Would you pay $60,000 for one bottle of water?

Water is something we are very familiar with and, at this time of year, getting pretty tired of in the form of rain. We are blessed on the Plateau to have plentiful, clean water for drinking at a reasonable cost.

But is our water so bad we have to import it from far away places like Iceland or Fiji? In our local stores for around two bucks a bottle you can buy water from Iceland bottled at the source, from Fiji, from France, and from Italy. You can even buy a bottle of Fred, a brand of bottled water from New York. Can you imagine a hot summer day working in the garden and looking forward to an ice-cold glass of Fred?

Someone must think our water is pretty bad to ship water all the way here from around the world. The energy cost for fossil fuels to ship the bottles from these far off places must be tremendous. As for me, I kind of like our good old tap water.

If you think two bucks is a high cost for a bottle of water, how about $28 a bottle for 10,000 BC water from Canada. It’s water from glaciers that predate Christ by 8,000 years. Too cheap? How about a quart of Kona-Nigari water that sells for $500 a bottle.

It is salt water, desalinated and “concentrated” with instructions to mix it with regular water for drinking. An article I read said that Japanese consumers buy about 80,000 bottles of this stuff a day. Go figure.

But who would want that cheap, concentrated water when you can buy a bottle of Aqua di Cristalo water from France for only $60,000 a bottle. Of course, it comes in a 24-karat gold bottle. If you want the regular bottle it’s a bargain at $3,600. For the price of a six-pack of Aqua di Cristalo, many, many remote villages in Nicaragua would be able to have safe, clean drinking water. Perhaps our priorities are a little off center.

The interesting thing is that no matter how many bottles of $60,000 water you drink, the next day you will still be thirsty…and a whole lot poorer.

What do you thirst for in your life? Is it a $60,000 bottle of water? Or is it something far greater like healing and peace for your soul? Is it a thirst to acknowledge the mistakes you made in life? Or a thirst to remove the burdens of guilt or the weight of regret so many of us carry?

When Jesus encounters the woman of Samaria at the well in John’s gospel, he talks of “living water” given as a gift to quench what we really thirst for in our lives. He is referring to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God who will quench the thirst of what we really, deep down inside, desire. Grace, forgiveness, and life eternal. Healing and peace for our soul. Burdens lifted from our hearts and replaced with hope. Sin washed away in the wellspring of forgiveness found in living water.

And you will never find that in a $60,000 bottle of water.