His Excellency,
The Most Reverend Edward K. Braxton, Ph.D., S.T.D.
Diocese of Belleville
Third Sunday of Lent
March 8, 2026, 10:00 AM Mass
St. Peter and Paul Parish
Come and See Jesus, The Savior of the World
(This is the text as originally written. During the actual delivery, some passages were omitted and other comments were added spontaneously. Nota bene: This text has not been thoroughly proofread. Therefore, there may be errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation.)
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ:
Two strangers meet beside a well on a hot afternoon in Samaria. One is a woman. The other is a man. We have no idea who the unnamed woman is. The man is Jesus of Nazareth. Their conversation, which is the longest conversation Jesus has with any other individual in the gospels, changed the woman’s life forever.
This familiar story is as simple as it is profound. A man meets a woman in a seemingly chance brief encounter. This story is only in the Gospel of John, and this woman is never mentioned again. As the story unfolds, Jesus urges us to take our baptism seriously during Lent by striving to be His true followers in the face of religious hatred, ethnic and racial prejudice, and teaches us the way we Christians should treat our sisters and brothers whom others have judged to be sinful, immoral, or social outcasts. This story’s conclusion challenges each of us to be evangelists, sharing our love for Jesus with others. I urge you to read it in its entirety, John c 4, v 1-42.
Since John tells us it is noon, we know sun is beating down on Jesus and the sweat is pouring off His brow as He walked along the dusty road. To make matters worse, He has been traveling with His friends since sunrise. Now the sun is directly overhead.
We know immediately that there is something wrong in the life of the woman He meets because she has come to draw water from the well by herself and at noon. She has come to the well in the heat of the day, rather than in the cool of the dawn or early evening. She has come alone, rather than with the other women of the village of Sekar . For some reason she is an outsider, not welcome among other women.
Ordinarily, women fill their water jugs early in the morning or late in the evening when it isn’t so hot. However, the Samaritan woman braves the scorching sun to collect her water alone most likely to avoid running into people who frown on her personal life. They surely know about her five husbands, and she wants to avoid the embarrassment. Some scholars have suggested, without evidence, that she might be a woman who gave herself to men for money. But Jesus does not judge her. He relates to her, in a friendly manner, as a teacher to a disciple.
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Jesus and the woman are separated by a wall of religion, gender, racial hatred, and morality. Jesus ignores all of these barriers and asks, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food, John 4:1-8)
He is tired and thirsty, and she has the water He needs. But He has the water she needs. He was thirsty and knew it. She was thirsty and does not know it. The woman did not come to the well seeking Christ, but, perhaps, He came to the well seeking her. He does not care about the reasons why other men would not speak to this woman.
The Samaritan woman said to Jesus, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan and a woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jewish people, at this time, despised Samaritans and avoided all contact with them. Judging them to be half breeds and heretics, they would not drink from the same cup.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water bubbling up to Eternal Life.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water” (John 4:9-15).
Jesus says, “I who speak to you AM He.” These words that Jesus speaks, “I AM He!” are a revelation. He is bluntly announcing to her that He is the Messiah in one of His famous “I AM” statements. “I AM” is the name by which God revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3:15). “I AM Who AM.” “I AM that I AM.” “I AM.” Even a Samaritan would recognize that Jesus is boldly claiming identity with God. She came to the well to fill her jars with water. Instead, she is filled with the Water of Eternal Life.
This conversation seems almost unbelievable. Why? That a Jewish person would speak to a Samaritan? That a man would speak in public to a woman he did not know? That a Jewish person would drink from a Samaritan’s cup? Jesus then asks to meet her husband, She says she has no husband. He tells her that He knows she has no husband, but that she has had five in the past and is now living with a man who is not her husband.
The woman, amazed, abandons her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, “Come and see, come and see a man who told me everything I have done. Could He possibly be the Christ?” The people went out of the town and came to Jesus. Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me everything I have done.” When the Samaritans came to Him, they invited Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. Many more began to believe in Him because of His word, and they said to the woman, “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.” The gospel writer is deliberately pointing out that, while the Jewish peoples did not accept Jesus as their Messiah, the hated Samaritans are accepting Him much more, as the Savior of the world.
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Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ:
How I wish we had sufficient time for you to study this profound story of the Samaritan woman at the well with your bibles open before you (like His story of the man who was blind from birth and his story of the raising of Lazarus are teaching narratives and studied by John to show us how one moves through a conversion from not knowing Jesus to embracing Him). This unnamed woman moves from ignorance of Jesus to becoming one of Christianity’s earliest evangelists. She guides her whole community to a relationship with Jesus and to faith in Him. She is our perfect guide for the remainder of Lent during which we should guide our parish candidates for the Easter sacraments to a personal relationship with Jesus. The instant she realizes that she is in the presence of the Messiah and Lord, she abandons her water jars-no longer needing natural water but filled with bubbling living water of the Holy Spirit-and immediately rushes home to tell her friends and neighbors, “Come and see a man who could be the Christ”, a proclamation of The Word.
She teaches us that Jesus is sitting at the well of our lives on this Third Sunday of Lent ready to offer each of us bubbling, living waters no matter what sinfulness may be in our lives. She teaches us to be grateful for the Gospel filed women in the past and the present whose dedicated service has enriched and transformed the Church. She teaches us that there is no place in a Christian heart for religious and racial prejudice, no place for violence and senseless war. She teaches us that a true Christian welcomes the outsiders, the over-looked, and excluded, and works not to conquer and overpower but to be reconciled and find pathways to peace.
Today, a Samaritan and a woman of uncertain reputation, a woman who was among the first to accept the living waters of Christ is inviting each of us to take our baptismal promises seriously during Lent and Come and see! Come and see Jesus!
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Come and see a man who can tell us everything we have done.
Come and see a man who sees people in our country and our world who treat each other better than the Jewish people and Samaritans treated one another.
Come and see the painful and deadly confrontations between Immigration and Border Customs Enforcement Officers and American Citizens in our cities.
Come and see the inability of our elected representatives to develop fair, just, and comprehensive immigration reforms.
Come and see leaders of American political parties unwilling or unable to work together for the common good.
Come and see Russia’s ferocious assault on the people of Ukraine now bleeding into its fifth year.
Come and see the war between Israel and the Palestinians which has left tens of thousands dead or homeless in spite of the cease fire.
Come and see the unexpected and undeclared deadly conflict between the United States, Israel, and oppressive regime in Iran.
If only the people in the world would come and see Jesus of Nazareth at the well of their lives, if only they would be open to the bubbling waters of His Eternal Life, then all would see that He is the Savior of the World, and live by His law of Love!
Praised be Jesus Christ. Both now and forever. AMEN!