IN THE First Reading (Exodus 17:3-7), the Israelites, being so thirsty in their long journey in the desert from Egypt to the Promised Land, complained to Moses, “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst?” They even doubted if the Lord was in their midst. God, working through Moses, gave them water. Moses struck the rock and from it, water flowed.
The gospel (John 4:5-42) builds up on the same theme of thirst. Also tired in his journey, Jesus asks a Samaritan woman who was drawing water from Jacob’s well in Samaria to give him a drink. The Samaritan woman marveled, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”
This answer has a historical context. Jews despised Samaritans, their brother Israelites, for escaping exile when Assyria conquered the Northern Kingdom hundreds of years before the time of Jesus. The Samaritans intermarried with non-Israelites and worshiped God, not in Jerusalem per Old Testament prescription, but in Mount Gerazim. To the Israelites of those days, Samaritans were thus a people who corrupted the purity of Jewish law.
By communicating with the Samaritan woman, Jesus has broken down this wall of division. In their conversation, Jesus revealed himself to this woman as the Messiah, the Savior of the world, coming to save not only the Israelites but also us, Gentiles; not only a chosen few but anyone who repents from his sins, accepts God’s free gift of salvation, and lives a life of obedience to his will.
The woman, aside from being a Samaritan, also had a dubious past. When Jesus asked her to call her husband, she replied that she did not have one. Jesus, knowing everything, said, “You are right in saying that you do not have a husband. For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.”
Again, this exchange mirrors the historical infidelity of the Samaritans to the True God. The Bible has always used the husband-wife metaphor to symbolize the loving relationship that God wanted to build between his people and himself. Like a wayward wife, the Samaritans gave up God as their husband, and clang to other men instead.
We can ask ourselves, “How about us? Are we like a faithful spouse to our God, or are we an adulterous spouse who exchange him for something or someone else? Are we devoted to the One True God or do we play around with false gods? Instead of worshiping God, do we worship the false gods of antiquity, or even the modern idols of materialism, power, fame, pleasure, false security and achievement, and the like?
Having had a personal encounter with Jesus, the Samaritan woman experienced a change of heart. She believed in Jesus and went back to town to spread the good news about him. She did not only become a convert; she became a missionary of God’s message of salvation.
Jesus’ beautiful message to her was his offering of a spring of water that wells up to eternal life. He tells her that whoever drinks the water from the well will only quench thirst temporarily, but whoever drinks the water coming from the Lord will never thirst again.
Consequently, we may want to ask, “What is this water, or more appropriately, who is this water that Jesus was referring to?” The same Bible provides us the answer. Moving a few chapters forward to this Sunday’s gospel, we read in John these words of Jesus, “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture says: ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.’ He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive...” (John 7:38-39).
The living water then symbolized the Holy Spirit. Physical water gives temporal relief of physical thirst; the Holy Spirit, the “Rivers of living water flowing from within,” provides an eternal relief to our spiritual thirst, and thus leads us to eternal life. With the Holy Spirit dwelling in us and in the Church, we no longer have to go to Jerusalem to connect with God. To the Samaritan woman Jesus said, “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. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24).
Do we want to offer God a worship that is acceptable and pleasing to him? If yes, let us allow the Holy Spirit to lead us, in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord.