“Is the Lord in our midst or not?” What a question to ask after God had freed them from their slavery to the Egyptians and led them through the Red Sea to escape the Egyptian army. And yet, just a month later, we hear the Israelites grumble: “Is the Lord in our midst or not?”
As much as we may be tempted to look back on the Israelites and wonder at their doubt in our first reading, if any of us have ever been truly thirsty, we will be moved to greater empathy for their plight. There are few things more troubling than not having enough water. We can survive for some time without food, but water is a very urgent human need. And so, faced with the frightening reality of being in a desert with no water, wondering if God has abandoned them is understandable.
Our readings today invite us to grapple with moments when we feel spiritually dry and begin to question God’s presence. I’m sure many of us today feel like we’re in a desert – not a physical desert but a spiritual one. We live in a world where sources connecting us to that deeper, richer inner life can feel hard to notice, hard to get to, difficult to find. And it seems that the number of people in our midst who are plagued by spiritual thirst is very high. In these moments of suffering and longing and need, we may find ourselves asking the same question as we heard the Israelites do in our first reading: is the Lord in our midst or not?
Of course, it’s important to realize that God sent his people, the Israelites, into the desert not only to free them from slavery to the Egyptians but to test them, to see if they would worship him alone and be willing to shed anything that kept them from him; he does the same with us throughout our lives. In this season of Lent, we are invited to admit that, in one way or another, we are in a spiritual desert. We are called to bring our spiritual thirst to the Lord. As we hear in today’s Gospel, Jesus himself is the source of the living water that satisfies the spiritual thirsts in our lives. Let’s listen carefully to what he tells the woman he meets at the well: “Whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst,” Jesus says. Just as God provided for the Israelites in the desert, so, too, he provides for us through his Son, Jesus, from whom blood and water poured as a fountain of grace. Here at Mass, Jesus’ self-offering on the cross becomes real and present to us. In the Eucharist, he continues to show us his love and to pour out his abundant life to refresh our souls.
And, if that isn’t enough, Jesus doesn’t only give us himself. He also gives us the gift of his Spirit. Saint Paul reminds us in today’s second reading that “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
When we receive the love of God through the Spirit, we are, to borrow a phrase from the late Pope Francis, “set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness” (Evangelii Gaudium, 1). Through the gift of the Spirit, we receive life-giving water in abundance.
Here in this sacred place, at this sacred time, let us acknowledge our thirst and our need for God. Let us not allow ourselves to be distracted by those things that this world offers that provide only momentary satisfaction – like the water that the woman at the well first asked for – but which cannot ultimately satisfy. We are invited today to bring our thirst to God and, like the Samaritan woman, simply ask: Lord, “give me this water.”
Just as the Lord was waiting for the woman at the well, Jesus will meet us here in our need and provide life-giving water for all our spiritual thirsts. I want to point out an interesting little detail in today’s gospel account. Did you notice that the “woman left her water jar and went into the town.” Perhaps, knowing she was coming back, she thought she could retrieve it later. Or, did she leave the jar behind because she would no longer need it? As she came to know more fully the person of Jesus, by talking with him and listening to him, was her life changed? Had she come to believe that by drinking of the water he gives, she would never thirst again? Is there something in our lives that we have to leave behind?
During this Lenten season, we are invited to thirst again for the life-giving waters that our God offers us. Like the ancient Israelites, we are all on a journey to the Promised Land. Like the Samaritan woman, we long for our deepest thirst to be satisfied – complete happiness forever. As he promised the ancient Israelites, God has promised us that he would care for us. And, as Jesus revealed to the woman at the well, he reveals to us that he, who knows us better than we know ourselves, will lead us to the heavenly banquet, where there will be no more hunger or thirst but the abundance of life. Rather than grumbling and complaining to God, let us listen carefully to what God has to say to us for he, alone, can offer us the “spring of water welling up to eternal life.”