Give Me This Water

Third Sunday of Lent (Year A) March 8, 2026

Readings: Exodus 17:3-7 | Psalm 95 | Romans 5:1-2, 5-8 | John 4:5-42

Jesus is tired. It's noon. He's sitting alone at a well in Samaria—a place no respectable Jewish teacher would be caught dead.

A woman comes to draw water. She's come at the hottest part of the day, probably to avoid the other women. She has a history. Five husbands. A man she's living with now who isn't her husband. She carries shame the way she carries her water jar—heavy, constant, unavoidable.

And Jesus says to her: "Give me a drink."

That's how it starts. Not with a sermon. Not with a rebuke. Not with a theological lecture.

With a simple, human request that breaks every social barrier between them.

This Gospel is the most detailed account of personal evangelization in all of Scripture. And it's worth studying closely—because Jesus shows us exactly how encountering Him changes everything, and how that encounter naturally spills over into sharing the faith with others.

Jesus meets her where she is. He doesn't wait for her to come to the Temple. He doesn't require her to clean up her life first. He goes to Samaria. He sits at the well. He initiates the conversation.

He starts with something ordinary. Water. Thirst. A shared human need. He doesn't open with "Let me tell you about your sin." He opens with common ground.

He moves from the ordinary to the eternal. "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst."

He takes what she knows—thirst, the daily grind of coming to the well—and uses it to reveal what she doesn't yet know: that there's a deeper thirst in her, and He's the only one who can satisfy it.

The Israelites in today's first reading are thirsty too. In the desert, grumbling, desperate: "Is the LORD in our midst or not?"

That's the question, isn't it? When life is hard, when you're in the desert, when you've been burned by relationships and religion and disappointment—is God really here?

The woman at the well has been asking that question her whole life. Five husbands. Each one a failed attempt to quench a thirst that no human relationship can satisfy.

And Jesus knows all of it. "You have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband."

He doesn't say this to shame her. He says it to show her: I see you. I know you. All of you. And I'm still here, offering you living water.

This is what it means to encounter Jesus. It's not a surface-level religious experience. It's someone who knows the worst things about you and offers you the best thing in the universe anyway.

Paul says it perfectly in today's second reading: "God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us."

Not after we cleaned up. Not after we got our lives together. While we were still sinners.

That's the encounter that changes everything.

Watch what happens to the woman after she encounters Jesus.

She doesn't just feel warm and fuzzy. She doesn't just "have a spiritual experience."

She leaves her water jar and runs to tell people.

"Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ?"

She becomes an evangelist. Right there. Immediately. Not because someone gave her a training program or a script. But because she encountered Jesus, and she couldn't keep it to herself.

And people believe because of her testimony.

"Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified."

Her word. Her story. Her willingness to say, "Come and see."

She's not a theologian. She's not a saint. She's a woman with a messy past who met Jesus at a well. And her testimony brings an entire town to faith.

Notice what happens next, though. The townspeople come to Jesus because of her word—but then they encounter Him for themselves:

"We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world."

Your job is to bring people to Jesus. His job is to reveal Himself to them.

You share your story. You say, "Come and see." You bring your friends, your family, the people in your life to an encounter with Christ—through conversation, through invitation, through your own transformed life.

And then Jesus does what only Jesus can do. He meets them. He speaks to them. He satisfies their thirst.

You're not responsible for conversion. You're responsible for invitation.

"Come and see."

Jesus tells His disciples: "Look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest."

The harvest is ready. The people around you are thirsty. They've been trying to satisfy that thirst with everything the world offers—success, pleasure, relationships, distraction—and they're still coming back to the well every day.

You know where the living water is.

The question is: Will you share it?

Not with a sermon. Not with judgment. Just the way the woman did: "Come see this man. Let me tell you what He did for me."

Reflect

• What are you thirsty for right now? Are you trying to satisfy that thirst with something other than Jesus?
• Have you truly encountered Jesus—not just learned about Him, but been known by Him, seen by Him, loved in the midst of your mess?
• Who in your life is coming to the well every day, thirsty and exhausted, trying to fill a void that only Jesus can fill?
• What would it look like for you to say to that person, "Come and see"?

Pray

Lord Jesus, You met the woman at the well in the middle of her mess, in the middle of her day, in the last place anyone would have looked for You. Meet me there too. You know everything about me—and You offer me living water anyway. Satisfy my thirst. And then give me the courage to leave my water jar behind and run to tell someone else. Let my encounter with You overflow into invitation. "Come and see." Amen.

This Sunday, hear the woman's words: "Come see a man who told me everything I have done."

She didn't have perfect theology. She didn't have a polished testimony. She just had an encounter.

And she couldn't keep it to herself.

Neither should you.