"An Encounter With Jesus" March 5, 2021

Lenten greetings to you all! One of my favorite Gospel accounts is the story of the “Woman at the Well,” which only appears in St. John’s Gospel. It is a beautiful story of redemption. Redemption–isn’t that what the season of Lent is all about? Can you imagine doing something so ordinary as fetching water at a well and having it change your life forever? Let us dive deeper into this encounter with Jesus. It is not simply an enjoyable story; Jesus is speaking to us through it.   

The main character is a sinful, disreputable Samaritan woman. She is a symbol of all of humanity, someone who would spend her life pursuing her own appetites and desires. She is a Samaritan, already an outcast of the Jewish society. She finds herself at this well at midday (highly unusual) because the well was a meeting place for women. Possibly everyone knew about her “living arrangements”–living with someone to whom she was not married.

Being alone at the well symbolically represented her own loneliness; her own questioning about what life was all about. She was looking for a life of value and meaning, yet she could not break away from her past. She was blinded by her own sinfulness. Now, she finds herself at the well with Jesus, a man who acknowledged her in a new way by going against the norms of Jewish law.

As she encountered Jesus for the first time, at this unexpected place, and listened to Him and even questioned Him, her hardened heart began to soften, and her deepest thirst began to surface. In this encounter, as this Samaritan woman came face to face with the loving gaze of Jesus, she also came face to face with her own sin. She had her first real Christian experience! Our Christian experience will often begin with a humiliating wave of self-disgust. It is usually the last thing a person sees in himself. And it often happens that the first thing Christ does for us is to compel us to do what we have spent our life refusing to do–look deeply at ourselves.

The Samaritan woman was staggered by Christ's ability to see into her inmost being. She was amazed at His intimate knowledge of the human heart, and of her heart in particular. It is not that the Lord sees only the evil there, or sin lurking in the human heart. He sees also the “sleeping saint in the soul of every person.” He is like the surgeon who sees the diseased thing, but who also sees the health which will follow when the evil is taken away.

The essence of our identity and worth, the source of our dignity, is that we are loved by God: “We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son.” This whole story is about Jesus’ benevolent love for sinners. It is about the new life offered to all of God’s people if we but only seek to meet Christ with the openness of the Samaritan woman. 

Through her encounter with Jesus, as she asked for the life-giving water, she began to experience a new life, a life that began to fulfill her deepest longing and a life that would lead her out of her loneliness and sinfulness. She began to discover her truest identity–the sum of the Father's love. That is what Jesus came to reveal to her.

Imagine if this woman would have scurried away after Jesus revealed her sin. Imagine if she would have run away because of fear and embarrassment. She would have never received what Jesus offered to her even in her sinful state. What did He offer her? His deep love and mercy! Can God’s love be more wonderful? 

How often have we run away from God because of embarrassment or shame or guilt? How often have we run from God when He showed up in some unexpected place in our lives? In this story, the Lord was reaching past the barriers, inviting her into a relationship that would forever change her understanding about herself, offering her far more than she could ever imagine. God was there for her in this unexpected place, in this unexpected moment.

Following her encounter, she could not resist sharing her newfound freedom and friendship with Jesus to others. She became the voice of the benevolent lover, Jesus, because that is what happens when a sinful heart has been changed from drinking lifegiving water. This ordinary sinner learned a great lesson from Jesus; she taught others about the blessing that could be theirs if they allowed their heart to encounter Him.
This season of Lent is a time for breaking down the barriers to God’s presence in the surprising, even unimaginable corners of our life. It is a season for contemplating the tremendous love that Christ has for us sinners, and His desire to meet us at the well.

Do you have the courage to meet Jesus there? If you do, you will not be disappointed! 

Rev. Fr. Robert T. Cooper, Pastor
Divine Mercy Parish and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School