Our readings for this Third Sunday of Lent all focus on water. If you think about Lent as our sharing in Jesus’ forty days in the desert, that makes good sense: water is sorely lacking in the desert and the human need for water quickly becomes an important factor in your journey.
But remember too, as I said last week, that Lent is the season of proximate preparation for the catechumens, who last week became the elect and are now just weeks away from Baptism. And it’s also the season in which we Baptized reflect on the meaning of our Baptism and recommit ourselves to the universal call to holiness, and to the particular vocations, we have each been given in Baptism.
So it makes perfect sense that water is a dominant theme, not only in today’s readings but in next Sunday’s Gospel as well.
This weekend, the readings set up two parallels that we should reflect upon and understand in order to appreciate the full depth of this water symbol.
The first parallel is between the human sensation of thirst, on the one hand, and a deeper emotional and spiritual longing and yearning, on the other. If you’ve ever been truly thirsty, hiking for hours in a dry climate or working outside in the summer heat, you know just how all-consuming the need for water becomes. Just the same, we’re meant to understand that our deeper spiritual longing is also all consuming and equally necessary to sustain our lives.
The second parallel is between the physical water, which quenches our physical thirst, and a deeper spiritual well that gives us the fullness of life for which we have been yearning. As we’ve said the necessity of water for life makes it the perfect symbol of the life-giving property.
Okay, so how do these two parallels play out in our readings?
In our first reading the Israelites are in the midst of their forty-year sojourn in the desert. The reading says that, “in their thirst for water, the people grumbled against Moses” and longed even to return to slavery in Egypt where they at least had water for their children and animals.
This is a physical, bodily thirst. The Israelites are complaining about their parched lips and dry mouths – so much so they say they would prefer the physical bondage of slavery in Egypt.
Similarly, in our Gospel when Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman at the well, she is intrigued when He says that, “whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst.” She responds, “Sir give me this water so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” She too is focusing on her physical, biological thirst. She’d much prefer not having to come to this well three and four times a day to drag heavy jugs of water back to her house.
In both of these readings we see that God provides for the needs of His people. In the first instance, the Chosen People are already set free from slavery in Egypt by the waters of the Red Sea. Now God gives Israel “water from the rock” to slake their physical thirst.
But in the Gospel, Jesus tries to make clear to the Samaritan woman that the “living water” He gives is “a water welling up to eternal life.” He tries to make clear that the water He will give does not take away physical thirst, but answers a much deeper yearning for fullness of life.
Reflecting on this truth in our second reading, St. Paul writes to the church in Rome: “the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” God’s eternal life is once more compared to life-giving water poured out on us.
But St. Paul’s letter also gives us a most important key to understanding the second half of today’s Gospel – to understanding the essential means through which God gives us this wellspring of eternal life.
St. Paul writes: “Christ, while we were still helpless, died at the appointed time for the ungodly . . . God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
The living water that Christ gives us, that flowed from His side when He was crucified for our sins, is the water of Baptism, by which we are cleansed of our sins and given the fullness of eternal life. We do not merit this by our purity – rather it is precisely in our sinfulness that He dies for us, washes us of our sins, and gives us the fullness of His life.
And so in today’s Gospel, when the Samaritan woman fails to understand the nature of the water that Jesus longs to give her, He doesn’t try to explain this to her through a parable. He simply asks her to call her husband . . . He reveals that He knows the entirety of her life, all of her past, all of her sins, all those things that must have been a source of gossip for the town and of shame for her.
Stunned by His knowledge of her entire life, the woman says, “I know that the Messiah is coming and when he comes he will tell us everything.” In the painful truth of her sinfulness, and in the light of her still small faith, Jesus makes one of the most startling admissions in the entirety of the Scriptures: “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.”
The Samaritan women has experienced the non-judgmental, forgiving love of the Messiah. No longer ashamed she goes back to her town and admits her sinfulness openly. “Come see a man who told me everything I have done.” In the light of her encounter with Christ, her sin and shame were burned away and now all that remains is the desire to bring others to that same experience of forgiving love.
And sure enough, the others invite Him to stay with them. Believing in His word they say to the woman, “we no longer believe because of your word, for we have seen for ourselves and we know that this truly is the Savior of the world.”
Friends, in the waters of Baptism we are given that for which we most deeply thirst – the forgiveness of our sins and God’s eternal life. We are also given a mission to help bring others to this wellspring of life, just as the Samaritan woman did.
In these remaining weeks of Lent, our Elect will complete their preparation and come to experience God’s forgiving love in the Easter sacraments. For those of us who are already baptized we are given this season of penance to renew our Baptismal grace. We fast, pray, give alms, celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation, all to restore the fullness of grace and life we received in Baptism, and have let slacken through sin and indifference.
Touched by the loving mercy of God may we, like the Samaritan woman, no longer despair of our sinfulness, but boldly invite others to encounter Christ as we have – and as we will once more as we celebrate this Eucharist.
