LENT III



Jacopo Bassano Moses Striking Water



The Macklin Bible -- The Woman of Samaria

Images courtesy of the Jean and Alexander Heard Library, Vanderbilt University

Exodus 17:1-7
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42
Psalm 95

Symbols are indispensable to theology and religion, because often it is only through symbols that we can talk about both the world in which we live, and the reality that transcends it. In the Bible, ‘bread’, ‘water’ and ‘light’ are used symbolically again and again. It is easy to see why. All of them are essential to biological life, and so they readily lend themselves as means by which to point beyond the biological, to the essential elements of spiritual life.

The Old Testament lesson and the Gospel for this week are linked by one of these symbols – water. Moses is tormented by yet more complaining demands on the part of those he has led out of slavery. On this occasion it is “Give us water”, and in his frustration. Moses cries out to God. God responds by aligning himself (almost literally) with a miraculous supply of water in the wilderness. “I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb”, he tells Moses, “Strike the rock, and water will come out of it”. Thereby, the Israelites’ biological need for water is made the means of symbolizing their dependence upon God.

The episode, however, also reveals the weakness and waywardness of the Israelites. They have taken it upon themselves to test God, and this exposes their underlying faithlessness, their failure to acknowledge his perpetual care for them. The Gospel passage offers us an interesting reversal. Here too the symbol of water plays its part, and the need for it is made the means of a test. But it is God in the Person of Jesus who needs water, and the Samaritan woman who is asked to provide it. Being Samaritan, she is not one of the ‘Chosen’ people, but part of a group regarded by Orthodox Jews as renegades.

Nevertheless, she passes the initial test by drawing water from the well. This proves her worthiness to be put to a deeper test. Does she long for ‘living’ water of a different kind, and can she see that Jesus is offering it? The woman is convinced, almost, by the extraordinary insight Jesus shows into her life and character. This gives us a clue to the nature of the ‘eternal life’ to which Jesus refers;  the realization of our inmost selves requires life in God. In the Epistle, St Paul’s description of this life also makes an implicit reference to water. “We have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God . . . because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us”.