Mar 13, 2023
HOLY GOSPEL: John 4:5-42
Jesus defies convention to engage a Samaritan woman in
conversation. Her testimony,
in turn, leads many others to faith.
5
[Jesus] came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of
ground that Jacob had
given to his son Joseph.6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired
out by his journey, was
sitting by the well. It was about noon.
7A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give
me a drink.” 8
(His
disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman
said to him, “How is it
that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do
not share things in
common with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the
gift of God, and who it
is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked
him, and he would have
given you living water.” 11The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no
bucket, and the well is
deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than
our ancestor Jacob, who
gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?”
13Jesus said to her,
“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but
those who drink of the water
that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will
give will become in them a
spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15The woman said to
him, “Sir, give me this
water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here
to draw water.”
16Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17The
woman answered him,
“I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying,
‘I have no husband’; 18for
you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your
husband. What you
have said is true!” 19The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you
are a prophet. 20Our
ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place
where people must
worship is in Jerusalem.” 21Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me,
the hour is coming
when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in
Jerusalem. 22You
worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for
salvation is from the
Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true
worshipers will worship
the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these
to worship him. 24God is
spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and
truth.” 25The woman said to
him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When
he comes, he will
proclaim all things to us.” 26Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one
who is speaking to you.”
27Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was
speaking with a
woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you
speaking with
her?” 28Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the
city. She said to the
people, 29“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever
done! He cannot be
the Messiah, can he?” 30They left the city and were on their way to
him.
31Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32But he said to
them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33So the
disciples said to one
another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” 34Jesus
said to them, “My
food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.
35Do you not say, ‘Four
months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around
you, and see how the
fields are ripe for harvesting. 36The reaper is already receiving
wages and is gathering fruit
for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.
37For here the saying holds
true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38I sent you to reap that for
which you did not labor.
Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
39Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the
woman’s testimony,
“He told me everything I have ever done.” 40So when the Samaritans
came to him, they
asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41And
many more believed
because of his word. 42They said to the woman, “It is no longer
because of what you said
that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that
this is truly the Savior
of the world.”
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, O Christ