As I was praying with this gospel in preparation for Sunday, my attention was diverted from the theme of "living water" and seemed riveted on the words that mentioned that Jesus was tired. In my imagination I could picture him, climbing up toward the well with his friends from the dusty paths in the heat of midday. Weary, with muscles throbbing from the walk, he sits to rest while the disciples offer to go into town for food. In my mind’s eye, I watch him sitting there, rubbing his feet, squinting in the bright sun as he sees his friends go on. It is good to have some quiet time! He leans back against the stones of the well and closes his eyes for a brief moment.
His few seconds of peace and rest are broken when he hears her approach. Opening his eyes, he sees her, and he knows her. His heart fills with compassion! He doesn’t see her as the ‘damaged goods’ that the town gossips about, he doesn’t see her culturally lower status as a woman, he doesn’t see her ethnic background or the errors of her religious beliefs; he simply sees her. He knows she has spent a lifetime of “looking for love in all the wrong places” and now he is here to show her what true love is.
Jesus, who Scripture tells us was tired, begins to engage her in conversation. He puts aside his own desire for a few precious minutes of solitude, he overcomes the fatigue of his long, dusty journey, he ignores the social mores of the time-- all for the sake of reaching this woman who the rest of the world would view as insignificant. He spends himself once again. What love!
In this season of Lent, it is good to remember the example of Our Lord, whose love for us was not just demonstrated in the ultimate act of His death on the cross, but in daily sacrificial acts for others.
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