From the Pastor - 'Living Water'

A weekly column by Father George Rutler

Arthur Edward Guinness, 1st Baron Ardilaun (1840-1915), bore the name of his great grandfather who founded the brewery. The pious philanthropist raised a few eyebrows when he donated a stained-glass window to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin inscribed: “I was thirsty and ye gave me drink” (Matthew 25:35). The window depicts Rebecca at the well. Abraham had sent his servant Eliezer to Mesopotamia to find a wife for his son Isaac, and Eliezer chose Rebecca when she offered water to him and his camels. This was an early type of the Samaritan woman at the well with Jesus.

Saint Augustine saw the Samaritan woman as a symbol of the Church “not yet made righteous but about to be made righteous.” Just as the Samaritans were a foreign people, the Church was to come from the Gentiles. The woman had come to draw water. When Jesus asked her for water, He in fact was asking for her faith. “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ perhaps you might have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10). That living water is the Holy Spirit. This is what Jesus meant when He said, “Come to me, all who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you” (Matthew 11:28).

With her limited perception, the woman figured that Jesus was “a prophet” (John 4:19). But the conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well makes no sense if Jesus is only a prophet and not the Son of God. In a well known passage, C.S. Lewis wrote: 

“If you had gone to Buddha and asked him: ‘Are you the son of Brahma?’ he would have said, ‘My son, you are still in the vale of illusion.’ If you had gone to Socrates and asked, ‘Are you Zeus?’ he would have laughed at you. If you had gone to Mohammed and asked, ‘Are you Allah?’ he would first have rent his clothes and then cut your head off. If you had asked Confucius, ‘Are you Heaven?’ I think he would have probably replied, ‘Remarks which are not in accordance with nature are in bad taste.’ The idea of a great moral teacher saying what Christ said is out of the question. In my opinion, the only person who can say that sort of thing is either God or a complete lunatic suffering from that form of delusion which undermines the whole mind of man. . . . He produced mainly three effects — Hatred — Terror — Adoration. There was no trace of people expressing mild approval.”  (From: God in the Dock, What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ? C.S. Lewis, 1950).

 “If you knew,” said Jesus to the Samaritan woman, and the evidence is that she began to adore Him. We know she brought others to Jesus, setting the stage for Philip’s preaching later on (Acts 8). Everything hangs on that “If.”

Father George W. Rutler is the pastor of the Church of our Saviour in New York City. His latest book, Cloud of Witnesses: Dead People I Knew When They Were Alive, is available from Crossroads Publishing.