A
popular scene in both cartoons and other movies is having a person
stumbling across sand dunes in the dessert. He is often shoeless (or
has only one and is missing the other) and is dressed in rags with
the edges of his pant legs and sleeves in shreds. Many times he
doesn’t have any head covering, his face is red with the heat and
he has a several day old beard growing. Perhaps, far above, two
vultures circle and call. And, of course, he is always calling out,
“Water! Water!” Many times the person starts seeing a mirage of
some sort. The goofier cartoons and comedies would of course have
these mirages be all the more ridiculous and grandiose. Like,
instead of a simple oasis, the character sees a five star hotel with
a swimming pool and all you can eat buffet. I’m pretty sure there
is a Loony Tunes cartoon with Daffy Duck diving and swimming through
hot dessert sand because he is certain that he saw a swimming pool.
Meanwhile, Bugs Bunny is probably off to the side trying to figure
out why he didn't turn left at Albuquerque.
Whether
it is a goofy cartoon like that or a comedy or much more serious
movie or TV show, writers love to put their characters in
predicaments and other dangerous situations to see how they can get
back out alive. This situation of being lost or stranded in the
dessert without water plays off of our own very basic survival
instincts. We need water to survive. Even though we enjoy laughing
at fictitious characters who end up lost in the dessert and have
bizarre mirages and other hallucinations, we know we can't survive
without water.
Our
first reading from Exodus tells us the famous story of Moses striking
of the rock to provide water for the people in the dessert. The
story starts out with the often heard complaining of the people.
“Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die
here of thirst with our children and our livestock?” When we hear
the ancient Israelites complain in this way, it's easy for us to
start pointing the finger and judging them for their disbelief.
These are the people who witnessed the ten plagues, the parting of
the Red Sea, and the column of fire and cloud that led them and
protected them. I know that I have often wondered how it is that the
Israelites could have seen all of that and still doubted that God and
His servant Moses didn't have their best interests in mind. Before
we start the pointing and judging, however, we need to remind
ourselves of how we are not so different from them. We see the
miracle of ordinary bread and wine transformed into the Body and
Blood of Christ at least once a week; we hear the stories of
incredible miracles from saints; we claim to trust in God's
providential care for all of us and yet we question whether God
really loves us when things don't happen when we want them to happen.
God
is very patient as well, thankfully, so He offers the Israelites what
they need, just as He continues to offer us what we need. At this
point, the Israelites need water. Moses follows God's instructions
and strikes the rock, allowing water to flow from the rock. Many
centuries later, St. Paul wrote in his First Letter to the
Corinthians a reference to a Jewish story that said that that same
“spiritual rock” continued to follow the Israelites around the
dessert for the next forty years, providing them with water. I don't
know if the tale claims the rock seemed to roll on its own after
them, or if it just miraculously appeared wherever they stopped, but
the point of the tale is to show that God continued to provide for
them, even after this specific incident.
God
provides for all of us, as we heard St. Paul remind us in his letter
to the Romans. Instead of literal water from a rock, God provides us
with His Son, Jesus Christ. The last line from that reading says,
“God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners
Christ died for us.” God's love is shown through the sacrifice of
His Son, through His Son's Passion and death. Again, as I said
before, even though we complain about this and that and everything
under the sun at times, God sends His Son, and the Son is willing to
die for us, sinners though we are. So what good does Jesus' dying on
the Cross, do for all of us? As we will see as we look at the
Gospel, it is only through His death that Jesus is able to provide
what we truly need: water from the spring that leads to eternal
life.
The
Gospel of the Samaritan woman at the well is so important, that the
Church really highlights it as showing how Baptism will bring us
eternal life. The woman doesn't get what Jesus is trying to explain
at first. “Why is this man asking me for water? What is He
talking about with this 'living water' stuff? How does He expect to
get it without a bucket? Who does He think He is anyway?” But as
we read through this great story, we see that Jesus may be talking
about water, but He is pointing to Himself the entire time. We have
a thirst for something more. If we all we do is focus on the things
of this world, thinking that material things and our selfish desires
will quench our thirst, then we will only be like those who drink
from the water of well that Jesus is sitting next to: we will be
thirsty gain. Jesus is the source of the that life giving water,
however. The woman thinks Jesus is talking about physical water, but
as Jesus reveals more about Her life, she realizes that Jesus is
that source of water.
Our
baptism gives that relationship with Jesus that we cannot live
without. We don't typically do this with children, but traditionally
adults were baptized by dunking them three times into water. Three
times in the water; just like Jesus' three days in the tomb after
death. The idea behind this is that the person is dying with Christ.
Having been baptized, having received that water, we turn to Christ
who is our spiritual rock, who will continue to provide the water we
need.
In
this Lent, brothers and sisters, let us strengthen our relationship
with Christ so we may say like the people of the village: “we know
that this is truly the savior of the world.”
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