In the first Reading from the Book of Exodus (Ex 17:3-7), the people of Israel complained against God and His servant Moses because they were thirsty at Horeb in the desert. They asked Moses why he brought them out from Egypt only to die of thirst in the desert. All their plights in Egypt seemed to have been forgotten just because of thirst. In Egypt, their male babies were killed, and they were slaves working under taskmasters. Due to their thirst, they even wondered if the Lord was still with them. The Lord ordered Moses to strike a designated rock with his staff so that water would gush out for the people to quench their thirst. Moses struck the rock and water gushed out, and the people and their livestock drank to their satisfaction.

The Gospel (Jn 4:5-42) begins with the dialogue between Jesus and a Samaritan woman at Patriarch Jacob’s well. The woman had come to draw water around mid-day, and Jesus had asked her to give him some water to drink. She was stunned that a Jew should even talk to a Samaritan, let alone ask for a drink from a Samaritan woman. Jews were at loggerheads with the Samaritans and considered them as second-class citizens. The history of their enmity goes back to the Assyrian conquest of Northern Israel in 722 BC.

Though Jesus’ initial dialogue with the Samaritan woman was about physical water, he gradually moved the discussion to include a spiritual encounter with God when he said to her: “If you only knew what God is offering, and who it is that is saying to you: Give me a drink, you would have been the one to ask, and he would have given you living water.” Jesus went on to clarify that anyone who drank the water from Jacob’s well would get thirsty again because it quenches only physical thirst, but the spiritual water that he is offering turns into a spring in people’s lives that leads to eternal life.

Jesus, by commenting on the Samaritan woman’s life struggles especially with her marriages, led her to faith that he was the Messiah. With the Samaritan woman accepting Jesus as her personal Lord and Saviour, she ran into her village to invite others to come and meet Jesus. These Samaritans who listened to Jesus because of the woman’s testimony also came to faith that Jesus is really “the saviour of the world.”

Jesus reaching out to the Samaritans showed that salvation is for everyone, and that everyone who worships God “in spirit and truth” is acceptable to God. We too participate in this salvation through our Baptism, and we, like the Samaritans, profess him as our Messiah and “the saviour of the world.”