Breaking Open the Word - 3rd Sunday of Lent, Year A
Third Sunday of Lent, Year A – March 15th, 2020
Carl Heinrich Bloch / public domain
This Sunday the Church asked us to reflect on the beautiful story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well. As is typical of John’s Gospel, there are many layers of meaning to this passage. We explored several in our Scripture sharing and are eager to share some of our insights with you!
Jesus begins the entire conversation with a simple yet profound request: “Give Me a drink.” On one level, this is an amazing testament to the fact that the Son of God truly entered into our human weakness. But this statement is about far more than mere physical thirst – it is about the mysterious thirst of God for the love of humanity. One Sister pointed out how the literal translation makes this meaning clearer. Christ says, “give Me to drink,” rather than “give Me a drink.” By not specifying the object of the sentence, He offers us a hint that He is speaking about more than just water. Another Sister shared how this passage deeply touched her as she thought of all the times throughout her life that Jesus had asked her for this kind of “drink.” In each of our lives, the Lord does the same thing, gently asking for more and more of our love as we grow in the spiritual life. Sister saw this as Jesus asking for water from deeper and deeper in the “well” of our hearts – and the deeper we allow Him to penetrate, the purer our love becomes.
We also discussed the special vocation of the Samaritan woman herself (known in the Eastern tradition as “St. Photina”). Though she obviously has a checkered past and is looked down upon by others, she is sought out by Christ. In fact, He is so eager to win her love and faith that He gives her the only outright declaration of His messiahship that can be found outside the Passion accounts: “I who am speaking to you am He.” The woman runs to proclaim the good news to everyone in the town, and her witness is so compelling that this social outcast ends up bringing her whole community to faith in Christ. Tradition holds that her missionary vocation didn’t end here, but that she continued proclaiming Jesus and thus prepared her region of Samaria for the coming of the Gospel with Peter and John after Pentecost. How like God to choose such an unlikely person to do His mighty deeds!
Finally, a Sister brought out some beautiful parallels between this story, the Passion, and Baptism. In all three there is Christ encountering a woman – the Samaritan, Mary, and the Church (the Bride of Christ). In both Biblical stories Christ expresses His longing for souls (“Give Me a drink,” “I thirst”), and in Baptism He fulfills this longing by bringing souls into His divine life. All three mysteries connect water with the Holy Spirit: Jesus tells the woman of the “living water”, water comes from Christ’s pierced Heart after He “gave up the Spirit,” and water is the instrument of the Holy Spirit’s descent in Baptism. Lastly, each of the three reveals the nature of Christ as the Divine Bridegroom. Dr. Brant Pitre argues that, in speaking to the Samaritan woman by a well, Jesus is re-enacting a classic Old Testament trope: man + woman + well = marriage (think Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, Moses and Zipporah). The Passion is the moment of Christ’s marriage with the Church; He gives Himself totally to her in sacrificial love on the Cross. Finally, Baptism is the extension of this Bridegroom’s love to the individual soul, washing it clean and incorporating it into the Bride of Christ, the Church.