SUNDAY, THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT
Ex 17: 3-7 Ps 95: 1-2, 6-9 Rom 5: 1-2, 5-8 Jn 4: 5-42
GIVE ME A DRINK
Tormented by thirst the people complained against Moses. In reply to his anguished prayer God said to him: Go, I shall be standing before you there on the rock, at Horeb. You must command the rock, and water will flow from it for the people to drink. God is the Rock that saves us: in Him we can place our hope. No obstacle, no difficulty will be too big for us if we will only turn to Him in prayer with faith and trust. The hardness of our hearts is the biggest rock that has to be overcome in order that God can enter into our lives and save us. The light of God’s truth can change the way in which we see our lives and the situations we encounter and have encountered. The story of the woman at the well is a striking example of how the Lord brought the light of truth to one lost in darkness.
Jesus met the woman of Samaria by Jacob’s well. He could easily see her need, her inner thirst for forgiveness, acceptance, reconciliation, and hope. He knew that the woman’ sinful life had darkened her mind and prevented her from grasping spiritual truths, and so invited her to see her true condition and offered her the ‘living water’. While it was the natural water that was in the woman’ mind, Jesus offered more than just the temporary relief and sustenance that she sought at the well. He offered her eternal life, but the woman did not understand His meaning. As Jesus continued to reveal the nature of this living water, the woman again responded from the limits of her own human understanding. Once again, the compassion of the Son of God caused Him to speak, as He revealed the woman’s spiritual darkness and her dire need for life. We can hear in the woman’s reply, a longing to find God, but an ignorance of where to look for help. How then was she to find God? Jesus showed her that the new life he could give would enable her to worship God in a new way. She would not be confined to any one time or place.
Wells and places of water have a singularly important meaning among people living in arid regions, after a drought. Water miraculously restores life to a desert like it is on earth and revives humans, animals and plants alike, rescuing them from death. For this reason, the Old Testament prophets and sages often spoke of living water to signify the gifts that would flow when the Messiah would finally come. We can imagine, that when Jesus came upon Jacob’s well he recalled the scriptural tradition that the Messiah would be the source of a kind of water that would sustain a person’s life eternally. As the promised Messiah, Jesus’ mission was to do the Father’s Will and to accomplish His work and the ‘work’ that the Father had given Him, which was to give eternal life to all people. This must have occupied Jesus’ thoughts as the Samaritan woman approached the well.
As we read about this encounter, we see the patience and love Jesus had, as He brought the woman to believe in Him as the source of the Living Water. At first, she had taken Him for an ordinary Jew. Then she realized that He was a learned person, perhaps a rabbi and began to refer to Him. Then she understood Him to be a prophet. At last she sensed that He may well be the promised Messiah as He claimed. The woman had come to the well to fetch water for the day ahead. It was her daily task. And the well was a familiar place, part of her routine. But, after meeting Jesus however, she left her water jar behind, things changed, she was no longer thirsty. She now had within her a spring of water that would last forever. She wanted to share that spring of life giving water with others too! She went back and called the people, who also received the living water as they encountered Jesus and came to believe in Him themselves.
As believers, we can ask the Holy Spirit to awaken an appreciation for the ‘gifts of God’ in our hearts. The Wells of our souls do need to be cleansed of all things earthly that prevent us from encountering Christ in the routine of our lives: but this is something that Jesus loves to do for every one of us. As we reflect on the truths of God proclaimed in Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman, let us allow waters to spring up within us once again!
Response: O that today you would listen to his voice!
Harden not your hearts!
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