"So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock." Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:5-14 ESV)
I was reading about Pete Townshend's 1980 solo album "Empty Glass" the other day. I'm familiar with the album but I didn't know why it was called "Empty Glass". This is the story behind the title: visualize God as the bartender & owner of a tavern. You walk into this tavern and ask God for a drink, but the only thing you have to offer him is an empty glass. What a beautiful analogy, I thought, and it reminded me of the verses we just read from John 4. When we approach God, we have nothing to offer him. Money, power, social standing, you name it - those things mean nothing to God. As we read in Acts 17:24-25: "The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything." When we thirst for living water, the only thing we have to offer God is an empty glass, and only he can fill it till it overflows into eternal life. If we ask him how much we owe him for the drink, he will say "Your money's no good here. See that guy at the end of the bar? That's Jesus; he already picked up your tab." If we then say to Jesus "how can I repay you", he will say "if you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15)
