The land of the Bible is indeed an arid one, and in time I came to see it as very fitting that this miraculous and grace-filled story of God and God’s people takes place in a land where water was and is precious: Scripture is all about the life God gives us, and that life is exceedingly dependent upon water. Three-quarters of our body weight is water, and we don’t have to go without it for long to feel the effects. Thirst is a sensation we feel in our throat, but the message is sent from our internal organs. When body tissues lose large amounts of water, no amount of moisture will remove the thirst from our throat. Around the same time I received that first Bible, I remember thumbing through coffee-table National Geographics that had stories of polar explorers, who provided first-hand accounts of the effects of long-term thirst: the initial discomfort, the dry mouth and cracking of the lips, soon followed by weakness in the knees and then the whole body as the organs slowly shut down; the tongue swells and then delirium sets in.

Though most of us haven’t been that thirsty, the experience of wanting a cold drink of water is familiar to all of us, which is perhaps why Jesus seizes upon our physical need as a way of expressing a spiritual truth. Jesus knows that as our bodies crave water, so too do our souls crave similar refreshment. The fact that the woman at the well can’t initially tell the difference accounts for their circular conversation, but the point is clear: like the woman at the well, you and I have souls thirsting for spiritual water, for renewal, for refreshment, for peace.

Last week we learned that Thelma and Dick Somes’ son-in-law Chris, and Kim’s brother Gregg both lost their lives to cancer, and this week that Duffy Carruthers’ daughter-in-law Patricia was killed in a highway accident. Heartbreak and tragedy and loneliness parch our souls, they leave us thirsting for reassurance and comfort. All of us, at one time or another, find ourselves wondering, asking questions like, “What is my life amounting to?” “Is this all there is?” “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Those are the queries of a thirsting soul. Our bodies can be well, but our souls, our spirits can be heavy, tired, cracked and dried out like the sponge by the sink that goes a week without water while you’re away.

Back in the mid-1990s, David Kaczynski made the difficult choice to turn in his brother, Ted, who he realized was the Unabomber. Ted Kaczynski had mailed bombs across the country and killed and terrorized unsuspecting victims for nearly 20 years. And after David alerted authorities and Ted went to prison, he reflected on why he thought his brother acted as he did. The words are about Ted, but the condition is one we all know. David wrote, “I think the root of his problem was to live in a world where he saw things going terribly, terribly wrong while feeling utterly helpless to do anything about it. Ted felt that as a society we have lost a sense of the bigger picture, of even questioning the bigger picture of who we are. It’s been a real, lifelong source of despair for Ted that we have lost so much of the intimacy that once marked human society—in terms of community, and in terms of acknowledging and honoring the spirit that lives in every individual person. He believed that we were becoming more and more like the machines we have created.”

We don’t act on that feeling of helplessness in the reckless way the Unabomber did, or as those in more recent acts of senseless violence have, but the dryness of spirit that gnawed at him is, unfortunately, pervasive. But unlike physical thirst, spiritual thirst like that isn’t always as obvious. Sure, when we are faced with the death of one we love, or struggle with money problems, or physical ailments, we know our souls need refreshment. But, as the woman at the well shows us so perfectly, we can become so accustomed to a background level of spiritual thirst we don’t even realize our souls are panting.

While spiritual thirst isn’t revealed with a dry mouth or chapped lips, there is a tell-tale symptom of a dry soul, and it’s right there in the Old Testament lesson. “And the people murmured against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’” Murmuring is a distinct Biblical behavior that happens again and again and means “the outward expression of a deep inward discontent and rejection of one’s lot.” Murmuring is more than complaining, as some translations read; it’s a sort of primitive growling that people are reduced to when faced with an impossible situation: the Israelites murmur against Moses—at first glance because they’re thirsty, but as it turns out because they feel completely powerless to save themselves and are struggling to trust Moses to do it. The scribes and Pharisees murmur against Jesus because he threatens to turn their whole world upside down and they feel powerless to stop him.

And there is obvious and deep discontent that leads to modern day murmuring, too: we hear it in the anxious and angry political debate all around us these days; we hear it in the cynical attitude that infects children and young people and adults who feel life isn’t worth the struggle for what’s good and right; we hear it in the legitimate complaints of those with so little in our society who feel powerless to alter the way things are. Gossip is a particularly virulent form of murmuring, an indirect but basic articulation of dissatisfaction coupled with perceived powerlessness to change the source of the dissatisfaction.

The Israelites are at the threshold of the impossible: they are in the desert without water and they are thirsty. The woman at the well is at the threshold of the impossible, too: she is bound by the social conventions of her day that say because she is a woman and a Samaritan she is limited in what she can and cannot do. In both scenes, souls are dissatisfied, unfulfilled, thirsting. And in each story, God responds. Yes, God provides the Israelites with water, but, more importantly, in that water, God refreshes their souls, provides them with reason to trust Moses again and to have faith that God will see them through a very hard journey. Jesus breaks through the social and personal barriers that would have kept the Samaritan woman isolated and spiritually thirsty and demonstrates to us her that in acknowledging him, accepting him, she is made right with God—for whom her status as an outcast is meaningless and with whom her soul will find perpetual refreshment.

It is the nature of human souls to become thirsty. Whether you and I are facing a loss we can’t seem to get over, a wrong we can’t forgive, a future that is uncertain, a relationship with a child we can’t get any traction with, an addiction that rules each day, a routine that is just wearing us out, a gnawing anxiety that won’t go away, even facing a conversation about church finance as we’ll have later this morning, we all know what it’s like to stand at the thirsty threshold of what seems impossible: to not see a way through, to feel powerless to change our circumstances. At one time or another, this kind of deep, inward discontent assails each of us. Maybe you feel that way right here and now. The thirst is real; it’s what Jesus saw so clearly in the men and women he encountered throughout his ministry. But to the murmuring so often borne of that thirst: the blame, the anger, the self-isolation, the cynicism, the mistrust, the heavy sighs, Jesus says, just as clearly, “No!” To a world that shrugs its shoulders and resigns itself to life being unfair and urges to go and get what we can while we can, Jesus responds by affirming that true and lasting wholeness is within our grasp: “Those who drink of the water I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

Drink the living water Christ offers, and the refreshed soul can endure whatever life throws at it. And like the woman at the well, we say, “Give me this water!” But where is it, and how do we drink it?

The short answer is: we follow. We imitate Christ as best we can and so tap into the flowing stream of grace God poured out on him. And the lessons hint at how to do that. Receiving the living water begins, first of all, with the discipline of self-examination and confession, exactly what we try to do more of during Lent. When Jesus resists the social distinctions the woman at the well wants to hold on to, when he chides her about her many husbands, he is challenging her to be honest with herself about the circumstances of her life and the intensity of her thirst. We cannot expect God to sooth our thirsty souls if we ourselves are too afraid to feel and acknowledge the depth of our need. The word “confession” too often gets associated with guilt. But for people of faith confession is expressing to God how much we are in need, not necessarily because we’ve done wrong, but because we’re faced with circumstances that seem and feel impossible. It’s hard to feel the full force of our confusion or frustration or fear. It’s much easier to complain, or blame, or talk about other things or other people: to murmur. How much we are murmuring day to day is an excellent barometer of how well we are being honest with God.

And when we can stand at that dry threshold of the impossible, honest before God, then we are to simply ask, as the woman at the well did, “Sir, give me this water.” Though we often do, we don’t need to chart the specific course of the solution we want, but simply ask God for the refreshment God knows we need. And just as important as asking is expecting God to respond. What good is it to turn our deepest needs over to God and then start doubting that what we hope for will ever happen? God will deliver the living water we need, but we have to claim it, to wait in expectation. Over time the pattern of God’s faithfulness will come clear, but not without our confident participation and trust.

In the desert of life, God has promised living water for thirsty souls like mine and like yours. Each day, Christ’s living water is close at hand, closer than we often realize. It is in our honesty before God, in our humble requests to God, and in our faithful expectations of God, that our souls will drink deeply, find refreshment, and live.