Third Sunday of Lent (2022-2023)
Lent • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 11 viewsNotes
Transcript
In our Diocese it is Safe Heaven Sunday,
it is a special day when we offer our special prayers for those who are struggling with addiction to pornography.
In our times Pornography has become a big issue by the fact that became so accessible.
The reports say that 55% of married men watch porn at least once per month and 63% of men 18-30 years old view it several times per week. The number of women is lower but they are not immune.
What is even more said: Most children are exposed to porn by age 12.
On that Sunday we want to ask the One who is a living Water and healed the Samaritan Women, to come with healing and a new heart to those who are struggle with that addiction.
-------
My Dear Brothers and Sisters,
WATER belongs to three things essential to sustain life alongside oxygen and food.
These three: WATER, OXYGEN, FOOD. Without these definitely we will die.
There is an interesting Video on Youtube called “What if you stopped drinking water?”
It is a great explanation!
Our body is 65% water.
It carries nutrients and hormones throughout the body, it regulates the body’s temperature, cushions our joints, and keeps our eyes nice and moist.
Our brain is constantly measuring water and other markers, sending us signals like thirst after a hot and sweaty day outside.
The brain is very aware of water because when we get dehydrated, the brain itself is affected.
We may feel light-headed, and we’ll think and respond more slowly than usual.
In fact, studies looking at elderly patients found that many of those who are confused or not thinking and remembering clearly are not suffering irreparable memory loss – they are simply chronically dehydrated.
If we quit drinking water altogether, within 4 to 5 days, our bodies would begin to shut down.
We just cannot survive long without water.
Today in our Gospel reading from Saint John, we find Jesus traveling to Samaria and arriving at a well in the middle of the day.
He finds a woman there, and asks, “Will you give me a drink?”
From that simple question, Jesus and the woman started the conversation.
We do not know her name.
And it is something what actually is very important, because maybe she really stands for all of us in some way. There are three important details in the gospel reading.
• We know that she was a Samaritan and there was not a “deep love” between the Jewish people and the Samaritans in Jesus’ time. Secondly.
• She was a woman and women were to be silent in the presence of a rabbi.
• Finally, she was known as a sinner. Because of her multiple marriages.
- She went to the well alone at noontime, the hottest time of the day, when nobody else was around.
- It tells us that she was a person on the margins of the society in which she lived.
And Jesus was waiting at that well for her.
And as he was reaching out to her, He is doing that to us as well.
Just as He knew her past, Jesus knows ours too.
And He is interested with us here and now.
Jesus told her, to call her husband and come back. But she replied that she has no husband.
In this converstation we actually learn that in fact she had 5 husbands and the one she is with is not her husband.
Scripture doesn’t say how she ended up with five husbands, and a man who was not her husband.
But what we do know that She had no respect from the people of Sychar, that is why so every day at noon, she came by herself to the well - there was nobody at that time.
Imagine her loneliness there.
That image shows that she had thirsts that this water could not quench.
And it is where we might be.
Don’t we all have thirsts that physical water cannot quench?
Some of us are thirsty for love and companionship, thirsty for the approval and praise of others, thirsty for money and success.
Some of us are thirsty for self-sufficiency, thirsty for perfection, thirsty for being right, being strong, being beautiful, being smart.
In our quest to slake these thirsts, sometimes we take shortcuts by lying, stealing and cheating.
When we find that we cannot quench these thirsts by ourselves, we start thirsting for love in all the wrong places.
We start thirsting for substitutes like food, alcohol, porn, and material possessions.
We start criticizing and judging others in an effort to bolster our own shaky standing.
We start doing things that we hope no one will ever see or discover.
Yes, but there is someone who knows everything that we ever did!
Jesus introduced himself to her in this words: “I, the one speaking to you — I am he.” Which actually means I am the Messiah, I am the Christ - who is speaking with you.
I can only imagine how much love Jesus had to her - that she didn’t ran away.
And more how her heart was moved that She actually ran back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did!”
There was no fear in her. She was touched so much that her sinful life became a living example of the GOOD NEWS, GOD’s love, SHE became a word of encouragement for others - who maybe were in such deep thirst as she was.
Jesus had the intimate knowledge of her life, He knew her past, and still loved and forgave her—well, that is as unbelievably new and fresh as anything she has ever heard!
That man who told her everything she ever did … and loved her anyway … is what saves her life, changed her life completely.
My dear Brothers and sisters, our Lent is a time when the Son of God invites us to come to the WELL / Confession to speak to us a word of truth into our world and our lives about “everything we ever did” — not to condemn us but to offer His forgiveness, to save us.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Jn 3:16-17