Outdoor patios are beginning to open at different paces, and places, across Canada.  At many of these places table waiters will be quick to notice if the cup is soon going to reveal its bottom. At this point they will often ask if you would like another, or a refill.  Many times, I have heard coffee drinkers say, “fill it up.”

The bottom of a coffee cup, or the bottom of a Starbucks iced coffee or tea, is often not a welcome sight. This was my experience the other day as I saw only a few ice-cubes in the bottom of my cup. Have you ever found yourself at the bottom of a milkshake and suddenly the noisy sucking sound that you were told not to make with a straw, you were making?  When we get to the bottom, we find ourselves longing for more. We would want to say, “fill my cup.” 

“Fill my cup” has also been a phrase used to speak of our lives.  “Fill my cup…come and quench the thirsting of my soul” are words I have sung before. Perhaps you have sung, “Gasps my fainting soul for grace, as a thirsty land for showers.” These words speak of a deep inner thirst not satisfied by anything the world offers.  It is sometimes easy to acknowledge when we are at the bottom of our coffee cup or milkshake cup but to acknowledge we need our soul cup filled requires an acceptance of our own insufficiency to provide or find that which we most long for.

In the Bible Jesus meets a woman on a hot day, in the middle of the afternoon, at the well.  Women of her kind would go to the town well in the heat of the day so that encountering the socially upright would be less likely to occur.  Most water drawing, at wells, occurred in the cool of the day. As she comes to the well, there are not even ice-cubes in the bottom of her cup.  Her soul is dry. She has hungered to satisfy her soul with an identity that comes from relationships. She has been told her value is in what she does to please others. It has not satisfied. Her soul is empty, and she is not only thirsty, she is parched. She is longing for something to ‘fill her cup.’

Just like a waiter sees our empty cup and is eager to fill it, so Jesus sees her empty cup and extends to her the promise that she can be made full.  I find this story so beautiful because after hearing truth from Jesus, she runs into town, leaving the water jug she had come to draw water with at the well. She has heard clearly the words of Jesus, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13). When our cup is full, the other demands of life seem suddenly not as pressing or significant or urgent. 

I am not sure how full your cup is these days.  Many circumstances of life can leave us parched if we are not receiving the gracious living, flowing, springing up water Jesus is extending.  Are you in need of voicing the words, “Fill my cup…I lift it up…come and quench the thirsting of my soul’?  David, in the Bible, was able to say, “As the deer pants for water so my soul longs after you, O God” (Psalm 42:1).

The person who wrote this following song knew the thirst satisfying relationship Jesus offers. Enjoy these words as you sing or say them. Know that Jesus who met the woman at the well is the same Jesus who meets us today extending his grace as he fills our cup.

As Water To The Thirsty  (David Haas)

As water to the thirsty,
as beauty to the eyes,
as strength that follows weakness,
as truth instead of lies,
as song time and springtime
and summertime to be,
so is my Lord,
my living Lord,
so is my Lord to me.

Like calm in place of clamour,
like peace that follows pain,
like meeting after parting,
like sunshine after rain,
like moonlight and starlight
and sunlight on the sea,
so is my Lord,
my living Lord,
so is my Lord to me.

As sleep that follows fever,
as gold instead of grey,
as freedom after bondage,
as sunrise to the day,
as home to the trav'ler
and all we long to see,
so is my Lord,
my living Lord,
so is my Lord to me.

Quencher of deep soul thirst, we know that you alone can provide the water needed for our parched souls and our parched land.  We are a thirsty people and as we look around, we know that thirst exists our world over. Turn hearts and minds to what is truth. You are the truth that sets us free, satisfying thirst. Fill cups today Lord. 

By your grace, fill cups today.  AMEN