The Great Bethlehem Water Caper

Water from your hometown well is always the sweetest - especially when you’re far from home!

Biyar Daoud - King David Wells, Bethlehem

David was a king-in-waiting – in hiding, actually, with a band of desperado friends. His home-town of Bethlehem had recently fallen into Philistine hands and David began to crave the best water in the world.

"Would I ever like a drink of water from the well at the gate of Bethlehem!” he sighed.

His daring friends secretly accepted the challenge, broke through enemy lines, secured a skein of water and carried it back to David - an exploit full of bravado and esteem for their good friend and leader. No doubt they told in vivid detail how they had pulled off the caper under the noses of the sleeping Philistines.

But for David, the hazards his comrades had faced to get this water for him, made the water sacred. It was no longer a consumable commodity. Drinking it would have reduced it to mere water, when it represented his friends life-blood. Only God was worthy of such a sacrifice. So instead of drinking the water, David poured it out reverently before the Lord.

It’s a timeless tale of friendship and heroic action and it shows how the most common thing like water can have meaning far deeper than the thing itself.

Today, many of Bethlehem’s citizens long for freedom the way David craved its water. Today a monstrous security wall imprisons Bethlehem on three sides. Palestinian workers queue up in the dark for the 5:30 am opening of the gates so they can get to work in Jerusalem.

It’s a complex issue. The wall that suffocates Palestinian families makes Israel’s life today more secure. It is a vile and untenable stand-off.  But there are brave men and women, Israeli, Palestinian and international, who are hazarding much laboring for peace in Bethlehem, Israel and Palestine. Today I stand with them and pour out my prayer on their behalf.

And the greatest Champion of Peace is the One who broke through enemy lines by being born in Bethlehem 2000 years ago, within the siege, behind the ‘security wall,’ in order to bring us the rarest, sweetest water in the world! No gesture of friendship has ever been so clear. No hazard or sacrifice has ever cost so much or achieved such wondrous rewards. He became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood – to bring us the water of Life!

Today I pour out my life, as well as my words, in his honor.

Oh, come let us adore him,

Christ the Lord!

With this post, your Wonder of Water blogger is taking a break until the New Year. See you in two weeks - January 3.