Turning Point in a Love Story: The Woman at the Well

Christ is risen!

We are today before the account of an intimate love story in between the 30 year old Jesus, the most

beautiful among the sons of men, and a Samaritan woman in appetite of the man-woman relationship. Jesus has the initiative choosing a time to be free and all alone with this Samaritan woman.

He engages the intimate dialogue: “Give me to drink”.

Immediately, the woman responds pressing Him to love further: “How is it that you have chosen to court me?”

In response, Jesus goes all the way offering the most precious of treasures: “If you knew the gift of God, the water of life!” and telling her: “If only you knew me! If only you loved me more!” Then Jesus allows her earthly imagination to roam about freely: What then will you do?

But Jesus quickly cuts short her imaginations saying: “What I will give you is incomparable to anything you can imagine: a spring of water welling up in you to eternal life!”

The woman, with the little, little bit she understands, is conquered by her lover: “Give it to me, Lord, and I will not need to sweat to fill my jar with water.”

This is when the turning point of the love story arrives. Jesus, in His love relationship, has more in view, a new depth that requires truth, requires exposing her true situation: “Go call your husband and come to me.”

She responds a minimal truth, as we often do with an embarrassing question. “I have no husband” she says.

Jesus thus begins to teach the profound truth: His ravishing love for this woman has a much wider horizon, Jesus’ love for her encompasses knowledge of her sin, all her sin. Jesus loves us knowing the true situation of our sinfulness. Knowing what is the least attractive in us, in all its depth, Jesus intimately loves us.

Romance

Let me make a parenthesis now . Maybe we are not presently an adulterer or not presently in the state of having committed a grave crime. These are very real sins, but in one of his first discourses, our new Pope Leo XIV, quoted an oriental saint, Isaac the Syrian, saying: “the greatest sin is not to believe in the power of the Resurrection”. In the eyes of God, what is most ugly in us is our lack of belief in the power of the resurrection! Jesus wants to show this to us in truth.

The Samaritan woman will say: “He told me all that I ever did.” She did not say “He told me about my adultery”. She receives at this moment something radical. All though up to now, she and Jesus were equal lovers, suddenly she opens in depth to a radical superiority of Jesus, to the sense of a unique familiarity of Jesus with the divine. Have we learnt that Jesus’ love encompasses what is radically unattractive in us, all our sinfulness, all our lack of faith in the power of the Resurrection. But, letting Jesus meet intimately with us in our sinfulness opens true thirst for the divine, thirst for true adoration of God. Without recognition of Jesus’ love for us in all our sinfulness, adoration of God may be just remain our own fabrication. With true recognition of Jesus’ love for us in our sinfulness, Jesus reveals what is beyond human understanding, that “the hour now is for adoring, worshipping, the Father in spirit and truth”. Jesus reveals why God the Father has created all things: God the Father created all things because He seeks adorers in spirit and truth, worshippers in spirit and truth. This Divine design of the Father needs love of God for us in our sin, needs Jesus to die on the cross out of love for us, a love that proposes us the power of the resurrection, that transports us to the realm of a God of infinite Love and Communion, participation in the divine eternal life of the Father with His Son and the Holy Spirit. And this gift of God is inseparable a call for us to participate actively in the Father’s thirst for many worshipers in spirit and truth.

The Samaritan woman immediately redirects all her life. All her energy, all her talent, is now to serve the thirst of the Heavenly Father, to attract everybody in her town, friends and enemies alike, to the encounter with Jesus, to have Jesus stay with them and come to believe that He is the Savior of the world. Let me quote what are Pope Leo said last Sunday for the beginning of his pontificate: How important it is that all of us, first and foremost live the joy of the Gospel, looking for ways to encourage young people to hear the voice of the Lord, to follow that voice and to serve in the Church.” This complements worshipping in spirit and truth.

What is remarkable in today’s story is that Jesus chooses to start everything by an intimate love relation with us as equals with Him: “Give me to drink”. Jesus does not fully reveal his superiority till personal intimate love has time anchor in His creature. Intimate human love of brother or sister is a steppingstone to enter love in between Creator and creature! Here we are in the heart of the mystery of the Incarnation: God initiates bridges in between Divine Love and our human

experience love. Our religious experience is a continual discovery and fascination for these bridges God invents. This Divine Liturgy is a bridge by which God conveys to us His Divine Love. Holy Scripture is a bridge. Each brother or sister Divine Providence has put on your path is a bridge by which God conveys His Divine Love. Our sins, when recognized before God, are a bridge by which God conveys His Divine Love. We should walk out of this Temple today, repeating over and over again: “God is thirsty for many worshipers in Spirit and in Truth” and announce this to our brothers and sisters... Christ is risen!