Give me a drink

John 4:5-52

Third Sunday of Lent

During Lent, we try to quench our thirst for God. To help us do so, the Church invites us to encounter Jesus, who came to our world to show us the spring of living water that leads to eternal life.

Through this passage from the Gospel of John, we soar with the eagle of his narrative, which invites us to interpret “the signs and miracles of Jesus” to believe in Him. The encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman on this third Sunday of Lent is one of those signs that reveal Jesus as the Son of God and the promised Messiah.

The scene is captivating. “Tired from his journey.” Jesus walked from town to town, proclaiming the good news of a God who loves everyone. During His travels, He arrived in the village of Sychar and sat down by Jacob’s well. A Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well to quench her thirst. Jesus and the Samaritan woman met in the same place, both thirsty. There could not have been a better moment! Jesus initiates the dialogue: “Give me a drink.”

Without further ado, the defiant and belligerent Samaritan woman vents all her feelings against the Jews. “How can you, a Jewish man, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” Jesus seizes the opportunity to speak of a thirst that is quenched forever and surprises her even more: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would ask Him, and He would give you living water.”

When she incredulously and mockingly points out that she doesn’t have anything to draw water with, she thinks she has ended the conversation by appealing to the Messiah, who will reveal all truth. The answer was right in front of her. “I am He who is speaking to you.”

The “good news” spread immediately and continues to circulate throughout the world to this day: “Come and see...”

This scene is real in this Lenten dialogue with Jesus. “Give me a drink” is the request Jesus makes of us all. Lent gives us the opportunity to reflect on whether following Jesus, who is “the way, the truth, and the life,” truly quenches our thirst. As He told the Samaritan woman, Jesus will tell us “everything we have done,” and we will proclaim through our testimony that He has truly saved us through his cross and resurrection.

It seems that dialogue was the key that opened the Samaritan woman’s heart to receive God’s gift. Jesus expresses His intimate desire to her: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask Him, and He would give you living water.”

Holy Week celebrates the fountain of eternal life: the redeeming love of Jesus. He tells us, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” and then adds, “You are my friends,” and asks us: “Love one another as I have loved you.” What if we listen to how He asks His Father before His passion? “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me, where I am.”

Jesus’s cry on the cross, “I thirst,” echoes to the ends of the earth.