The Three Thirsts
In the Lenten season, we are called to Teshuvah and Tikkun, to return back to ourselves and to prepare for Holy Week. It is a time for us to look inward and to ask what needs to change. Where have we stepped off the path and how can we return to it?
The answer, as always, is grace. It is the grace offered by the Cosmic Christ at each moment, as He reveals Himself through nature. As He opens our eyes to see our true selves and the true nature of the world, and as He offers a continual wellspring of forgiveness and mercy, because mercy triumphs over judgment.
The world is thirsty. Humanity suffers from three kinds of thirst: our thirst for the Spirit, our thirst for water, and our thirst for justice. These three thirsts appear again and again in the story of Scripture and in the lives of human beings. They are the spiritual thirst of humanity longing for God, the earthly thirst of bodies and ecosystems needing water, and the justice thirst that arises whenever systems hoard life instead of letting it flow.
In the Gospel of John we encounter these three thirsts in the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well.
The Land of Joseph
In John 4:5–30, Jesus is in Samaria, in a land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Joseph is the patriarch who helped not only his family survive a great famine, but the entire nation of Egypt. It is not a coincidence that his name appears here. Joseph exhibited the three thirsts that are common to all of us: our thirst for the Spirit, our thirst for water, and our thirst for justice.
Joseph’s thirst for the spirit led him into the life of a prophet, where he could interpret the dreams of kings, foresee calamities, and how to get through them. His thirst for water helped him to understand how to prepare for the great famine that was coming on the land so that the people could survive. His thirst for justice arises again and again through the trials and tribulations: with Potiphar’s wife, the challenge of him interpreting the Pharaoh’s dream, and how he would deal with his brothers who sold him into slavery.
The invocation of Joseph’s name sets the scene for what we are about to see unfold.
We are also told that there is a well that Jacob built here. It is noon and Jesus is tired from his journey, and so he sits down by the well.
The Woman at the Well
A Samaritan woman comes to the well to draw water. The Samaritans were the most hated people in the region. They had broken away from Judah after the return from exile. They worshipped their god on Mount Gerizim instead of in Jerusalem. They even had their own Torah and laws of Moses. Nehemiah erected walls to separate them from the rest of the people, and that enmity survived centuries down to that day.
The disciples had left to go get food in the city, and Jesus sees this Samaritan woman drawing water and asks her to give him a drink. She was shocked that he even talked to her because Jews did not have dealings with Samaritans. They ignored them as unclean. Yet here was Jesus asking her to give Him water.
“Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’” (John 4:10)
Jesus is revealing his ministry to her in a way he hasn’t to many others. He reveals this to a Samaritan woman: he is the source of living water, which is grace.
She doesn’t understand. Her life is mired in the struggles of day-to-day life. When she notices that he has nothing to draw water from this deep well, she asks him where this living water is from and if he is greater than father Jacob.
Jesus responds that just drinking water leads to thirst. Imbibing grace satisfies thirst and causes a well to flow within the soul. These waters of grace lead to eternal life.
She asks for this water, and Jesus tells her to get her husband. He reveals that he knows she has been married five times, and now is just living with a man she is not married to.
At this point she realizes he is a prophet, and Jesus reveals that the day is coming when people will not worship on Gerizim or Jerusalem. True worshipers of the Father will worship in spirit and truth.
“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:24).”
The woman realizes that he is the messiah, the disciples return, and the woman brings people to hear Jesus teach.
Jesus gives the Living Word to those with eyes to see and ears to hear so the well of the three graces can spring forth in the soul.
The Wells of Scripture
It is vital that we understand the meaning of the well.
Isaac met Rebekah at a well (Genesis 24). The relationship between Isaac and Rebekah in Genesis shows the power of grace and the gospel because their union begins not with achievement or worthiness but with generous hospitality and divine initiative. Rebekah’s freely given kindness at the well reveals a heart open to grace, while Isaac receives her as a gift that brings comfort and new life after loss. Their meeting shows that the covenant continues through compassion rather than power or status, reflecting the same pattern in the gospel proclaimed by Jesus Christ, where God’s life flows toward humanity through generosity, welcome, and relationship rather than through merit or control.
Jacob meets Rachel at a well (Genesis 29). Rachel is a symbol of the grief and compassion that stand at the heart of the gospel. Remembered from Genesis as the beloved matriarch who died giving life to her son, she later appears in the prophetic image of a mother weeping for her children, a passage echoed in Matthew when the infants of Bethlehem are killed under Herod the Great. In this way Rachel represents all who suffer under violence, exile, and empire, refusing shallow comfort so that the pain of the world is not ignored. Her voice prepares the ground for the ministry of Jesus Christ, whose message centers on God’s presence among the grieving, the oppressed, and the forgotten. Rachel symbolizes the compassionate heart that the gospel calls people to embody: a refusal to deny suffering, a willingness to mourn with those who mourn, and a persistent hope that God remains with humanity even in its darkest moments.
Moses meets Zipporah at a well (Exodus 2). The relationship between Moses and Zipporah in the Exodus reveals grace and the gospel because it begins when Moses is a fugitive who has fled violence and failure, yet he is received with hospitality after defending Zipporah and her sisters at the well. Zipporah, a Midianite outsider to Israel, becomes the partner who shelters and sustains Moses during the years when his calling quietly grows, showing that God’s life and purpose emerge through unexpected relationships and beyond ethnic or religious boundaries. Their union reflects the gospel pattern where grace meets people in exile, welcomes the outsider, and forms new community not through status or purity but through compassion, refuge, and shared life.
In our story we see Jesus meeting an unnamed Samaritan woman at the well. In the pattern of Scripture, meeting at a well invokes the memory of Rebekah, Rachel, and Zipporah. She symbolizes the Bride of Christ, the Church, that has broken many covenants and now lives an unsheltered life until she receives the living word and the grace of God at the well.
She came to the well at noon because she had to wait until those who would judge her had collected their water for the day so she could go to the well without judgment. What she finds is grace.
The Thirst of Christ
In the Gospel, Jesus is the first to say he is thirsty, because he hungers and thirsts for righteousness. This is dryness we feel when we enter the parched land of Mitzrayim, the narrow place: the desire to heal the dry land. Under the heat of the noontime sun of judgment, the pressure of the dry air and the dry land draws the moisture out. The graces of nature, illumination, and forgiveness have been dammed. Christ can sense this and wants to bring healing to the land.
Jesus asks her for water because he hungers and thirsts for righteousness, which is right relationship, and by the nature of their births they did not live in right relationship. He has to heal the divide between them before he can offer her the living word.
Jesus thirsts for reconciliation. The woman thirsts for grace.
It is not until they find common ground in the truth that God is worshipped in spirit and truth, not in temples made by human hands, that he can offer her the living waters.
Grace as Living Water
Grace appears as water because it is as essential to the soul as water is for the body. It is said we can live for three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food. While it is an oversimplification, it drives the point home. We have to be alive or none of this matters. That is the air. We have to be ensouled and embodied. Next we need grace, or we cannot live.
Without the grace of nature, our bodies and souls grow weak. We find the grace of nature in the sun, the moon, and the stars. It is in the food we eat and the relationships we have. This is the grace that arises from living life: laughter among friends, singing, dancing, pondering the deep things of life, and all the simple joys of life.
Without the grace of illumination, our heart and soul grows cold. We find the grace of illumination in moments of epiphany, the revelation of love between friends and intimates. It is the grace that shows us our true face and the deep relationships that underpin the world.
Without the grace of forgiveness, our hearts and actions become hardened and harsh. We find the grace of forgiveness by learning to first forgive ourselves, then others, and to accept the forgiveness of others and God. Forgiveness is releasing the burden of holding the actions of others in a way that cuts us off from living our own lives.
At the well, as Jesus offers the three graces to the Samaritan woman, the ground breaks within her so the waters of life can flow. This river flows from the roots of the tree of life which breaks up the soil and clears the way. As she accepts the three graces, the seed of the tree of life, which is the seed of the image of God in all things, germinates, grows, and opens the soil so the spring can rise up and flow.
As Jesus said:
“The water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” (John 4:14)
The grace we receive waters the land and restores the tree to life. Now the rivers of the water of life flow from us and through us. Grace, freely given, restores and replicates it in the recipient. It is the great underground river seeking passage to the surface to heal the land and the people there.
This is why the Christian faith begins with an understanding that God is love and whoever does not know love does not know God. God overflows with grace, so we can know the rejection of God by the rejection of grace. God does not and cannot abandon any of us.
As the prophets remind us:
“For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the spring of living waters, and cut out cisterns for themselves: broken cisterns that can’t hold water (Jeremiah 2:13).”
“Hear, heavens, and listen, earth; for Yahweh has spoken: ‘I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me. The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master’s crib; but Israel doesn’t know. My people don’t consider.’ Ah sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken Yahweh. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They are estranged and backward (Isaiah 1:2-4).”
We can turn away and enter Mitzrayim and Babylon, yet God is always there with us.
Living in the Three Graces
If we learn to live in grace, the living waters will heal the dry land. It will change everything about how we live in the world. Grace changes us and helps us to see the world clearly.
As we learn to live the Grace of Nature, we will heal our relationships with one another. We stop seeing people, creatures, plants, and the world itself as objects required to yield economic value to matter. Real value rises from the relationships they sustain. We need clean water and healthy land to live. This is where our water and food come from. This is value that cannot be extracted; it must be cultivated. If we do not enter into right relationships with the land and the watersheds, we kill them and ourselves.
The Grace of Nature has no room for hierarchy and toxicity. If we favor one person or group above another, we poison the well and life cannot thrive there. Nature teaches us the intricate webs of relationships that maintain and sustain the world and the parts that we must play in them. This grace erases the sins of separateness and original sin, revealing that we are created in original blessing and united in the One Life.
Through the Grace of Illumination, we learn to see ourselves and the world as they truly are. We are created in the image of the Living God (zel Elohim) and live in a world that is in and of itself the image of the Almighty (zel Shaddai). God is revealed in everything and everyone if we choose to see it. It opens our eyes to the glory of the Holy One shining through all things.
Once we embrace the Grace of Forgiveness, we know that all of us can wander away from our true nature, but we can return at any time. The Good Shepherd seeks the one lost sheep from among the ninety-nine. No one should be left in the wilderness, lost and alone. We are stronger together and meant to live in right relationship one with another.
The Grace of Forgiveness releases us from the tyranny of judgment.
“For judgment is without mercy to him who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2:13).”
Mercy is the heart of forgiveness and the wellspring of justice.
The Waters of Justice
Once we learn to live in the three graces, we heal the land as the prophet says:
“Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream (Amos 5:24).”
In grace, the waters of life flow through the world and bring with them justice and right relationship.
The Imperial Church has always tried to wall off mercy and to keep it to itself, making it the only place where we can receive grace. Without judgment, their hierarchy cannot control us. They lied to us and told us that we were born in original sin so that they could continually bring judgment down on us for everything in our lives.
That judgment is abrogated by the power of Christ, whose mercy is available to all, for all. All that we have to do is return to our true selves and follow him.
Preparing for Holy Week
The way of Jesus is not about bowing or bending a knee to any person, place, or thing. The way of Jesus is about how we live in right relationship, one to another.
Like those invited to the wedding feast, we make sure that we have brought the oil that we need so that our lamps may glow throughout the night until it is time to enter (Matthew 25:1-13). Like the faithful servant, we take our talents and invest them in the growth of the kin-dom, in healing the sick, restoring sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, healing the crushed, visiting the imprisoned, and proclaiming the acceptable day of the Lord (Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:11-27).
The way of Christ is the way of mercy and the way of grace.
If we are not exhibiting the three graces in our lives, then we are not bearing the fruit of the Tree of Life. This is how we can see where Christ is and where Christ is moving. Where there is judgment, there is no grace.
Grace is revealed at a great cost to ourselves. We have to forgive. We have to live in right relationship. We have to exhibit mercy to ourselves and others. But this work is made easy because we do not do it alone.
As we make our way to Holy Week, we are preparing ourselves to take on the mantle of Christ as his body so that we may continue his work in this world.