The Samaritan woman at the well

I think we’ve seen this story before … but in the Old Testament.

­      To understand the passage in John 4 requires familiarity with the Old Testament, and with the way that setting up a marriage is presented there. Setting up a marriage is important business if you’re a patriarch. There are three passages in the Old Testament that talk of setting up a marriage that look remarkably similar to John 4: setting up the marriage between Isaac and Rebekah in Genesis 24; of Jacob and Rachel in Genesis 29; and of Moses and Zipporah in Exodus 2.

      In each of these three stories, we see a series of events that fit into a heavily stylised template: in each case, a hero (or servant) acts as a broker. He (never she) goes to a dis­tant country; he stops at a well where a maiden is working; she shows what an emi­nent bride she will be; a drink is given; the servant helps the woman by looking after her animals; she then hurries home to tell her family that she has met a person worth marrying; the servant is persuaded to go to the family home, where a meal is laid and the marriage announced; in each case, she does subsequently marry the hero.

      Each of these seven elements occur in exactly this order in the three Old Testament stories I mentioned a moment ago. Indeed, the template was as familiar to the ancient Jews as the story of Cinderella is to us today.

      In a subtle way, these elements also occur in John chapter four. Jesus enters the foreign land of Samaria — so here Jesus is the hero’s servant and marriage broker; but next, unlike the strikingly attractive virgins in the Old Testament, Jesus finds the Samaritan woman is married already, so we need to forgive her before we do anything else; next, true to form, Jesus has a gift: it’s ‘living water’; next, the woman returns to her village to tell them of the man she has met; the man stays with her family, and the villagers press Jesus to stay, and he does stay with them.

      Notice also the way that just before the story starts there is a wedding at Cana — it’s in John chapter two. Then, (in John 3:29) John the Baptist says that Jesus is the Bridegroom, which surely makes John the Baptist the best man. That’s the introduction, the context: this passage is telling us to look at Jesus brokering a marriage.

      But if Jesus brokers a marriage, what is the marriage? Forget Samaria and Palestine, the violent Kosovo and Serbia of their day. Simple: while the scriptures are littered with choice metaphors to describe our relationship with God, earth and heaven, the image of God as bridegroom and his people as bride is by far the most beautiful. Think of Revelation 21, ‘The New Jerusalem coming out of Heaven as a bride adorned for her husband’. So St John’s story sees Jesus brokering a marriage between God and sinful humankind.

      We now see what the Romans passage a moment ago was banging on about: because of Jesus, sinful humanity can at long last enter into intimacy with God, an intimacy so close we can legitimately compare it to a marriage.

      But, hang on a moment: what are we implying with all this talk of marriage?  

      Firstly, marriage is a binding promise, a contract. In the Gospel story, Jesus hadn’t merely come to save a solitary Samaritan woman. He’d come, as God’s broker — the Messiah — to reclaim his wayward bride, and remind her of the binding nature of the promise he made with his chosen people. Perhaps that’s why Jesus chose this particular Samaritan woman, who’s had multiple husbands, to make the point. And as Christians reconciled to God, we have also entered a binding contract with God: at baptism, we too were promised to him. We are his. At the cross, he paid our asking price, the dowry.

      Secondly, between announcing the marriage and it’s actually taking place, we prepare. It’s never a time of passive waiting for the future wedding. It’s a time of activity, of setting the house in order, of putting garments in the bottom drawer. As Christians we are similarly to prepare our hearts and lives for union with God, ready for that phase of our lives which starts after we die. Jesus calls it, ‘laying up treasure in heaven.’

      And thirdly, this time before marriage is the time to explore the boundaries of love, and a time to demonstrate our love: just as people engaged to be married show their mutual love in a thousand different ways, so we are to show our love for God. We don’t just to say to God, ‘I love you,’ but we show him our love with tangible gifts of time and money, anything that costs, seeking to make it utterly clear that we want him to be the centre of our everything. A future union with God means that we can and should make God the centre, the very core, of our lives.

Preparing for Easter

I would feel badly cheated if I woke up one Christmas morning to find I’d slept an entire month. I’d have neither a Christmas tree nor fairy lights on the walls. I’d have bought no presents nor sent any cards. The freezer would contain no special food. I’d have missed the magic of Christingles and the pomp of a good carol service. It’s no secret: the key to a good, satisfying Christmas is good preparation.

       It’s interesting that we all prepare for Christmas but so many folk — including some Christians — do not prepare properly for Easter, which is a far greater celebration in the Church calendar.

     Appropriate preparation for Easter takes many forms, but there are two aspects in particular that seem essential. First, we prepare throughout the forty days preceding Easter with special spiritual exer cises. These can take many forms, but should include taking some thing up such as extra prayer and giving something up, so self-denial of some kind.

     The second and far-more important part of this preparation involves Holy Week itself, which this year starts with Palm Sunday, 9 April. A wise and careful Christian will seek to live Holy Week. In practice, that means accompanying Jesus at every stage of the week. A sincere Christian will therefore experience many emotional high-points such as Palm Sunday. They will live the spiritual immensity of Maundy Thursday when Jesus pronounced his New Commandment, so big we commemorate it today with a new kind of meal that history now calls the ‘Last Supper’. We will taste the biting shame of Judas’ betrayal which led to Jesus’ murder the very next day, the first Good Friday. In fact, at this stage of living Holy Week, that Friday will not feel ’Good’ in any sense at all because it precedes the Resurrection.

     An Easter Day following this week will feel magnificently richer and deeper than any Easter we have ever experienced before. Indeed, spiritual preparation of this depth will propel your Easter from a special day in the year to become a life-changing event.

Pieta

The word ‘Pieta’ literally means ‘pity’. It inspires a form of art that shows Jesus’ mother Mary weeping over her son’s dead body. The artwork can be sculptured, like Michelangelo's well known marble in the Vatican. But the image can be represented using any medium.

     The pieta image usually invites us to look at the Crucifixion from Mary’s point of view. It’s her personal tragedy. She has nursed him from birth till now, and has just witnessed the full horror of her son being tortured to death. His killing was a politically motivated and choreographed execution. She has seen all of it, knew its purpose and foresaw its end, and she was wholly powerless to stop it.

     Our modern era likes to medicalise stress. We talk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PSTD). The pieta image seeks to explore the effect of that PSTD on Mary and her soul.

     Some depictions seek a highly representative image, to help us see the effect on Mary. Sometimes the image is more abstract to give us a bit of leeway as we explore the effect, and maybe move some of the emotional cost from Mary on to ourselves.

Easter poem

He blesses every love which weeps and grieves

And now he blesses hers who stood and wept

And would not be consoled, or leave her love’s

Last touching place, but watched as low light crept

Up from the east. A sound behind her stirs

A scatter of bright birdsong through the air.

She turns, but cannot focus through her tears,

Or recognise the Gardener standing there.

She hardly hears his gentle question ‘Why,

Why are you weeping?’, or sees the play of light

That brightens as she chokes out her reply

‘They took my love away, my day is night’

And then she hears her name, she hears Love say

The Word that turns her night, and ours, to Day.

Malcolm Guite

Alleluia!

Christians today use the word ‘Alleluia’ to express an overflow of thanksgiving, joy, praise, and triumph. The word is interchangeable with ‘Hallelujah’. Both translate the Hebrew phrase, ‘praise the Lord’.
       Alleluia is generally used it in its original form (preserved and not translated) and has been since the very earliest times. For example, the Liturgy of St Mark, which is the most ancient of all the preserved of the world’s liturgies, instructs the person preaching to ‘Follow the “Let us pray” with “the Prologue of the Alleluia”.’ Here, the ‘Prologue of the Alleluia’ is a prayer or verse sung by the choir to introduce readings from the Gospel.

    We say ‘Alleluia’ as we read the Gospel because it tells us about Jesus and his mighty deeds of grace and forgiveness. Indeed, the word ‘Gospel’ means literally ‘The Good news’.

    And we say ‘Alleluia’ and “Hallelujah’ every day of Easter. For
example, on the Sundays of Easter, we repeatedly say, ‘Alleluia, Christ is Risen!’ By this, we are not merely offering a simple word of praise. We are offering God praise and worship.

So when you say Alleluia with your lips, tell your soul to say ‘Yippee!’