Christ the Cornerstone

The humility of a thirsty God

We see God begging for a drink of water from a human being, and a sinful one at that. … How could it be that God is needy? … In Christ the one who by nature has need of nothing outside himself has nonetheless voluntarily made himself needy, but only in order to communicate to us the life that is his. This action of making himself needy out of love may well be the greatest and most astounding work of his omnipotence. (Father Simeon, O.S.C.O.)

The Gospel for the Third Sunday of Lent (Jn 4:5-42) tells the story of the Samaritan woman who encountered Jesus at Jacob’s well. Jesus is tired and thirsty. He says to the woman, “Give me a drink” (Jn 4:7), and this simple request causes a double scandal: a man speaking to a woman, and a Jew interacting with a Samaritan.

Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, a Trappist monk at Saint Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Mass., whose religious name is Father Simeon, has pointed out an even more profound scandal. Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, has become a man.

As a result, he shares all our human weaknesses, except sin. When he fasts 40 days in the desert, he is hungry, lonely and physically weak. When he walks long distances as in this Gospel account, he becomes exhausted and dehydrated.

The scandal is that God, who is omnipotent, freely admits his weakness. He is powerless over the physical demands of his humanity, and he needs the help of others, in this case a sinful Samaritan woman. It’s true that this state of neediness is freely chosen by God’s only Son, but the paradoxical fact remains that he who shares the absolute power of Divinity with his Father and the Holy Spirit must now humble himself by begging for a drink of water from someone who is in no way his equal.

The woman’s response to Jesus reinforces the double bias of her time:

“How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, “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.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?” (Jn 4:9-12)

When the woman asks Jesus if he is greater than Jacob, she unwittingly calls attention to the paradox of Jesus’ identity. Yes, he is greater than Jacob (and every other human being), but he has deliberately chosen to humble himself. Instead of ordinary water, he calls her attention to the spiritual nourishment that is available to her through the “living water” that he alone can give.

Jesus says to the woman at the well, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (Jn 4:13-14).

The woman does not understand this. She says to Jesus, “Sir, give me this ­water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water” (Jn 4:15). While Jesus is speaking of spiritual nourishment, and the gift of his own life, the women can only think of her physical needs.

In the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, we learn about the woman’s personal history:

Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” The woman answered and said to him, “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.” (Jn 4:16-18)

Jesus’ ability to see into the woman’s soul and to determine the truth about her marital status convinces her that he is no ordinary man. She recognizes him as the Messiah and begins to tell everyone in the town about his power.

The hidden truth is that Jesus is both God and man. His humanity makes him accessible to us. His divinity allows him to penetrate to our heart of hearts and become one with us. “Many more began to believe in him” (Jn 4:41), St. John says. And they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world” (Jn 4:42). †