Jacob's Water

"You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?" Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again;" (John 4:12-13)

I think back over the stories of Jacob that I have heard all of my life. I think about my own identification particularly with Jacob's wrestle with the heavenly messenger that revolved around him struggling to deal with his own sense of identity and worth. He had grappled with others all of his life to achieve a sense of value and belonging but with very little satisfaction. He had often used deception and manipulation to try to get his way, to achieve his desires and even to capture a feeling of being accepted by God. But each time it always came back to haunt him.

In the above verses Jesus contrasts Jacob's kind of water with His own offer of water that genuinely satisfies. Jacob's whole life was marked with a desperate search for acceptance and love. But much of the time he could not escape the ever-present feelings of disappointment, isolation and frustrated desires. His bad choices put him into long-term situations that caused him a great deal of emotional and spiritual pain for many years. He was forced to run for his life from his twin brother because of his trickery and thereby was never able to see his very dear mother again before her death. His penchant for deceptions was reciprocated back on him by his uncle who seemed even more adept at deceiving and tricking people for his advantage. Because of this Jacob ended up with two wives who were intensely jealous of each other for the rest of their lives. This caused a great deal of tension and misery in Jacob's family which extended for generations.

In a very significant way, these problems describe the effects of a life lived depending on one's self instead of surrendering the life totally to God's ways and will. Even though Jacob was passionate in his pursuit of God, the ways in which he went about trying to be accepted by God usually ended up creating serious problems for himself.

I believe that Jesus may have had some of this in mind as He spoke to this woman who was herself caught up in a similar kind of life, looking for love and acceptance but trapped in methods, traditions and a religion that failed to bring about a deep sense of value and satisfaction that her heart so longed for. She, like so many of us, was depending on repeatedly coming to Jacob's well and drinking Jacob's water and employing Jacob's kind of search for a way to thrive while also experiencing the same kinds of frustrations and disappointments that Jacob experienced.

Jacob's water represents man-made religion that appears to be authentic. It talks about God, it relies on information about God and truth and it is sometimes even passionate in its pursuit of wanting to be accepted by God. But still it fails to bring the kind of peace into the life that is so necessary for our hearts to feel satisfied and whole. It is the kind of religion that most of us are all too familiar with but that does not really connect us effectively with the heart of God like we were designed for.

Jesus came to this world to reveal to us a new kind of water that addresses the deepest longings of our souls. As He described this new living water coming from a curious description of a well that is found inside the heart, placed there with our consent through the kindness and miracle power of a loving Father, this woman began to sense her own deep craving for this kind of water that she had unconsciously been looking for all of her life. While she may not have fully understood all the metaphors or their full implications, she sensed that whatever it was that this man was describing to her met perfectly the longings deep in her heart that she had never been able to give proper expression to herself. She began to realize that Jesus was truly exposing her own deep thirst that she had never been able to satisfy through her religion or through any of her repeated intimate relationships with men.

Jacob's water is still very popular today in every church and is found in every religion.

Jesus' water is still a standing offer to anyone who is finally ready to turn away from the wells that simply cannot satisfy the soul. God calls these wells “broken cisterns” by comparison to what He has to offer.

Jacob's water promises to make us feel good, to make us appear good, to maybe even bring us into conformity to God's will and find us acceptance with Him through complex systems of belief or some level of personal performance and achievements.

Jesus' water is radically different from the inherent assumptions found in Jacob's wells. Jesus' water is the very gift of Himself living inside our hearts producing joy, acceptance and deep satisfaction that can never be found in performance-based religion or emotional relationships with other people or even things. Jesus water produces living fruit in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Jacob's water cannot satisfy the thirst of our heart for very long if at all. It can bring us pleasure for awhile or cause us to think that we are right with God through religious ceremonies or intellectual arguments. But Jacob's wells only produce water that is at best temporary and we keep having to come back again and again seeking to fill up the deepest cravings of our heart only to have our heart soon feel empty once again.

The reality of Jesus' water is something that very few people appreciate properly. I know that I am far from completely understanding and immersing myself in this living water. I can really identify with Jacob in his desperate search for feeling valued and loved and cherished as he wrestled with the very One who had come to give him exactly what he was longing for.

The good news is that Jacob finally got it. After fighting through the night with his own distorted, confused feelings about God, he discovered that the One he thought was out to hurt him was actually the One he had been searching for all of his life. He came to realize that the person he was fighting was the only one who had the ability and capacity along with the eagerness to bring him the blessing he had been chasing for so many years.

Jesus accepted this woman's claim to be a descendant of Jacob. He could see in her the same patterns of longing for God but being repeatedly frustrated in her attempts to find love and acceptance. She was drinking Jacob's kind of water and getting the same results that Jacob had gotten centuries before her.

Jacob as last learned to turn away from his own methods of digging here and there for the kind of water that failed to satisfy his deepest heart longings. He discovered that his only hope was to cling in full dependence on the only One who had what he craved the most and who loved him the most. He began to realize that the kind of satisfaction he really wanted could not be found in religious performance or blessing rituals but in clinging tenaciously to the One who was the blessing Himself. He began to realize that the kind of love that really ravishes the heart could never be found in the arms of a beautiful woman but had to be experienced in the embrace of the One the one who had created all women to begin with, yet the very one he was fighting against.

The same opportunity was being offered to this woman of Sychar. She had sought to find acceptance, value and love in the arms of one man after another only to discover that there was no one who could satisfy effectively the deep cravings of her heart. Marriage after marriage had fallen apart until she was willing to simply live in a loose relationship with a man outside of this formality. Maybe she had given up ever finding real love after going through six different men. But amazingly the seventh Man she encountered turned out to be the very God who had created her heart and the only one who could satisfy the longings He had put in there to start with. Only He could offer her the kind of water that Jacob's well had repeatedly failed to satisfy. Only He had the ability to take up residence deep inside of her and produce the joy and peace that she had looked for in all her other relationships. Jesus was offering her the gift of Himself, to be that well of water dwelling in her heart to produce new living water that would very quickly splash out and attract many others to taste of this wonderful resource.