Third Sunday of Lent Year A
First Reading: Exodus 17:3-7
Second Reading: Romans 5:1-2, 5-8
Gospel: John 4:5-42
The severity of the desert epitomized in hunger and thirst led God to intervene in various ways during the Exodus and all of them are full of theological implications pointing to Jesus Christ. The first thing that comes to mind is manna in the desert. When the people were hungry and cried out for food, God sent them manna as food for the journey which prefigures the Holy Eucharist that ‘whoever eats will live forever.’
The first and second readings are oriented toward the Gospel. While the people’s longing for water in the first reading prepares us to hear the Samaritan woman’s longing for water that would save her the need of returning again and again to the well, the words of St. Paul in the second reading provide the setting for Jesus engaging with the Samaritan woman in conversation – God loved us while we are still sinners.
Thirst could be physical or spiritual. Often it is both. When the Israelites were thirsty and demanded for water, the question behind their demand was, “Is the Lord in our midst or not.” Water in the desert is only possible if God is with them. It was a thirst both physical and spiritual. They were thirsty for water and for the presence of God. In the Gospel the Samaritan woman is thirsty and that brings her to the well day after day. But spiritually, she is also thirsty, a thirst which drives her from one man to another and for which she can find no satisfaction. We all have this thirst but because of our brokenness, often, we erroneously seek to satisfy it in disordered relationships or attachments to things that will only give momentary satisfaction.
When this Samaritan woman met Jesus, she had had five husbands. She is living with her sixth man, yet she could respond to Jesus, “I do not have a husband.” This can only mean she is not satisfied and is still searching, searching for the seventh man. In biblical numerology, six is a number of imperfections and deficiencies. This woman in her sixth marriage is in a situation of lack and deficiency. Seven is the number of completions, sufficiency and perfection. Jesus comes to this woman as the seventh man in her life. she opens us to him and finally experiences the satisfaction of all her soul desires, the full gratification of her deepest thirst. That is the kind of experience we all wish for ourselves in this season of Lent.
The Samaritan woman had gone to the well at noon time. That is an odd time to go to the well. The sun would have been up and blistering. So why does she go to the well at noon time? She goes to the well when there will be nobody at the well because she hates her reputation. She hates the way people look at her and jeer at her. It is hard to understand fully in today’s secular culture, the gravity of concubinage and going from one man to another in the first-century Jewish context. She was living in a state of public and perpetual adultery. She feels shame in her heart because of the stigma she was living with and so she goes to fetch water at noon when there will be nobody at the well.
But on this graceful day, to her great consternation, she is not alone. A strange man is at the well. And to her utter amazement, this strange man begins to speak to her – “give me water to drink.” She is shocked because this man is a Jew and she is a Samaritan. Jews were not supposed to interact with Samaritans. Centuries-long walls of prejudice built on the foundations of ethnicity and religion kept them apart. It was also against the moral norms of the time for a man to engage a woman in dialogue in a public place. – the disciples were amazed when they returned and saw Jesus talking to a woman. Jesus breaks all these barriers and engages this woman in the longest recorded dialogue with anybody in all the Gospels. That tells us how far Jesus can go to rescue a soul. He will lay down His life for sinners.
Perhaps it is the first time in many years that she is talking with somebody who understands her without judging or condemning her. As she looks at Jesus, instead of those familiar judgmental and disdainful gazes she was hiding from, she saw compassion and love. And looking at her, He sees a woman dying from thirst for compassion and love. As with the Samaritan woman, Jesus comes to us in our sinful and shameful condition and says to us, ‘I know your sinful and shameful past, I know all the sins you have committed. I know how broken you are. I do not judge you or condemn you. I know your heart and soul are thirsty. I know your need for mercy and love, I am here to satisfy your deepest desires.’ He says, ‘give me the thirst that brings you here and I will give you eternal life.’ That is the great exchange that Jesus wants to have with each of us during this Lent.
Happy Sunday
Fr Chidi Onwuka m.ss.cc.