Eagles are fascinating creatures. They’re both tough and tender when it comes to teaching their young to fly.
The parent eagle is tough as it pushes the eaglet with its beak from the security of its nest. The eaglet panics and screeches helplessly as it falls through the air, unaware that mother eagle is flying and circling underneath. At the right moment mother spreads her wings and tenderly catches the little one on her back. She then flies high in the sky, turns and tilts suddenly sideways, dumping the eaglet off its precarious perch. The frightened eaglet flaps its wings furiously as it free-falls. But just when it gets close to the ground, mother swoops underneath it and catches it on her back. She repeats this process until the eaglet learns to fly.
The eagle is a favorite biblical symbol of God and His people. Sometimes He uses their method of teaching us to fly in the challenging sky called Christianity. He said: “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself” (Ex. 19:4).
Often, after embarking on even providential opportunities, it feels as if we are free-falling. But like the eagle, God catches us in His mighty arms before we hit the ground. He works “for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). He accomplished this by humbling Himself and taking the form of a bond servant in the person of Jesus Christ, who was, and is, both tough on sin and tender with sinners.
The attribute of an eagle tenderly yet fiercely protecting its young is most obvious in Christ’s interactions with the woman at Jacob’s well (John 4:7-26). This timeless story offers some clear messages as we consider our choices in reaching a spiritually drought-stricken world.
First, the Samaritan woman, from the mixed race of Jews and Babylonians, came from Sychar (meaning “drunken or lying town,” as our world could aptly be described). She went to the well with shame and shortcomings, and there met Jesus. Many more “moral” maidens had gone to that well in the cool of the morning to drink from its refreshing waters, but they didn’t meet Jesus face to face. She went at the odd hour, in the burning heat of the day, and found Him, as if He had been waiting to provide her with an unforgettable draught from the fountain of eternal life.
Sometimes Jesus appears in the most unexpected places at the most unconventional times. He reminds us that regardless of our checkered past, we should never consider our history, or the time of day or night, when going to the well of Living Water.
Second, the Samaritan woman brought her own vessel to draw water from the well. While Jesus is our source, we must bring our own “bucket of skin” to draw Living Water that, when imbibed, becomes a well springing up unto eternal life (verse 14). We must come with a broken spirit and a contrite heart, so that Jesus can fill us with His unconditional love, a right attitude, and a clean mind, to name a few of the transforming gifts He holds in store for us. The hour has come when true worshippers will worship God in spirit and truth (verse 23).
Last, the Samaritan woman surrendered herself—totally and absolutely—to Jesus. Anyone who tastes the water that leaps out of the fountain of grace must surrender to God’s will and Word to receive eternal life. When we do, something terrific, powerful, and awesome occurs in the life that is abandoned to His care. We not only learn the truth about ourselves, we enter an experience from which we will never want to leave. Like the woman at the well we’ll cry out from the depths of our hearts, “Give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water” (verse 15).
A spiritual drought is upon our world, and we know the “Way” to the well that’s never dry. As it springs to life within us, let’s courageously share this living water with our thirsty neighbors.
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Hyveth Williams is a professor of homiletics at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary. This article was published September 15, 2011.
