Is anyone thirsty

The Gospel reading for this third Sunday of Lent asks us the most important question ever.

Jesus is at a well in Samaria which is amazing as Jews would avoid Samaritans as they regarded them as foreigners and heretics. The disciples had gone to buy food. A Samaritan woman comes to draw water and to her utter amazement Jesus asks her for water. “You are a Jew and you ask me a Samaritan for a drink?” Furthermore, a man would never speak to a woman in public. But Jesus has a purpose in mind. Jesus says, that if only she knew who was asking she would be the one to ask him for a drink and he would give her living water, welling up to eternal life. Jesus is speaking about the Holy Spirit.

“Anyone who drinks of the water I shall give will never be thirsty again.” (John 4:14)

Jesus tells her of the past men in her life. She then sees Jesus as a prophet. Jesus reveals to her that he is the Messiah and she runs back to the village to tell everyone.

Jesus is not offering her something new to believe so much as living water – the Holy Spirit which the presence of Jesus on earth as the Messiah or Christ makes possible.

This message was offered to the villagers when they came to meet Jesus. He stayed with them for two days.

“Now we no longer believe because of what you told us; we have heard him ourselves, and we know that he really is the Saviour of the world.” (John 4:42)

What can we get from this? This experience of the Holy Spirit makes a relationship with Jesus possible and begins in the here and now.  Words cannot describe this.

But it begins as it did for the woman at the well with recognising Jesus as Saviour.

Do we believe this?