Fountain

For with You is the fountain of life…
Psalm 36:9

Several years ago, one of my boys gave me a small, ceramic fountain for Christmas. It was in the image of a mountain scene with water moving from a top pond out a three inch water fall into a second pool and dropping another short distance into a third little lake. The sound of it was relaxing, so I kept it in the corner of my office and let it run, non-stop. However, the work of recycling a pint of water hundreds of times a day was too much for the little electric pump, so it burned out within a year.

This experience made me appreciate the engineering of ancient foundations that had no moving parts, operated using gravity and kept running for centuries. Some fountains in Athens and Corinth operate from aqueducts and date back to the 6^th Century B.C. and there is evidence that the Sumerian culture had them as early as 2000 B.C..

David plainly understood the fountain principle of a well-spring of water shooting up and giving life and energy. The prophet Zechariah also used a fountain analogy to foreshadow the Messiah: “In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness” (Zechariah 13:1). The image presented is God’s abundant, overflowing provision to cleanse His people from the contamination of sin which was made available by Christ’s sacrificed death on a cross.

In the New Testament, Jesus asked for a drink of water from a Samaritan woman He met at the well in the town of Sychar. He explained to her: “…Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:13-14).

Only Christ can satisfy and fill the thirsty soul, because He alone is the Fountain of eternal life.