Cracked Cisterns and a Fountain of Living Water
Have you ever found yourself after a long day going home and settling in with a snack and something to binge-watch on TV? We all have go-tos we turn to for comfort and hope when life is challenging. It might be your favorite snack or some streaming drama, where we turn to those things to give us some relief from a difficult day.
It is so easy for us all to turn from something other than God to give us comfort, to give us hope, to help us make it through. Sometimes we try a change of circumstance, a new relationship, a material possession, or some distraction to give us life.
That is exactly what happened to God’s people during Jeremiah’s day.
BROKEN CISTERNS
God’s people had turned from God to worship false gods. In Jeremiah 2, God instructs Jeremiah to speak to the people. He begins by referencing their past devotion to God:
“I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.” Jeremiah 2:2 (NIV)
‘“This is what the Lord says: ‘What fault did your ancestors find in Me, that they strayed so far from Me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves. They did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord, who brought us up out of Egypt and led us through the barren wilderness, through a land of deserts and ravines, a land of drought and utter darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives?’” Jeremiah 2:5-6 (NIV)
God’s people had forgotten all God had done for them in the past and turned to worthless things which had made them worthless also.
“Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But My people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols.” Jeremiah 2:11 (NIV)
Jeremiah tells them their turning from God is serious and appalling.
“‘Be appalled at this, you heavens, and shudder with great horror,’ declares the Lord. "‘My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken Me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.’” Jeremiah 2:12-13 (NIV)
When we, too, turn and look for joy, hope, life, and meaning outside God, we become idol worshippers and forsake God. Such actions are like trying to draw water from a broken cistern, it will be useless.
In the Bible, cisterns were hollowed out rocks where water could collect. Some were very large and could hold enough water for an entire community. But when a cistern developed a crack, water would leak out. Turning to something or someone other than God for our hope never fills us, it will be leaky leaving us with a thirst that is never quenched.
THE FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WATER
But God provides Himself to us. He is ‘the fountain of living waters.” What God offers is a fountain–an endless supply of His love, forgiveness, grace and approval. What we create for ourselves when we turn to something other than God is cracked, worthless, broken and useless.
In John 4, the Samaritan woman at the well was an outcast who lived a desperate life, searching for hope in multiple relationships. Jesus asked her for water to drink and said
“Jesus 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.’” John 4:10 (NIV)
He then told her life was found in Him.
“Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’” John 4:13-14 (NIV)
Water is essential for physical life; we need it to survive and live. In Jesus, we find spiritual life. This is what Jesus offered the Samaritan woman–life through the gospel of grace. It’s the life He gives us as well. When we seek life anywhere else, we will never be satisfied.
We are all spiritually thirsty. We all seek meaning and hope in something. The question is: Will we seek to meet that thirst through leaking cisterns or draw from the well that never runs dry?