The spiritual meaning of the gift of water

Jan 21, 2016

By Daniel S. Mulhall
Water is necessary for life. We cannot live without it, physically or spiritually.

The importance of water is highlighted throughout the Bible. Genesis 1:9 tells us that from water, God created everything: “Then God said: Let the water under the sky be gathered into a single basin, so that the dry land may appear.”

Isaiah 12:3-6 notes that those who believe in God are given the water they need forever, and that there will be a great celebration because of that gift. Isaiah 49:10 affirms this understanding, saying that the faithful of God will neither hunger nor thirst.

Of particular interest is 1 Kings 19:1-21 when the prophet Elijah, fleeing for his life, is given food and drink by an angel of the Lord so that he can complete his mission. And in 2 Kings 2:19-22, the prophet Elisha, “heals” a town’s water supply so that the people there would never go thirsty again.

Throughout Jesus’ teach ing, he emphasized the importance of giving people a drink. In Matthew 10:42 and Mark 9:41, Jesus says, anyone who is his disciple and who gives a cup of water to someone to drink will be rewarded.

But, Jesus takes it to the next level and makes it clear that he himself is the living water. In the famous story of the woman at the well, in John 4, particularly in verses 13-14, Jesus says, “Everyone  who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Later, in John 7:38, he says that those who drink of this water will become “rivers of living water.”

So, when the king in Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25:35 says that the righteous are those  who give drink to the thirsty, he was making a statement bigger than the importance of quenching someone’s thirst. He was saying that the righteous are those who give someone life, for giving someone water is giving them the gift of life.

In addition, for a disciple, sharing water with someone is also sharing Jesus with them. Thus, giving drink to the thirsty is not just a corporal work of mercy, it is also an act of evangelization and an act of salvation.

The Catholic imagination is filled with sacramental signs that point to God’s saving actions in the world. Water is one of those wonderful signs. Remember this the next time you offer a drink to someone who is thirsty, whether a child, a person who suffers, a person on the street, or the one who collects your trash.

Offering them a drink is a way that you can bring to them a touch of God’s saving love.