Fifth Sunday of Pascha/The Samaritan Woman

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Brethren, the holy Church in her wisdom does not hasten past the radiant days of Pascha but rather dwells within them, drawing us ever deeper into the inexhaustible mystery of the Resurrection. And so today, on this Fifth Sunday of the Paschal season, she sets before our eyes the image of that woman of Samaria — she who went to draw water from Jacob’s well and drew instead the Living Water of eternal life.

Jacob’s well was no common thing. It was dug by the hands of the Patriarch, that great wrestler with God, and watered the flocks of Israel across the ages. It was deep — the Evangelist notes this detail with care — deep as the history of the chosen people, deep as the longing of fallen man for that which can truly satisfy.

And yet, as St. John Chrysostom teaches us, no earthly depth is sufficient for the soul’s thirst. Whosoever drinketh of this water, saith the Lord, shall thirst again. How many times have we ourselves returned to Jacob’s well — the well of earthly comfort, of human praise, of bodily pleasure, of worldly wisdom — only to find that the vessel is full and the soul remains parched? The soul was made for God, as the Blessed Augustine perceived in his own burning heart, and it rests not until it reposes in Him.

It was not by accident that the Lord sat at that well. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well. Behold the condescension! He who holds the waters of the deep in the hollow of His hand grew weary as a man, thirsted as a man, sat in the dust of a Samaritan road as a man. Saint Cyril of Alexandria marvels here: the Lord feigns need that He might minister to our need; He who is the Fount presents Himself as the thirsty one, that the woman — that we — might come near.

Who is this woman? The holy Fathers see in her not merely a particular person of history, but an image — an icon — of the human soul in its wandering and its seeking.

She comes at the sixth hour, at noonday, alone. The other women came in the morning, in the cool of the day, in company. She comes alone, at the burning hour, because she is burdened with shame. Five husbands she has had, and he who she now has is not her husband. Saint John Chrysostom remarks that her life is written in the number of her marriages: she sought in one after another what none could give her, that wholeness and rest which the soul seeks and does not find save in God. Is this not the image of the human race? How many idols have we wed ourselves to, one after another — each promising satisfaction, each leaving us more desolate than before?

And yet it is to this woman that the Lord reveals Himself most plainly, most openly, before the holy Apostles, before the learned of Jerusalem. “I that speak unto thee am he.” To whom does He say this? To a Samaritan. To a woman. To a sinner. Here is the scandal and the glory of the Gospel: Christ seeks the lost sheep not in the folds of the righteous but on the hillsides of transgression.

Saint Ephrem the Syrian, meditating on this passage with characteristic tenderness, calls her the bride of the Word — she who, though long estranged, was sought out by the Bridegroom Himself and betrothed anew through the waters of truth. The Church received her as the holy and glorious Equal-to-the-Apostles Photini — for she ran to the city and cried aloud, Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? She became an apostle of the Apostles.

The woman raises a question that has divided nations: where ought one to worship — on Mount Gerizim, or in Jerusalem? And the Lord, with that divine economy that always transcends the question asked, renders both mountains obsolete. The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

What does this mean for us?

Saint Gregory Palamas teaches that true worship is not a matter of geography but of participation — participation in the divine life itself, the uncreated energies of God which the Holy Spirit pours forth into the purified heart. The Temple made with hands was a shadow; we are called to become temples not made with hands. The Jerusalem above is not a place on any map; it is the state of the soul caught up into the divine light, worshipping the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.

This is why the Lord says in spirit and in truth — not in letter and in shadow. The Living Water He promises is none other than the Holy Spirit, as the Lord Himself interprets in the eighth chapter of John: He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake He of the Spirit. Pentecost is implicit already here, at Jacob’s well. The Resurrection morning is implicit here. The whole economy of our salvation stands hidden in this brief conversation on a dusty road in Samaria.

Beloved in Christ, we come to this well every day. Every morning we rise, and the soul is thirsty. Every week we gather here in this temple, and we come — as she came — with our vessels, our small vessels of desire and hope and habit. Some of us come burdened with shame, like that woman at noon, daring not to meet the eyes of others. Some of us come weary with the sixth hour of life’s journey, when the illusions of youth have burned away and we know ourselves to be poorer than we imagined.

And Christ is there. He is always already at the well. He waits. He speaks first — Give me to drink — not demanding but inviting, drawing near under the guise of need. This is the condescension of love; this is what Saint Ignatius of Antioch called the self-emptying of God for our sakes.

What must we do? We must do what Photini did: we must leave our water-pots behind. Note this detail: The woman then left her water-pot. She came for water; she forgot the water. She came with the earthen vessel of her small desires, and in the presence of the Living Water she forgot it entirely. When the soul truly encounters Christ — not as doctrine merely, not as habit, not as custom — it leaves its water-pots behind. It runs. It cries out. It becomes witness.

This is the call of the Paschal season to each of us: leave the water pot. Leave the small, earthen, leaking vessel of whatever substitute satisfaction you have been hauling to the well. Receive the Living Water and become a spring .

And so, brethren, as we continue these bright days of Pascha, let us keep before us the image of holy Photini: the sinner found, the seeker satisfied, the mute made eloquent, the solitary sent into community. She who came alone at the sixth hour left in the company of a city. She who carried an empty pot left carrying the fullness of the Gospel.

The same Lord who spoke to her at Jacob’s well speaks to us today — through the Holy Scriptures, through the holy Mysteries, through the voice of the Church. He is not weary now; He is risen. And He offers still, to each thirsty soul that will but ask: “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”.

May this Living Water spring up in each of us unto life eternal.

Christ is Risen!  Христос Воскресе!

To Him be all  glory, with the Father and the Holy Spirit,

now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

Amen.