Dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ
The readings of this third Sunday of Lent speak about ‘thirst’, not only physical thirst, but the deep thirst of the human heart. Every person is thirsty for something: love, peace, forgiveness, and true happiness.
In the first reading from the book of Exodus, the Israelites are wandering in the desert. They become thirsty and begin to complain against Moses. They ask, ‘why did you bring us out of Egypt to make us and our children die of thirst?’. The people had forgotten how God had already saved them. Yet God remains faithful. He instructs Moses to strike the rock, and water flows from it. God provides what His people need. This story shows us something about ourselves. When life becomes difficult, when we face problems, sickness or disappointment, we can also begin to complain and doubt God’s presence. Sometimes we ask the same question the Israelites asked ‘is the Lord really among us or not’. In the second reading from the Letter to the Romans, St Paul reminds us that God never abandons us. He says: “the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” And Paul gives the greatest proof of this love: Christ died for us while we were still sinners. Even when we doubt, fail or wander away, God’s love keeps flowing toward us, just like water from the rock in the desert.
The gospel passage from John presents one of the most beautiful encounters in the Bible: Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus asks her for water, but then He tells her something extraordinary: “whoever drinks the water I give, will never thirst.” Jesus is speaking about living water, the water that gives eternal life. This living water is His grace, His truth, His Spirit. The Samaritan woman had been searching for happiness in many places. Her life was complicated and broken. Yet Jesus does not condemn her. Instead, he reveals her thirst and offers her something better. And when she encounters Christ, everything changes. She leaves her water jar behind and runs back to the town to tell everyone: “come see a man who told me everything I have done”. The woman who came to the well in shame becomes a missionary.
Like the Israelites and like the Samaritan woman we are thirsty people. Sometimes we try to satisfy our thirst with things that cannot truly satisfy us: Possessions, success, Pleasure, Recognition. But these things can only give temporary satisfaction. Only Christ can quench the deepest thirst of the Human heart. The season of lent invites us to come again to the well where Jesus is waiting for us. We meet Him especially through: prayer, the word of God, the Sacraments especially reconciliation and the Eucharist. When we allow Christ to fill our hearts, we receive the living water that becomes a spring inside us.
Dear brothers and sisters, today Jesus is also sitting beside the well of our lives, saying to each of us: “ if you knew the gift of God.. you would ask me, and I would give you living water.” Let us bring our thirst, our struggles, our sins, our hopes, to Him. And when we receive His living water, may we also become like the Samaritan woman, people who bring others to Christ.
Amen.