I am sure all of us have experience what thirst is, and how it can affect us. During my visit to Arunachal Pradesh, we were moving from one village to another, in the deep Jungles. The village is about 6 to 8 hrs away form the village we were staying and after every 10 to 15 minutes we were feeling thirsty. The moment we would see a spring or a river we would go and wet out heads and drink as much water as we can.
In each one of us there is a thirst, which could be either Physical or Spiritual. Often it is both, as in the case of the unnamed woman in today's gospel story. Physical Thirst would include, emotional, martial, intellectual, and even sexual. Spiritual thirst, signifies that there is an emptiness in us, which we would like to fill up but don’t know how.
In the case of the women in today’s’ Gospel, physically she is thirsty, thirsting for water, and that brings her to the well day after day. But spiritually also she is thirsty, an inner thirst which drives her from one man to another and for which she can find no satisfaction. By the time she meets Jesus she is in her sixth marriage, and yet she is able to tell Jesus "I have no husband," indicating that she is probably already looking for the seventh.
Numbers are often significant in biblical interpretation. According to the biblical symbolism of numbers, six is a number of imperfections, of lack, of deficiency. The woman in her sixth marriage is, therefore, in a situation of lack and deficiency. Seven, on the other hand, is a number of perfection, completion, finality and sufficiency. Jesus comes to this woman as the seventh man in her life. She opens up to him and finally experiences the satisfaction of all of her soul's desiring, the full assuaging of her spiritual thirst. Isn't this the kind of experience we wish for ourselves and for all in this season of Lent?
The Psalmist in the OT says in Ps 42” As a deer long for streams of cool water, so my soul longs for you, my God
Prophet Isaiah has God saying, “Come to Me everyone who is thirsty ….”
The thirst that we all feel for God is the same thirst that people have experience since the beginning of time, the kind of thirst that only God can satisfy.
And so on this third Sunday of Lent the church invites us to look into our lives and see are we really thirsty for God. For only when we are really thirsty that we can experience that fullness of live which only Jesus can provide.
If we are really thirsty then there are three thing that we could do in order to experience that fullness:
1. Like the women in the gospel of today, open up ourselves to God:
2. Spend time with Him in prayer.
3. A Perfect Confession.
