Jesus Thirsts for You: Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent

Here we are in the third week of Lent. How are your Lenten resolutions going? Mine aren’t going so great, to be honest. Last Friday, I made myself a turkey sandwich for lunch, forgetting it was Friday. I think I was just going through the motions of the day, not really paying attention.

Sometimes life is like that, a series of unconscious, or nearly unconscious, actions that add up to a day.

The Samaritan woman in today’s gospel is going through the motions of her daily life when someone intervenes unexpectedly.

“Give me a drink,” Jesus says to her.

He’s thirsty.

But we know that Jesus is the Living Water.

So what could he be thirsting for?

We know what the Samaritan woman is thirsting for.

She comes to the well to fill her empty jar.

But she comes to the well at noon. That’s a bad time to get water.

The sun is at highest, there is no shade. When she walks back home with her full jar, the water will get warm.

It’s much better to come in the morning.

But not if you’re trying to avoid people.

In the morning all the other women would be there. She doesn’t want to deal with the looks or the gossip. “There she is, the woman who’s had five husbands.”

So every day she comes to the well at noon, hoping to avoid their glances.

She’s willing to endure the heat and the loneliness to avoid the shame.

But she’s not willing to endure the thirst.

And so she brings her empty jar to the well.

Her thirst is so strong that she is driven to come out of her house and make the daily journey to the well.

Her thirst cannot be denied.

Her life is dry, her heart is thirsting.

So she comes to the well.

We go through our days, too, trying to quench our thirsts by filling an empty jar. What are the things we put into our water jars? What are the wells we visit? Music, viral videos, books, talk shows, fine art? What are we doing to fill up the empty spaces of our lives? Working, playing, praying?

We all have a thirst inside us, and we try to quench that thirst in a thousand different ways. Some of those ways are noble and beautiful. Some of them are low and ugly.

Each day we try to fill our empty jar, and each day it is empty again, over and over, sometimes without even thinking.

Just like the Samaritan woman in today’s gospel.

And then one day she meets a stranger at the well. She’s come to fill her jar, and Jesus asks her for a drink.

It doesn’t matter that she’s a Samaritan.

It doesn’t matter that she’s been married five times.

He asks her for a drink.

But it’s not water that he seeks. It’s something else.

Just as later he tells his disciples that he has food of which they know nothing, so too his drink is something else.

Jesus hungers to do the will of the one who sent him.

And he thirsts for the Samaritan woman’s faith.

When he says, “Give me a drink,” Jesus means, “Show me the gift of faith that you have received.”

The opening to today’s Eucharistic prayer says,

“…when he asked the Samaritan woman for water to drink, he had already created the gift of faith within her and so ardently did he thirst for her faith that he kindled in her the fire of divine love.”

Jesus thirsts for her faith, and he thirsts for our faith, too.

Today, as we come to the well of the Eucharist, Jesus says to us, “Give me a drink.”

In other words, “Draw near to me, get to know me, believe in me. I long to be with you.”

Maybe we don’t believe that.

Maybe we doubt that Jesus could thirst for someone so weak-willed, so hard-hearted.

We don’t pray enough, we snap at our kids, we cut people off on the freeway, we’re rude to store clerks.

Jesus doesn’t thirst for me, we think.

But notice that Jesus was already at the well when the Samaritan woman arrived. He was waiting for her.

He knew all about her five husbands. And still he asked her for a drink.

He loves us in the midst of our weaknesses.

God has a long history of being merciful to stubborn people.

Just look at the first reading.

The grumbling Israelites complained about their thirst, and yet through Moses God touched the rock of Horeb, opening up a stream of living water.

God wants to do the same for us. God thirsts to make of us a flowing fountain.

If we stand still long enough to notice and listen, God will touch our stony hearts and we will become a spring welling up to eternal life.

Jesus awaits us in our daily lives, especially at those wells where we often get our spiritual thirst quenched.

Behind every beautiful painting, among all the spring flowers, in every song that makes us tap our toes or clap our hands, Jesus is there.

When a movie lifts our spirit, when a basketball player makes an amazing drive to the bucket, Jesus is there in all that is good, true, and beautiful.

But the paintings, the flowers, the songs, the movies, the athletes, are merely well water.

They are not Jesus. They can’t satisfy us for long.

Each day our water jar is empty again.

Water from a well is lifeless, still, and stagnant.

But the living water of Christ is a flowing fountain, a spring welling up to eternal life.

It cannot be contained in an empty jar.

That’s why the woman leaves her jar behind when she goes to town to tell the others whom she has met.

Her jar is empty but her heart is overflowing with the Living Water of Christ.

This is what Jesus thirsts for. This is the reason he was sent into the world.

He thirsts for us, because he loves us.

No matter how sinful we are.

It’s what Paul tells us in the letter to the Romans: “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”

God doesn’t love us because we are good. God loves us so that we can become good.

He pours himself out as water for us, in spite of our sinfulness and shortcomings.

From the height of the cross, Jesus looked down and said, “I thirst.”

From the pierced side of his crucified body flowed blood and water.

“Give me a drink,” Jesus says to us, “so that I can quench your thirst with living water.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS