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The Third Sunday of Lent (Year A)

Today is the Third Sunday of Lent, and the Gospel is from St. John’s account of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well (4:5-42).

John, in portraying the conversation between Jesus and this woman at the well, draws heavily from the Old Testament in order to demonstrate the reality of who Jesus is and what he has come to accomplish.

First, we need to review a bit of history to see what is happening here. In 930 B.C., after the death of King David’s son, Solomon, the Israelite Kingdom split into two factious kingdoms: (1) the Southern Kingdom of Judah with its capital at Jerusalem and (2) the Northern Kingdom of Israel with its capital at Samaria.

Due to the unrepentant idolatry of the later kingdom, in 722 B.C. the foreign power of Assyria was allowed by God to conquer the Northern Kingdom of Israel and send these Israelites into exile. You can read about this in 2 Kings 17: “The king of Assyria took Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria” (v. 6). Later in the same chapter, we read: “The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in the cities of Samaria in place of the Israelites” (v. 24).

Thereafter, the inhabitants of the region north of Judea – known as Samaria – were a mixed breed of foreign peoples and those northern Israelites who escaped exportation and were left in the land. In 2 Kings 17:29-34, we read about the gods which these five foreign peoples brought with them to Samaria. This same passage tells us that the Samaritans worshipped both the one true God as well as their own pagan gods.

In the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus says to this woman: “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one you are with now is not your husband.” The original readers of John’s Gospel would have known that it was at a well where Jacob, Isaac, and Moses met their future wives. In fact, we are told that Jesus met her at “Jacob’s well” (John 4:6).

John shows himself to be a master literary artist and theologian by carefully scripting his Gospel to show us that Jesus himself is the bridegroom (Cf. John 3:29). The Samaritans have had five husbands – pagan gods apart from the one true God. As God come in the flesh, Jesus offers himself as groom to not only the Jews but even the Samaritans who were despised by the Jews.

Jesus offers the gift of reconciliation by means of his Holy Spirit poured out in baptism (Cf. Romans 5:1-8). He unites what has been divided. In Jesus, world peace finds its source. As the saying goes: “Know Jesus, know peace. No Jesus, no peace.”