Third Sunday of Lent Reflection

​Third Sunday of Lent 
Tina Carter, MDiv, MLIS, Board of Directors

As humans, we can survive between three and seven days without water. Between 24 and 48 hours without water, one can experience dry mouth, fatigue, headaches, and reduced urination. The longer one goes without water; confusion sets in eventually leading to a breakdown in one’s organs and death. Approximately Sixty per cent of our bodies are made up of water. Maintaining proper hydration is necessary for overall health and well-being. Are we also maintaining spiritual hydration?

The gospel reading provides us with an example of how proper hydration can strengthen our spiritual health and well-being. For the woman at the well, she had to wait at the hottest point during the day to draw life-giving water. She was ostracized, shunned, and given the side-eye by people in her village. And yet, she was thirsty too. This woman was experiencing the dry mouth of being othered in her community, fatigued by the whispers about her personal life, suffered headaches over one failed relationship after another, not being able to release the cellular waste that is affecting her body. Confusion that she was not worthy was setting in and her heart, one of the strongest organs in our bodies, was beginning to break down. It was at this point that Christ offered her spiritual hydration that became necessary for her overall health and well-being. That living water, which helps all of us never to thirst anymore, is free to give and free to drink. Like a doctor, Jesus diagnosed what her symptoms were and gave her a prescription to never be thirsty again and receive everlasting life. The medicine to drink deeply and fully from the well of life-giving water strengthened her to go and share with others what Jesus did for her.

Are you drinking from wells that cause you to thirst? Are you searching for spiritual water in the wilderness of life? Are you experiencing the dry mouth of shame, the fatigue of feeling powerless, suffering from headaches of uncertainty, leading to waste buildup in your soul that is becoming harder to expel? Remember that the promises gained in baptism inspire us to make the most of the life-giving water offered, supporting our spiritual health and well-being. This allows us to participate in the promises of God and Christ though the Holy Spirit. By partaking in this life-giving water, we will never have to worry about spiritual thirst ever again.