Jesus and the Samaritan woman

Today is the third Sunday of Lent and our gospel reading comes from John 4:5-42 or 4:5-15, 19a, 40-42 and it’s about a conversation that should never have happened because Jews did not socialize with Samaritans. But then our Lord Jesus Christ was not an ordinary Jew. In fact he was not an ordinary man either for God sent him for a mission, where one can say that he was born to die… for our sins.

5 [Jesus] came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there. Jesus tired from his journey, sat down there at the well, it was about noon. 7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.} 10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 [The woman] said to him, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?”

13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; 14 but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” 17 The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus answered her, “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband. 18 For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

19 “The woman said to him, I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews.

23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Anointed; when he comes he will tell us everything.”

26 Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.” 39 Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him. 40 When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 Many more began to believe in him because of his word, 42 and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”

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We’ve already written here many times that the Jews and the Samaritans were like cats and dogs… they would never see eye-to-eye nor even share a cup of water. But when Jesus left Judea to return to Galilee, he passed by Samaria…when most Jews would avoid passing there. Upon reaching Jacob’s well, a woman was getting water in the noonday sun. This wasn’t normal for Samaritans or Jews because they would draw water either early in the morning or late in the afternoon. So Jesus suspected that this woman was in the well to avoid people talking about her situation in life.

She knew that Jesus was a Jew and was surprised that he would ask her for water. Hence the conversation with the living water came about. But when she asked for that living water, Jesus told her to go call your husband and come back. But the woman told Jesus that she didn’t have a husband. Hence she was taken aback when Jesus told her that she already had five husbands, but the one with her was not her husband.

But she showed hope and told Jesus about the coming of the Messiah who will teach people everything; and Jesus told her “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.” It was truly a first revelation and our Lord Jesus Christ told this truth to a Samaritan woman. But because she believed that Jesus was truly the Messiah, she went to town to tell her Samaritan friends and they started to believe in him. I’m sure that this story amazed his disciples because the Samaritans already accepted their Master as the Messiah. The Anointed One who will save the world and the Gentiles believed in him.

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