Third Sunday in Lent

In the spiritual life, a thirst refers to a deeper longing than that for water. A longing for peace that endures, for a love that does not betray us and for meaning that doesn’t collapse when circumstances change. 

Lent has a way of bringing these deeply felt longings to the surface. Many find that, by stripping away distractions and illusions, they are able to identify what it is they are really seeking in life.

This encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well gives us an insight into this whole area.

In the time of Our Lord, the Samaritans lived in the hill country between Galilee and Judea - there’s still a small community of them there today. They are descended from Israelites who were left behind in the region after the Assyrian conquest 800 years BC. Over centuries this hidden enclave developed distinctive religious practices which separated them from their Jewish neighbours.

Considering these divisions, it’s striking that Jesus deliberately travels through Samaria and enters into conversation with someone whom He would normally be expected to avoid because she was a Samaritan, a woman and morally compromised. In those days men were discouraged from engaging with women who were not known to them.

So, His actions give a deep insight into the nature of Christ. He doesn’t merely teach about reconciliation and love; He embodies these things, crossing boundaries precisely because in Christ God crossed the ultimate boundary - the infinite distance between Creator and creature.

When Jesus speaks to this woman of “living water,” He is not just offering a poetic metaphor. In biblical imagery, living water signifies the life of God Himself.

So, the deep thirst we feel within is not merely psychological, it is what we call ‘ontological’ which means it touches our very being. The thirst for God runs deep within us.

An image of hidden waters might help us to understand this. The city of London is built over at least twenty concealed rivers which still flow deep beneath the surface of its streets and, when it’s been raining hard, these rivers can be heard in various places - the River Tyburn in parts of Mayfair, the River Fleet beneath Smithfield Market, and the River Walbrook in parts of the City of London.

These now hidden rivers preceded the city. The Romans built Londinium around them and, by the late Middle Ages, they’d disappeared beneath buildings and streets. In the same way, the living waters of grace flow beneath the pavements of our life, under the buildings of our achievements and beneath the wreckage of our failures - the possibility of communion with God being woven into the very fabric of our being.

Here in Harrogate, we know something about hidden waters. Beneath the crescents and gardens which lie behind us here are springs of mineral water that gave birth to the town itself. It was William Slingsby who first found a spring at the Tewit Well just over there on the stray in the late 16th century and, before long, people were seeking healing in the waters of the town.

But, long before then, far earlier than the spa buildings arose, those waters were already here - unseen and active in the darkness. Who knows, there might be a spring right below our church. 

Last weekend the sound of running water could be heard beneath the floorboards in the presbytery. For a moment, I imagined it to be a newly discovered spring of spa water. It would be called St Robert’s spring and people would come from far away to experience its healing effects. Then the plumber took the floorboards up and it turned out just to be a leak in the central heating system. 

The discovery of those spa waters all those years ago transformed Harrogate into a place of restoration. But, the waters were there in the centuries before.

And so it is with God’s sanctifying grace infused at baptism - it flows within, always there to guide us in life, should we choose to engage with it.

The fact is, God’s presence within can become obscured - not extinguished - but buried beneath what we construct to survive: things like the drive to achieve, the pursuit of knowledge that we might progress, the nurturing of cynicism that we might not be fooled by others. Things which, if not rightly ordered, can prevent us from the realisation that God is constantly at work in our lives. 

Imagine someone whose days are filled with professional demands, financial concerns, targets to meet, family responsibilities that never quite seem to end. There is always another step to climb, another objective to reach, another measure of success to secure.

None of these things are wrong in themselves; they are often part of our vocation and our duty. But if they dominate our inner life, they can quietly seal over the well within us.

Drinking from the well of divine grace may involve listening patiently to someone who is struggling rather than rushing on to the next task. It might mean allowing the suffering we see in the world to touch our hearts instead of protecting ourselves with indifference, even if that indifference is borne of fear. It might mean giving time to prayer when our drive to achieve tells us our time would be better used in other ways.

Drinking from the well of which Jesus spoke softens the heart making it more compassionate. We begin to see others not as obstacles, competitors, or inconveniences, but as fellow travellers who share the same thirst for meaning and love.

Going back to the Samaritan woman, her history is gently uncovered in this conversation with Christ. She has had five husbands, and the man she’s now with is not her husband.

Jesus neither ignores the truth nor does He seek to weaponise it as many would, and do. He reveals her failings not to condemn her or humiliate her, but to help liberate her. And that’s the pattern of divine mercy: veritas in caritate - truth in love. Grace doesn’t collude with the illusions we allow ourselves to believe; it heals by bringing what’s hidden into the light. It’s why sometimes the task of faith can be challenging. We don’t always want those things which separate us from God to be dragged into the light.

Notice that there is a movement in this woman’s recognition of Jesus. First she calls Him a Jew, then ‘sir’ before ‘prophet’ and, finally, ‘Messiah’. In the longer version of the story, having received the living water, she leaves her stone water jar behind - a subtle but profound symbol. The old means of drawing water, her former strategies for satisfying her thirst - they’re no longer necessary and she goes on to become an evangelist to her own people in an extraordinary way.

Lent invites us into the same movement. It is a season to deepen our surrender to the Lord and return to the source. Christ doesn’t drag us into holiness. He draws holiness from us. The warmth of His charity softening what has grown cold within. Just as spring is now coaxing daffodils and crocuses from the hardened ground on the Stray, so the Spirit brings new life from hearts that may long seem to have been buried. When the ground warms, what lies hidden begins to rise.

To come close to Jesus Christ - in prayer, in the Scriptures, in the sacraments, in the small sacrifices we make for Him, especially during this season of Lent - is to allow Him to uncover the spring within us. To help us through those stages the woman went through before she recognised Him as the Messiah.

So, as we reach a midpoint in our Lenten journey, let’s ask for the courage of that Samaritan woman to stand in the searing light of truth, that we might receive God’s mercy, and drink deeply, having allowed Christ to uncover the spring within us. And having tasted the living water, may we, like the woman at the well, become witnesses - inviting others, in our own way, with simplicity and joy: to “Come and see the Lord” - for He is truly the Saviour of the world.