Third Sunday of Lent
/Dominica III in Quadragesima A
12 March 2023
Lent is a time for disciples to be renewed in the new life that was begun in us at baptism and to strive to deepen that life and commitment to the Lord. Lent is also the time of final preparation for those who will be baptized at the Easter Vigil or, if already baptized, received in to the Church. We have reached the point of Lent where some very long Gospel selections place a particular focus on the new life won for us by the Lord and the effects of that life in the baptized.
God’s People Israel were His chosen people. They were a holy people and a consecrated nation whose vocation was to advance in the world as a sign to other peoples of what is means to belong to God. But being chosen did not mean that the Israelites had it easy. Great hardship came their way. Hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt. The harsh passage through the desert in the Exodus. Exile, captivity, and dispersion among other races and nations are just a few highlights we know from the Scriptures. The opening lines in today’s first reading tell us the difficulties and setbacks and challenges of belonging to God as a unique people, which difficulties caused the Israelites to harden their hearts against God. In the desert their physical thirst was not satisfied and, in another sense, that “thirst” that was their desire for fulfillment was also not satisfied. In their weakness the people sought to fulfill themselves in ways that ultimately never fulfill, by positioning themselves against God in grumbling and doubt. God heard their cries and provided water from the rock. The place of their doubt and quarreling (Massah and Meribah) about whether God was in their midst became a symbol to the people that they should not let hardship cause them to seek to satiate their thirst apart from God.
Our thirst and God’s thirst for us is central to the Gospel of the Samaritan woman at the well. We have natural thirst that needs to be quenched. But “thirst” is also a symbol of desire for better life, desire for fulfillment, hopes and aspirations. It is clear in the passage that these different senses of “thirst” are in play in the Gospel because it becomes clear that the woman and Jesus are speaking of different kinds of water. She speaks of literal water from the well; Jesus speaks of living water that wells up to eternal life.
In this meeting place of the woman’s thirst for water and Jesus’ thirst for souls, his love for souls, we find a hidden message. God sees and knows our struggles and hardships (like the people in the desert) and so, he weds Himself to us to bring us relief, fulfillment, and new life. A major part of why I am captivated by this passage is because of the hidden nuptial imagery in it. In the Scriptures to have a man and a woman meeting at a well has implications of betrothal and marriage further down the line. Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at a well, and not just any generic well, but Jacob’s well. The Jewish mind would know of wells in the Old Testament that were important meeting points. Abraham’s servant meets Isaac’s future bride Rebecca at a well (cf. Gn. 24:10-53). Moses meets Zipporah at a well before they marry (cf. Ex. 2:15-21). Most especially for this Gospel, Jacob meets his beloved Rachel at a well, in fact the same well as the Gospel (cf. Gen. 29:1-14). They marry and become the patriarch and matriarch of Israel.
Now, certainly the nuptial imagery of Jesus at the well is not to be understood in the sense of a literal future wedding, for we know that Jesus was celibate. But the nuptial relationship and imagery remains. Jesus is the Bridegroom of his Church, the Scriptures tell us. Isaiah had prophesied to Israel that your maker will be your husband (cf. Is. 54:5) and your builder shall marry you (cf. Is. 62:5). And Isaiah prophesied that Israel would be called no longer desolate but “espoused” (cf. Is. 62:4). To see the Lord at Jacob’s well with the Samaritan woman sets the scene for us to understand that the Lord has a great love for his people – his scattered people – imaged in this woman from Samaria, and that he loves them and desires them more than they – more than we – even know. Like the Samaritan woman we can seek to satisfy our lesser thirsts while being unaware of the One in our midst who offers us living water. If only we would ask!
And there is the key for us! Hardships and struggles and setbacks and sufferings plague us too. In both direct and indirect ways we can grumble and complain against God. In fact, I’m not even so much concerned about the direct doubts and grumblings against God. At least a person who does so is honest and acknowledges the doubt stirring inside. But the indirect and tacit doubt and grumbling ignores our deeper thirst and seeks to satisfy it in so many ways that will never last. Don’t dismiss the possibility that we are like the people in the desert who doubt if God is with us. No, ours may not be a direct statement of doubt. But do you foster a meaningful and daily prayer life? If not, that’s a silent Meribah and Massah. But the Lord is already at the well waiting for you. Do you seek to satisfy your longings, your thirst by your own means and in ways apart from God that will never satisfy? That’s tacit grumbling. And the Lord already knows your sins and calls you to repent, just like he knew the life of the Samaritan woman, leading her to repent and say “Come see a man who told me everything I have done.”
Over the course of her conversation with Jesus the Samaritan woman was illuminated to recognize Jesus and to come to faith in him. We thirst for God. We must be careful not to let hardship and struggle drive us to seek to satisfy our thirst in grumblings and doubt. For they will never satisfy. Rather, in prayer we arrive at the well and find the one who thirsts for us first. As the water came from the rock in the desert, so we learn from St. Paul that Jesus is the Rock (cf. 1 Cor. 10:4). He is struck on the Cross from which he cries: “I thirst.” Give him a drink of your faith and seek from him the living water welling up to eternal life!