A LIFE GIVING WATER

Water is the necessary drink for any creature in the world to live. The readings of the third Sunday of lent invites us to focus on water which gives life.

Whenever there is a meeting of man and woman at well in the Jewish culture it would usually end in marriage. In this scenario, it is always man who comes and asks for water from the woman who is drawing water from the well. Therefore, it should be understood that he is not asking mere water to quench his thirst; rather he is asking her consent to marry her. Against this background, in today’s gospel (taken from Jn 4:5-42) Jesus is asking water from Samaritan women. Here Jesus, the bridegroom is representing God and Samaritan woman, the bride is representing the lost sheep of Israel.  (Note: Jews considered Samaritans as sinners)It is a marriage proposal scene. God is giving His marriage proposal through Jesus, to the lost sheep of Israel, the sinners.  God is making reconciliation with sinners through Jesus, because He is the life giving water. This is what we also hear in today’s second reading “While we were still weak, remained in sin… Christ died for us, the ungodly” (Rom 5:6-8).

Jesus is the messiah, the redeemer (Jn 4:26). It is only through him we receive life. In the first reading, we witness the scene of people asking for water to Moses in the desert and YHWH gives them water that flowed from His rock. In the New Testament Jesus is the rock from whom we get the life giving water. In the Old Testament, people living in a natural desert, asked for water to quench their thirst. Here in the New Testament, Samaritan woman living in a spiritual desert, asking for a life giving water. And to her, Jesus says, “whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (Jn 4:14).

Now Jesus has come. He has made the life giving water available to all by dying on the cross in which flowed the blood and water from His side.  So we are no longer in a desert to ask for water. He has cleansed all our sins with His life giving water. In baptism by placing our faith in Jesus and cleansing of our sins in His life giving water we are made reconciled to God (Rom 5:1). Now, we are at peace with God. All that we need to do is to worship God in true spirit. To worship Him is to know Him and to know Him is to worship Him in true spirit. Jesus said to the woman, “you worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:22-24). Jesus made the woman to know God, the life giving water and invited her to worship Him in spirit. Let us know God, the life giving water by reading the word of God every day and worship Him in true spirit.