The Meaning of Christ’s Meeting with the Samaritan Woman

On the Third Sunday of Lent, (March 23), the liturgy of the word often contains the gospel passage of Christ and the Samaritan woman (John 4:5-42; always in Lectionary: Cycle A).  The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament by Curtis Mitch and Scott Hahn (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 2010) offers some helpful insights into this pivotal event in Christ’s public ministry.  The gospel recounts Christ stopping to rest at Jacob’s well in a Samaritan village called Sychar at around noontime.  “The setting recalls the marital arrangements described in the Pentateuch. As the wives of Isaac (Gen 24:10-67), Jacob (Gen 29:1-30), and Moses (Ex 2:15-21) were first encountered at a well, so Jesus is the divine bridegroom in search of believers to be his covenant bride.”

“Centuries of animosity between Jews and Samaritans loom in the background of this episode. It began with the devastation of northern Palestine by Assyria in the eighth century B.C., when masses of Israelites were deported out of the land and foreign peoples were forcibly resettled in the region (2 Kings 17:6, 24-41). According to the Jews of southern Palestine, the remaining Israelites (Samaritans) had defiled themselves by assimilating the practices of these pagan peoples and intermarrying with them. The enmity between Jews and Samaritans was very much alive in NT times, and both groups took steps to avoid interaction with one another, especially in matters of food and drink.”  This explains the puzzlement of the Samaritan woman when Christ asks her for a drink.  Our Lord responds, “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” (John 4:10).  Jesus is speaking of the life and vitality of the Spirit (John 7:38-39; CCC 728, 2560).  Christian tradition associates water with baptismal waters, which lead to “eternal life” (John 4:14).

In their dialogue, Christ manifests to the Samaritan woman His divine knowledge of her five husbands.  “The woman’s personal life parallels the historical experience of the Samaritan people. According to 2 Kings 17:24-31, the five foreign tribes who intermarried with the northern Israelites (Samaritans) introduced five male deities into their religion. These idols were individually addressed as Baal, a Hebrew word meaning ‘lord’ or ‘husband’. The prophets denounced Israel for serving these gods, calling such worship infidelity to its true covenant spouse, Yahweh. Hope was kept alive, however, that God would show mercy to these Israelites and become their everlasting husband in the bonds of a New Covenant (Hos 2:16-20). This day has dawned in the ministry of Jesus, the divine bridegroom (3:29), who has come to save the Samaritans from a lifetime of struggles with five pagan ‘husbands.’”  The acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah by the Samaritans is a prelude to the universal mission of the Church to baptize all nations, beginning with Israel and those peoples historically related to the Jews, and then the whole earth.