Water and Marriage

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today you have heard about the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. Like most of the vignettes in the Gospels, a great deal of ink has been spilled in attempting to tease out the meaning and significance of this account.

The structure of this account bears striking similarities to the account of Abraham's servant seeking out Rebekah for marriage to Isaac. Only here the bridegroom is not the far-off son of an unknown master, but the Great Bridegroom Himself, the very Son of God, only-begotten of His Father from all eternity. And the Bride is not just one beautiful woman, but the one most desirable to the Bridegroom – the bride whom He has washed clean and sanctified by His own blood and with His innocent suffering and death.

Today, our Lord gives us a lesson in the importance of the Church.

Living Water and True Worship

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Because of the Jews, Jesus had to leave Judea and return to Galilee, which took Him right through Samaria. In the heat of the day, our Lord found Himself at Jacob's Well, in the town of Sychar, alone.

A Samarian woman comes to the well at noon to draw her water. This is strange, because the usual time to draw water was either late in the afternoon or early in the morning, in the cool parts of the day. However, given the dubious character of this woman, she perhaps chose to come when no one would be around, so that she could avoid the piercing glares and wagging tongues of the other women in town. This is what sin does – it isolates each of us from one another. You are afraid to show your face in the marketplace because someone might know what you have been up to in the shadows. I would rather stay home because I do not want to confront those who disapprove of what I do. We avoid each other because we want to avoid condemnation.