DEVOTION - SUNDAY, MARCH 25, 2010

DEVOTIONAL – SUNDAY, MARCH 25, 2012

Holy Land Devotional

The Aqueduct at Caesarea Maritime

by

 Rev. Steve Herman, Richwood UMC

Read: John 4:1-32

"Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman"

⁴Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

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¹⁰Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

¹¹"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹²Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"

¹³Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

"The Disciples Rejoin Jesus"

²⁷Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?"

²⁸Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ²⁹"Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" ³⁰They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

Water has always been a precious commodity in the Near East. Without water, there is no life. Cities needed fresh water supplies; some built tunnels from streams, and some built aqueducts. The aqueduct pictured brought fresh water several miles from Mt. Carmel to Caesarea by the Mediterranean Sea. Herod the Great built the Aqueduct and the city, and both were a tribute to Roman engineering. The aqueduct had to maintain a perfect angle of descent, or the water would spill over the edges.

The precious necessity of water forms the background of Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman at a well in John 4. Jesus uses water as a metaphor for spiritual life, and says he offers “living water” that once consumed will satiate us forever. The woman replies, “Give me that water!” 2000 years later the city of Caesarea and the aqueduct are in ruins; no water runs to the city anymore. But the eternal water of life from Jesus still flows!