He had to Come…
So, I often get in trouble with my friends, because I don’t drink enough water on a daily basis. And I try to explain to them that I have 1-2 cups of coffee every day and there’s water in that, so I should be fine! I don’t think they’re convinced.
But I know, as you know, that we, as human beings, need water to live. I mean my dad use to fast during Lent completely without food for seven days! But every day he had to drink lots water. Actually, some scientists would say that a normal healthy adult can go without food for up to 3 weeks, but the human body can only survive without water for about 3 to 5 days.
Our bodies have a natural thirst that needs to be quenched often or we will die.
Brothers and sisters, today we get the story of four “Thirsts”…. In the first reading, the people following Moses in the desert, after having been saved by God, thirst for water and so they grumbled and complained against Moses: “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst with our children and our livestock?”
Then in the Gospel, Jesus tired from his journey, thirsts and says to the Samaritan woman, “Give me a drink.” The Samaritan woman in turn comes to the well thirsty and upon hearing Jesus offer her living water she says, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water…”
But if you are paying attention to the whole exchange, Jesus never drinks any water. In fact, Jesus’ thirst is not for water, but for the heart of this Samaritan woman.
There’s a detail that is left out of today’s Gospel, in the verse immediately before this… St. John points out that Jesus “had to pass through Samaria.” The only thing is that in those days, there were two paths to Jerusalem, one that the Jews would take and the other that goes through Samaria. Jesus being a Jew did not have to go out of his way and go through Samaria… but the reason why St. John says Jesus had to go out of his way through Samaria is because he wanted to encounter this woman. He had to come and offer this woman living water for her soul that thirsts.
Catechism 2560 says this:
“If you knew the gift of God!” The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God’s desires for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him…
…Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God.
Prayer is the encounter of our thirst with God’s thirst… prayer is a response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of Jesus… on the Cross, in Jesus’ final moments after accepting the cross and the suffering that came with it, Jesus cried out from the depths of His being: “I thirst!” His thirst is for your soul and mine, and each and every lost soul in the world.
Can I be honest for a second… brothers and sisters, it breaks my heart when people leave Mass early or even skip Mass on Sundays because they’re too busy or too tired or had something else they wanted to do.
It breaks my heart not because it’s a mortal sin to miss Sunday Mass and you have to go to confession before coming up to receive the Eucharist in communion. All of that is true. It breaks my heart because Jesus shows us today that he thirsts for us so much that he goes out of his way to encounter us. Jesus comes down from Heaven and goes out of his way to draw near to us here and sometimes we find it hard while on vacation to go out of our way just a little bit to meet him in the Mass.
And in the very same way that Jesus had to come meet this Samaritan woman, Jesus goes out of his way to come here today in this Holy Mass… Jesus had to come here today, he had to go out of his way to come here in Angleton because he wants to encounter me and you today, He desires and thirsts for you today, and this is why He comes present to us in the Eucharist. “If you only knew the gift of God!”
Yet like the Samaritan woman, it sometimes takes us a while to realize our own thirsts. Even if we know how much Jesus thirsts for us, we don’t realize that our thirst is not for water but for His love.
Just notice how the Samaritan Woman addresses Jesus thoughout this encounter. We can see her conversion happening slowly… Slowly she realizes what she is really thirsting for…
At first when Jesus asks her for a drink she says, “How can you, a Jew…. Ask me…”
Jesus is first a Jew for this woman…
Then Jesus says, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
And she replies: “Sir…. Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep…” And again “Sir… give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water…”
Now Jesus is Sir… there’s an increase of respect and honor.
Then as Jesus has her interest, he says to her “Go call your husband and come back.”
The woman says, “I do not have a husband.”
Jesus answered her, “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet…”
Now Jesus is a prophet… Jew, Sir… now Prophet…
Then after discussing worshiping, the Samaritan Woman says, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything.”
And Jesus reveals to her powerfully and clearly: “I am he, the one speaking with you.” And she runs into the town and invites others: “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ?”
Jew, Sir, Prophet and finally Messiah, the Christ.
In entering a relationship and conversation with Jesus, she slowly begins to be converted… She slowly comes to know who Jesus is… He is the Christ.
The question might be the same for us: Who is Jesus for you at this point in your life. Is he a Jew only? Is he someone who is a Sir, someone who you respect and look up to as a model… Is he a prophet, someone who speaks and teachings truths about God.. or is he truly the Christ, the Savior of the World?
There is one last point I want to leave with you today: The Water Jar. It says that after the encounter with Jesus she left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ?”
In those days, water jars were precious, there was no Walmart or Amazon to get another one, they were made by hand and without it you could not get water for the day. This woman came to the well with this water jar, thirsty for the water that she thought she needed, but after meeting Jesus, she realized that the thing she was thirsty for was not the water… it was Jesus…
The question for you today is what kind of jar did you come to Mass with today? What have you come here hoping to receive in order to be Happy instead of Jesus? Is it more friendship? Is it more security? Are you looking for belonging to fill the void in your heart? Is it more excitement in your life? Is it more peace? Is it more wealthy and comforts? Is it just to belong and not feel so alone? All these things are good, but they will not truly satisfy your thirst…
Maybe a better question is: When you don’t have anything to do and it’s awkward, and you start to pull out your phone… when you start scrolling through your feed… what are you looking for. As you scroll and scroll and scroll… what are you hoping to find? What are you reaching for that’s not Jesus?
The one who can give you everything you thirst for will be right here on this altar in a few moments. “If you know the gift of God,” then I invite you to put down your jars, and instead receive His love and His salvation.
St. John Paul II said: “It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”
