SUNDAY REFLECTIONS - THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT

Exodus 17: 3-7; Romans 5: 1-2, 5-8; John 4: 5-42

(Rev. Dr. Francis Perry Azah)

In our First Reading from the Book of Exodus, the Israelites, tormented by thirst in the wilderness, cry out for water. They remember Egypt, where they had plenty of water for themselves and their livestock. Have they come into the desert to die? In the face of their mistrust, Moses believes in God’s power to save; in the face of their grumbling, he lifts his hands in prayer; in answer to their testing, he proves God’s presence by striking the rock to bring forth water. In the Gospel Reading from St. John, we have the marvelous account of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.

Jesus is tired and thirsty from his journey and asks her for a drink. But his real thirst is for this woman’s faith and salvation. He invites her to come to faith in him, and she finally recognizes him as the Messiah, the Savior of the world. St. Paul, in the Second Reading from his Letter to the Romans, tells us that faith, hope, and love are God’s gifts to us. We are all God’s chosen people called upon to live purified lives, and God’s love was poured into our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit that has been given to us through Christ. Thus, today’s readings are directing us to take a good look at ourselves and to experience divine insight.

The Preface for today’s Mass also says, “When he asked the woman of Samaria for water to drink Christ had already prepared for her the gift of faith. In his thirst to receive her faith he awakened in her the fire of your (Father’s) love.” (Preface Third Sunday of Lent) Jesus thirsted for the woman’s faith and awoke the love of the Father in her heart. Jesus thirsts for your faith and wants to awaken the love of the Father ever more in your heart. Did you ever feel like saying or hear someone say, “There must be something more to life?” That shows we need more of Jesus in our lives. Having Jesus in the center of our lives makes our whole lives better.

Every day is better for us when we allow Jesus to be in the center of our lives. When we have Jesus where he belongs, our whole life just falls into place. At the end of Lent, we want to have the picture of Jesus properly put back together in our lives, as with the Samaritan woman, because Jesus is the “something more to life” we are looking for. When we put the picture of Jesus back into place in our life, then, as we heard in our second reading, “…we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.” (Rom 5:1-2)

There are those who think that they have made such a mess of their lives that God wouldn’t want to have anything to do with them. They are, of course, quite wrong. We should note that the Samaritan woman had made a mess of her life, and yet Jesus loved her and wanted to restore her to wholeness, to bring her back into a wholesome way of living. That was news to her, indeed, very good news. Gradually, the Samaritan woman began to see Jesus not just as another Jewish rabbi but more than that. She saw that He was a prophet. Then, toward the end of their encounter, the woman said to Him: “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything.” Well, he told her everything about who she was and what she had done with her life.

Then Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.” With that, she realized that He was the Messiah, dropped her water jar, and went off to her city to tell everyone what had happened. As a result of her words, many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in Him. Later, in their own spiritual growth, they realized for themselves who He was. We need to see ourselves as the Samaritan woman, to realize who Jesus of Nazareth really is, to know Him as the Messiah, our Savior, and to share our stories with those around us. When we do this, we are evangelizers, we are apostles, messengers of God’s presence and love among us, messengers of our own encounters with God. Only Jesus can sustain our lives when we continue to trust and place our hope in him. He is always ready to give us springs of living water.