the mutual vulnerability begins.
Jesus, as a Jewish male, has advantage over the woman, but he's also a disadvantaged, thirsty, tired traveling foreigner without a bucket to draw water.
The Samaritan woman is at disadvantage because of gender and race, but she has the advantage of being a local who has access to the well's water.
Another disadvantage is the woman’s private life of having had five husbands.
Either she was trapped in the custom of levirate marriage, or the five husbands may refer to people from five foreign nations who were brought by the Assyrians conquers, or the resulting mixed race and culture due to Herod the Great's colonization.
Jesus promises the Samaritan woman living water and purifying water giving her hope living in the tense, diverse culture surrounding her.
Like the Samaritan woman, we have old hatreds and hostilities so we live as God's vulnerable people surviving the floods of today's culture, economic insecurity, gender threats, and safety.
God, through Jesus, meets us at the baptism font with its flowing stream of living water guiding us through the vulnerabilities of life.
By the power of the Spirit, vulnerable we are, we have the capability of living our baptism covenant of resisting evil, injustice, and oppression.
Through our stream of living water, we are capable of transforming despair into hope by offering security to the vulnerable.
Think about it: In what ways has God made your faith resilient and strong, in today’s world?
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