Come and Drink
My daughters and I are currently reading the 5th or 6th (depending on what order you read them in) installment of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia Series: The Silver Chair. A few nights ago, we read a scene that just about wrecked me because it was Scripture coming to life in this piece of fiction, as I am sure Lewis intended. A new character, Jill, is in the other world where Narnia resides for the first time and has been wandering in the woods for hours when she finally hears running water. As she approaches the stream, there is a lion (who we the reader understands to represent Jesus) blocking her way. Jill becomes so thirsty looking at the stream that she thinks drinking water would be worth getting eaten by the lion. Then, the lion speaks: “If you are thirsty, come and drink.” When she doesn’t come, the lion asks if she is thirsty and Jill responds, “I’m dying of thirst.” “’Then drink,’ said the Lion.”
We are Jill. We are thirsty, sometimes palpably so. The world promises to quench our thirst in so many ways. If we just achieve enough, make enough money, have good enough friends, find a romantic partner, then we will be satisfied. Maybe you are thirsty for the deeper desires of your heart: comfort or health or companionship. Or maybe you are like me, walking through life post some traumatic event or catastrophic loss. I am thirsty for a previous life, for a person I cannot have again. I am thirsty for a life that doesn’t continually feel like just putting one foot in front of the other to get through the day. I am thirsty for a life that is more than the fallout of tragedy. Perhaps you are even thirsty for hope again, for trust in the God you thought you knew. For God to show up in a new way, for you to feel like he is actually with you, for you to have more of God during a time when you have nothing else. We are thirsty, friends, and the Bible shows us we are not alone.
When he was in the wilderness, David pens Psalm 63 and says “God, you are my God; I eagerly seek you. I thirst for you. My body faints for you in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water.” I think this aptly describes how we feel when our desire for something runs deep. Our souls feel thirsty. The world we live in is a desert. We search for water and come up empty, or when we do find something that quenches, the dryness and desolateness of what surrounds us brings back our thirst with a vengeance. For a little while success in your job satisfies but soon someone beats you out for a promotion or you make a mistake. You are surrounded by people who really seem to get you, but you know there’s still that one aspect of who you are that you keep hidden even from them. You have waited years for marriage and now you have it and most days it’s good, but somehow you thought there would be less arguing or more affirmation. Or maybe you’re like me and the good life you had was ripped away and your hard days outnumber your easy ones and you do not even know who you are anymore. Maybe being the lonely one or the different one or the misunderstood one has left your soul thirsty.
We are like the Israelites in Exodus 17 and Numbers 20. We are walking through the wilderness and there is no water. We complain and grumble. We ask God why he brought us to this point. We are so thirsty, God, that surely where you had us before must be better than this place. For the Israelites, that was enslavement in Egypt. They were so thirsty they preferred slavery and being apart from the presence of God. There is a difference between the Israelites in the wilderness and David in the wilderness. The Israelites believe God has abandoned them, they do not think he is capable of or will provide what they so desperately need. They complain and question God’s plan and his goodness. David, instead, turns to the Lord. Psalm 63 says his response to his thirst was to “gaze on [the Lord] in the sanctuary” and to glorify God because David still believed God’s “faithful love is better than life.” He trusted that the Lord would “satisfy me as with rich food.” David’s thirst was rooted in a hope that his thirst would be quenched because he believed the promises of God.
Israel and David responded to thirst differently, but God’s response was the same. In Exodus 17 and Numbers 20, God produced water from a rock. So much water that in Numbers it was described as “abundant water gushed out.” Not just enough water to tide them over, but an abundant amount, a gushing amount. In Psalm 23, David compares himself to a sheep and the Lord to its shepherd. David states that his shepherd “leads me beside quiet waters.” If this sheep was thirsty, it would drink at the calm water. This sheep, David, does not drink but walks beside the water. Why? Because he is not thirsty. God, his shepherd, has already provided the water he needed. So much so that he can walk beside water and not even want to stop for a sip. Hear this, dear friend, the Lord knows you are thirsty. He will provide what you need, he will satisfy you no matter the deepest longings of your soul.
In fact, Jesus promises that we will never be thirsty again. In John 4, Jesus approaches a woman at a well in Samaria and asks her for a drink. When she questions him, Jesus tells her that if she would just ask him, he would give her living water. He tells her that everyone who drinks from this well, from the well of the world, will be thirsty again, “But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.” Isaiah prophesies in chapter 12: “You will joyfully draw water from the springs of salvation.” Once again, we see that God doesn’t provide just enough, but he provides in abundance. Springs of water that never run dry. This is what Jesus promises us in this dry, desolate, water-lacking world. He is a place of satisfaction and fulfillment when every other place comes up short. When the world leaves us thirsty, we have a spring to which we can turn. Jesus is where we find value, acceptance, love, and peace. He is the answer to our deepest longings that leave us dry and thirsty.
Here is the craziest part, beloved. Jesus, our wellspring, the one who promises to fulfill our thirst and one day make us thirsty no more, was thirsty. His first words to the woman in John 4 was to ask for a drink. You only ask for a drink if you are thirsty. And then, on the cross in John 19, we learn “when Jesus knew that everything was now finished that the Scripture might be fulfilled, he said ‘I’m thirsty.’” One of the last things Jesus says is a proclamation of his thirst. The soldier’s response was to lift a sponge of sour wine, not even to give him fresh water before he dies. John’s is the only account of the crucifixion to include Jesus’s thirst and it is also the only gospel to tell the story of the woman at the well. I think John is making a point. God, the creator and sovereign ruler of the universe, the one who provides water and who had never thirsted himself, became a being that thirsted. Jesus became a human because he loves you and he loves me and he knows our thirst. He left his place of satisfaction and fulfillment to walk a world that leaves its people unsatisfied, unfulfilled, and yes, thirsty. Jesus was thirsty as he died, but three days later he conquered death and, in conquering death, he conquers our thirst. He is a spring of salvation, friends, and he invites you to draw water: if you are thirsty, come and drink.
Yours,