“I Have No Husband”

My dear family in Christ, 

The third Sunday of Lent kicks off a three-Sunday campaign of beautiful Gospel readings that the Church offers particularly to those who are preparing for Baptism at Easter. Of course, they are also perfectly applicable to all of us preparing to renew our Baptismal vows on the same day. Each of these three Gospels focuses on a particular aspect of the gift of our Baptism, that we may not even know, or may just take for granted.

The account of Jesus encountering the Samaritan woman at the well tells a beautiful and heartbreaking story of our desire for true, total, eternal love- and all the counterfeits that we have been let down by. The woman has sought love in husband after husband, and perhaps her longing has brought her not only shame, but despair. Her thirst for water brought her to the well, but her thirst for love has brought her to Jesus- and we may rightly say that His thirst, His unquenchable desire for her heart has brought Him to her, to this ‘chance’ meeting at the well. 

There is an interesting play on words here- when Jesus tells her to go and call her husband, the woman shamefully admits that she has no husband. We can hear her say, ‘No one has loved me enough to stay. No one has satisfied my infinite longing to be known and loved.’ Is this not the cry of every heart? Is this not the great fear frustration of every life- that our hearts are made for the infinite and perfect and fulfilling Love and yet everything and everyone we try to get it from eventually lets us down? What if we have this yearning and there is nothing to satisfy it?

It’s easy to miss, but Jesus offers her an alternative. “... you have had 5 husbands, and the one you are with now is not your husband.” Who is the man she is with now? It’s Jesus- she is with Him at the well, though He is not her husband- yet. To those paying attention, the Good News of the Gospel is not only that God has created us, and saved us, but more than that, God desires to marry us. As baptized Christians, we become part of the Church, whom scripture calls the Bride of Christ. At the well, Jesus is proposing to the Samaritan woman- not in the natural way, but in a far greater way than she can ever imagine. He and He alone can offer her the Living Water she thirsts for, that she has not found anywhere, or in anyone else.

This is the great gift of our Baptism. Without taking anything away from the other unimaginable gifts (that we become part of God’s family by adoption as sons and daughters, our sins are forgiven, and are given all the grace, Faith, Hope, and Love that we need to become saints and get to Heaven), the great mystery of our Faith is that it is a marriage proposal. The Son of God descends from Heaven- He ‘gets down on one knee’, if you will- and offers Himself entirely to us on the Cross. He anxiously awaits the free response of His beloved Bride, of whom He said on the Cross, ‘I thirst’. 

This Easter, I pray each of us can say ‘Yes’.

God love you, 

Father Daniel