Third Sunday of Lent
If you’re anything like me, when you hear this Gospel, during Mass or outside of Mass, you inwardly prepare for the homily about how we are supposed to be thirsting for the water that Jesus wants to give us, just like God provided water for the Israelites in the desert, and just like Jesus was drawing the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well to in our Gospel passage.
Instead, I would like to focus on someone else’s thirst: Jesus’ thirst. When Jesus first meets the Samaritan woman, he tells her, “‘Give me a drink.’” Jesus is thirsting. But for what is Jesus thirsting? Water? Unlikely, since Jesus, had spent forty days and forty nights fasting, and was used to being deprived of water. For what was Jesus thirsting?
Jesus was thirsting for the soul of the Samaritan woman. Jesus, the one who, fully human, was talking to her and engaging her in dialogue, was also the one who, fully divine, willed her into existence when she was conceived in the womb of her mother. As her Creator He wanted her to be in spiritual union with Him, the only way she could be happy.
She had tried other ways to be happy. She had tried to find her true happiness in a spouse, but, whether those first five spouses died, divorced her, or she was an adulteress, she had not found that happiness that she was looking for. Her thirst was not being quenched in human relationships. And so she was cohabitating, living together without the sanctity and protection and benefit of marriage, with her boyfriend.
She had tried to be happy by following false gods. The Samaritans were excluded from the Jewish people because, from the very beginning of their nation, they had worshipped other pagan gods instead of the one God who had brought them from the land of Egypt, that place of slavery, into the promised land; the one God who had given them manna and quail when they murmured against the Lord in their hunger; the one God who had given them drink from the rock when they grumbled against God and against Moses. And this abandonment of the true God was only solidified when the Northern Kingdom of Israel, which came to be called Samaria after the name of the chief city in the north, was conquered by Assyria, who displaced many of the Israelites and made them intermarry with the other pagans, which God had expressly forbidden.
Yes, she was thirsting for God, but God was also thirsting for her. He wanted her to be happy, truly happy, not just the passing happiness of doing whatever she felt right. And so Jesus expresses to her His thirst. But she tries to put Him off, to keep Him thirsting for her, rather than quenching it with the conversion of her heart and life to God. She first puts Jesus off by trying to argue about who Jesus is, and how He can give her life-giving water. She then tries to put Him off by lying about her relationship status. Finally, trying to go for something that surely would put Him off for good, she talks about liturgy, figuring that no two people who are so different in liturgical practices would ever be able to talk about where to worship properly. But Jesus wants His thirst quenched, and He will not give up.
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| Icon of the Crucifixion at the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem |
It is no accident that it is in John’s account of the passion that one of Jesus’ last words on cross is, “‘I thirst.’” Because on that cross, more than He is thirsting for water, as He gives His human life up and puts His entire life into the hands of His heavenly Father, He wants all people to be drawn to Him as He is lifted high on the cross and dies so that His children, all His children, whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, woman or man, might find life from the water and blood that flow from His pierced side.
We know the agony of being thirsty ourselves, yet so easily we can find some way to drink. Whether it’s a water fountain, a vending machine, or the local store, we can find some way to quench our thirst. But the only way that Jesus’ thirst is quenched is by our love and obedience to Him, a love which does not burden or enslave us, but a love and obedience which truly sets us free. What are the ways that we keep Jesus thirsting for us, increasing the pain He suffers by us not being united with Him?
Do we feel that we know better than Jesus, and that He cannot truly quench our thirst for happiness? Do we argue with Jesus that only by the passing pleasures of this world can we truly be happy? Do we figure that Jesus is not greater than our father Jacob who provided for his family by digging a well, just as our fathers and mothers provided for us by their hard work that bought us toys and relaxation?
Do we feel that only with the right relationship can we truly be happy, trusting that, if we just found that special someone, we would no longer yearn for a deeper relationship, the infinite relationship which only God can satisfy?
Do we keep Jesus away by arguing with Him over which translation of the liturgy is better, which one we like the best, and how we want to worship? Do we try to put Jesus off, to keep Him at arms’ length because we only want to do the least that we can?
Jesus is thirsting for us, and only our love will quench that thirst. While His love lacks nothing, He wants us to be joined to that perfect love in the union of the Communion of Love of the Trinity. If we choose, we can keep Jesus thirsting for us, thirsting for our love in a deep and abiding relationship with him. Or, we can be like the Samaritan woman at the well, who quenched Jesus’ thirst by the conversion of her life, and the preaching of the Gospel to her friends, and, most importantly, her love of Jesus. As Jesus hangs on this cross he says to us today, “I thirst.” Will we give him the drink of our love?
