Whether it be the thirst of the People whom Moses was leading in the desert or the thirst of the Samaritan woman whom Jesus meets at the well, thirst can stop us dead in our tracks or it can lead us to the refreshment we truly need. It might be the refreshment that we have imagined and anticipated or it might be refreshment of a nature we could not have anticipated on our own.
The rock which Moses strikes at the command of the Lord would not have conjured up a vision of flowing water for the people as they stood there. The promise of Jesus to the woman at the well seemed not make sense to her as he had no bucket with which to draw water from such a deep cistern.
But in each case, that basic thirst they experience becomes the point of access between God and a people in need, a people becoming weary of their time in the desert, a woman whose life is in disarray spiritually. The people before Moses questioned, “Is the Lord in our midst or not?” Ex 17:7 The Samaritan woman wondered aloud if Jesus might be the Messiah who is coming, the one called the Christ. Jn 4:41
The response from God in each case is a resounding “Yes!” Life can challenge us and wear us down so that the dry patches seem only causes for frustration – moments of failure or moments in which we are forced by circumstances to “let go.” But what of the grace of God within or behind these moments? For what does the letting go free us? What of God’s divine vision of us and for us is yet to be seen and embraced by us, a new cause not of frustration but of unexpected, unimagined joy and thanksgiving? Giving ourselves to this promise, this hope of deepest joy also is our work for Lent!