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3rd SUNDAY IN LENT
The third week of Lent offers some of the Bible’s most colorful and instructive
stories of human struggle and quest. The first story reveals the kind of struggle between
reality (especially suffering and lack) and trust in God’s ability to provide for our
needs. The Gospel story has a woman who comes for refreshment and ends up in a
cross-cultural experience, finding community and creating a ripple effect that results
from cleansing and joy. And the epistle lesson holds up hope from the effects of the
kergyma-the saving work of God in Christ.
Exodus 17:1-7-Children, Children, Your Manners!
The larger story begins with obedience as the Israelites follow Moses out of the
land of slavery toward the Promised Land. However, this episode is one of many bumps in
the road of Israel’s trust in Yahweh. When they make camp at Rephidim and discover no
water, they worry about their well-being. They anticipate scarcity despite God’s
prior provision of sweet water to quench their thirst (Ex. 15:22-25a), not to mention the
feasts of quail and manna to fill their thirst (Ex. 16:1-36). They response: quarreling.
“Don’t just stand there, do something, Moses” (17:1b-3). Their protests
grow increasingly strident despite Moses’ warnings that they are testing the limits
of God’s patience. God acts. Provides. And reminds them how precarious faith can be.
PSALM 95—COME . . . LISTEN
This psalm falls neatly into two distinctive parts: praise and thanksgiving
vis-à-vis warning and heed. The invitation to come before God with joy opens
the psalm: “Come . . . let us sing . . . bow down . . . worship . . . kneel
before the lord our Maker!” Clearly, the writer envisions a cavalcade of
joyous pilgrims processing before God. But beginning with verse 8 a new tone
becomes ever audible: “Listen . . . don’t be stubborn . . . they put me to
the test . . . I was disgusted with them.” To resist God’s voice today is
to risk remaining a wanderer in the wilderness, adrift between redemption and
fulfillment.
Romans 5:1-11-Justified, Reconciled, and Graced
Paul intermingles theological statements and teaching with real life experiences of
suffering. This is one of the New Testament’s most clear examples of substitutionary
atonement theory-one dies in place of another. This is Les Miserable, one taking the place
for another. We are reminded of the human condition-weak and warped: sinners (5:8),
enemies (5:10), and sufferers (5:3). But because of God’s saving work in Christ,
Christians now live in the world differently (5:1; cf. 4:13-25). We can rejoice in our new
condition (5:2, 3, 11) for we have been reconciled with God; we have peace with God, and
we have received reconciliation to God.
John 4:5-42-You Who are Thirsty, Come to the Well and Drink
At the well. Two people in conversation. And another story about someone struggling
to comprehend the mystery of Jesus. Last week it was Nicodemus; this week it’s a
Samaritan woman. Unlike Nicodemus, she responds rather than initiates conversation, she
talks with Jesus in the light of day, in what is for him enemy territory. The woman
increasingly is drawn to figure out who this man is, and the two of them shatter ancient
barriers for the sake of new truth.
