This Sunday is the Third Sunday of Lent and the Gospel reading comes from John 4:5-42, where Jesus talks to the Samaritan woman. In ancient times, the Kingdom of Israel was split in two: the remnant Kingdom of Israel to the north and the Kingdom of Judah to the south. The King of Assyria brought five foreign peoples into the Kingdom of Israel, who also brought their own gods, and slowly the inhabitants of Israel began to incorporate these foreign religions into the true faith. Thus, the southern Kingdom of Judah, which remained faithful to the Temple, began to look down on the northern Kingdom of Israel (later known as Samaria) as traitors and refused to deal with them. In this situation, Jesus told the Samaritan woman to fetch her husband. But when she responded truthfully that she had no husband, Jesus told her that she had five and the current one wasn’t her husband. Jesus was alluding to the foreign gods introduced by the foreign peoples brought in by the King of Assyria and how the Kingdom of Israel had abandoned the true God. Through this woman, Jesus was searching for the Samaritan people, who had lost their faith, and was bringing them back through Baptism. When He promised her living water, He was referring to the Sacrament of Baptism, which could purify our idol worship. God’s relationship with His People is like that between a husband and his wife. Jesus emphasizes this theme many times in the Gospels – He heals the son of a Gentile official and works a miracle at the wedding in Cana – to show us that the Gentiles are now adopted into the marital covenant with the Chosen People.
「Spiritual Talk」Third Sunday of Lent – Fr. Anthony Ho
