John 4:1-26 (NIV) “Buckets”
Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
Devotion
A Google search of “buckets” shows there are 32 different kinds, with the first ones dating back to 3600 BC. If we think of our lives as buckets, all different shapes and sizes carrying different things, spring can be the perfect time to simplify by removing some or all the contents of ours, refilling it with eternal things. Still, doing so can be complicated.
We read in John 4 that Jesus had a divine appointment with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. Her current “bucket” is filled with the baggage of five previous husbands, lots of shame, and few friends. His intent was to encourage the woman to dump out her bucket and refill it with Living Water, thereby eliminating the need for her to have to draw from that “well” ever again. Upon Jesus revealing himself as the promised Messiah, she drops everything and runs back to the townspeople to share the one simple message contained in her bucket…“come see the Messiah.”
Today, let’s choose to simplify our lives by filling our buckets only with Living Water. When Jesus said to us “Follow me,” and we accepted the invitation, at that moment, we became His bond servants. We are not our own, we were paid for at a price. Therefore, let’s not get caught up in all the things of this world, but let’s simply run the race that has been set before us. Today let’s commit to emptying our buckets and filling them only with Living Water, that of Jesus Christ.
Prayer
Holy Spirit, in the Name of Jesus and for the Glory of God our Father, I invite you to remove everything from my bucket and fill it only with Living Water. Amen.
George Stewart