Mother Teresa famously said, “The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.” Can you remember the last time you were truly hungry – your stomach empty and growling? When we are truly hungry it is hard to think about anything but food. Hunger is a driving force.
Much like our appetite for food can become an obsession, so can fulfillment seeking through alcohol, drugs, shopping, gambling, and pornography. Even coffee can become an addiction. The pursuit of wealth and success is another appetite which often sends us going after “things” rather than after God. People who lived in Jesus’s time had similar cravings – always wanting more!
Jesus, because He was fully God and fully human, felt cravings too. We know he understood extreme hunger and thirst because we read about it in John 4:4-25, in the familiar story of the woman at the well. Around noon, Jesus sat by the well, thirsty and waiting. When a Samaritan woman arrived, he politely asked her to give Him a drink of water. She was greatly surprised by his request and questioned Him asking, “How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” At that time, Jewish people wouldn’t be caught dead talking to Samaritan people. Racism and prejudice were alive and well then as they are now.
The fact is – there is no prejudice in Christ. No matter what Jews thought of Samaritans, Jesus bought his unique message of grace. He pursued the Samaritan woman as the Good Shepherd pursues His lost sheep. He even went ahead of her, waiting for her to arrive, even though He knew talking to a Samaritan and a woman would be completely frowned upon. Why? The principle Jesus followed is found in Galatians 3:28-29, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
This week, let us follow Jesus’ example, rising above stereotypes and demonstrating we are all one in Him – just as He did with the woman at the well – as we pursue fulfillment from the one perfect source- Jesus Christ.