A homily for the Third Sunday of Lent, with the Scrutiny Year A Readings, March 23, 2025
Exodus 17:3-7, Romans 5:1-2, 5-8, John 4:5-42
Doubting Thomas, meet The Woman at the Well.
Two experiences, one same revelation.
On one hand — literally — we remember the story about the man who believes only what he can see and feel. In a passage from John’s Gospel that we will hear again after the joyous feast of Easter, The Doubter insists on poking his fingers into Christ’s wounded hands and feet and jamming his hand into the lance’s laceration. For his experience of this tactile truth, Didymus proclaims, “My Lord and my God!”
As I’m sure all of us would.
On the other hand, as we hear in John’s Gospel today, the Samaritan woman listens to this rabbi from an enemy land tell her some confusing information about never going thirsty again, and further, telling her about how her life has been rocky at best. What should have sounded like utter nonsense instead reaches into her soul and transforms her.
She likewise acknowledges this Jesus fellow as her Lord and Messiah.
Today’s Gospel reinforces our understanding of one of the many aspects of who Jesus is, of how his divine nature manifests itself. Jesus is God’s gift of living water, allowing all of us to survive and thrive spiritually, just as dihydrogen monoxide allows all of us to survive and thrive physically.
It’s the divine manifestation of Jesus that transforms the Samaritan woman.
But what happens next is worth chewing on a bit more.
The Woman at the Well is energized. The Woman at the Well evangelizes. She tells anyone who listens and everyone else anyway that she has met the Messiah, that he is walking among them, that he has the gift of everlasting life and they need to hear what he has to say.
The Samaritans listen to The Woman, whose energy is contagious and belief doubly so. What she says opens their minds, their hearts, their souls. They are prepared to go to the next level.
And thus, the Samaritans persuade Jesus and the Apostles to stay with them for two days so they can hear the Good News about The Way directly from Emmanuel.
Once Jesus moved on from Jacob’s well, though, we have every reason to believe that The Woman and all the others who heard Jesus’ message of the Law of Love continued to preach it, to proclaim it. To share it as the gift it is.
What Jesus says to Thomas much later in John’s Gospel also applies to everyone The Woman at the Well and her fellow villagers reach:
Jesus said to [Thomas], “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”
This was the challenge any disciple took on, to demonstrate a belief in the Son of God so vividly that other people would join the Good Shepherd’s flock.
The Twelve certainly accepted the challenge. Every follower of the Christ we hear about in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles without a doubt accepted the challenge.
This is the challenge we accept from the day of our Baptism to the day of our passage from this life.
We are disciples.
We have not seen, yet we believe.
We believe, therefore we live our lives according to our belief.
We live our lives in the footsteps of Christ, so that everyone we meet may follow likewise.
So that, though they have not seen, they too may believe.
Believe in Jesus, the Living Water and sign of God’s infinite, eternal Love.
And spread the Word.
