The man from Caesarea in our first lesson, who had been graced with a vision of angels, was thirsty. He knew there was something he was missing, something more the Divine had in store for him and for his household. While what that might be was unknown, he didn’t hesitate, however, to seek what was offered, whatever might slake his thirst. Elsewhere we learn his name was Cornelius and that he was a Roman centurion (Acts 10:22). From his story we can see that he would have related to the psalmist who said: “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (Ps.42:1-2a) Can you?

Throughout scripture, we find numerous references to God as the source of living water—water without which we somehow know we cannot long survive. When the Israelites were thirsty in the wilderness, God sent Moses to strike the rock at Mt. Horeb which poured out water for the people, a sign of the Divine Presence among them. (Ex.17:1-7) Hundreds of years later, the apostle Paul intuited: “ . . . they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” (I Cor. 10:4b) The prophet Isaiah envisioned the restoration of Zion as a desert abloom when “waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.”(Is.35:1-10) And then, of course, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well, “. . . but those who drink of the water I will give will never be thirsty. The water I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” (Jn.4:7-26) That brings us to our second lesson where we hear God say, “See, I am making all things new . . .to the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.”

When we realize we are bone dry, spiritually thirsty, we are ready for God’s water of life to gush forth from within, to enable us to blossom with fruitfulness as we are empowered by the Holy Spirit, to bring us to wholeness and holiness right here and now.