From Ashes to Alleluia: With Jesus at the Well

The Third Sunday in Lent
March 8, 2026
John 4:5-30, 39-42

“From Ashes to Alleluia: With Jesus at the Well”

Last Sunday, we heard about water when we were with Jesus in his late-night conversation with Nicodemus (John 3:1-17). Jesus spoke about the necessity of being born again of water and the Spirit in order to enter the kingdom of God. And now, Jesus has another conversation with a different person about water. This time, it’s the Samaritan woman at the well. Why do we know Nicodemus’ name but we don’t know this woman’s name? Scripture doesn’t tell us. We do know that there was longstanding hostility between Jews and Samaritans going back hundreds of years. The woman says as much to Jesus, but Jesus doesn’t get sidetracked with this. Instead, Jesus speaks to her about something she and everyone, including us today, needs: water. And not just any old water, but living water. Our Lenten preaching series, “From Ashes to Alleluia,” continues today as we look at today’s Gospel lesson under the theme “With Jesus at the Well.” May the Lord’s rich and abundant blessing rest upon the preaching, the hearing, and the living of his Word for Jesus’ sake.

Everybody needs water – no question about that. It’s one of the basic necessities of life, and helps our body do the following: remove waste products effectively, assists in digestion and metabolism, helps regulate body temperature, lubricates our joints, assists in breathing, helps maintain our fluid balance, and helps with weight reduction (16 Reasons Why Water Is Important to Human Health). Medical experts tell us that we should be drinking eight 8-ounce glasses of water per day. Water is the foundation for just about every other drink imaginable: coffee, tea, soda, alcohol and more. We can do without coffee (or can we?) or alcohol, but we cannot do without water. There is a difference between water and clean water – water that’s drinkable. Roughly one in three people throughout the world don’t have access to clean water (Sundays and Seasons: Year A, 2023. Minneapolis: Augsburg-Fortress, 2022; p. 120). “Today’s [Scripture] readings lift up the preciousness of both literal and spiritual water, the unending flow of divine love symbolized in the image of Moses releasing water from a rock (Exod. 17:1-7) and of Jesus providing ‘a spring of water gushing up to eternal life’ (John 4:14)” (Ibid.).

It’s always good to have an idea where the places are that we read about in Scripture, and so a map is helpful. We’re told that this conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman took place at a town called Sychar, in the land of Samaria, sandwiched between Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. Jacob’s well is still in existence today, in the city of Nablus, in the West Bank. There is a Greek Orthodox church over the well today. All of this sets the faith we share in historical context. None of this was imagined or pulled out of the air. In the Person of Jesus, God entered our world in a particular place at a particular time to bring us the life-giving, soul-renewing water of his saving love.

In the dry, arid climate of the Middle East, water is incredibly precious. It has always been so. Increasingly, in other parts of the world, including here in our own nation, we are realizing just how precious a commodity water really is. So, what is the Samaritan’s woman’s story? We can make all kinds of assumptions about why she came to the well at an off-time. Usually, water was obtained from a community well in the morning and evening, and it was the women who did this chore each day. In speaking to her about the living water that he supplies, Jesus reveals the woman’s past; that she’s had five husbands. Again, we can make all kinds of assumptions about this, inferring that she was living in adultery. But Jesus doesn’t say that. The social order of the time was that a woman’s security came from her husband, and without that, women had no security. Whatever the situation may have been, Jesus is calling her from her old life to something new; something that would give ultimate security and satisfaction. Isn’t that what we want, too? Maybe we are more like that Samaritan woman than we’d care to admit. There may be things from our own past that we’d rather not think about, and certainly don’t want others to know about. We become weary of going to the well, so to speak, day in and day out. In this present moment, with the global situation so unsettled and uncertain due to what is happening in Iran, we long for that something that will give us hope; that will quench our deepest thirst and revive us. What we long for, what we need, is what only Jesus can give: living water.

In today’s Old Testament lesson (Exodus 17:1-7), God’s people were on their way to the Promised Land, but out there in the wilderness where water is scarce, they became so thirsty that they were ready to kill Moses. Extreme thirst can do that to people. But God graciously provided them water from a rock there in the wilderness. But after drinking their fill, the people became thirsty again, and they became dissatisfied again. Moses pointed ahead to Jesus who alone provides that living water which satisfies. There is a distinction to be made between well water and living water. The former is stagnant, but the latter is fresh and flowing. The Lord calls out his people’s mixed-up priorities through the prophet Jeremiah: “For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13). What was true then remains true today. We look for things to satisfy our thirst in life that are never going to satisfy us. We’re looking for things to do for us what only God can do. It’s like the difference between water out of a cistern vs. water from a fountain. Have you ever had water from a cistern? It’s better than nothing, that’s for sure, but there’s no comparison with fresh and flowing living water. This is what Jesus came to be for us all and to give to us all.

This is the good news of salvation made real in God’s own Son, Jesus. What will give us real and lasting satisfaction in life? What will truly quench our thirst? Only Jesus. As we heard in today’s Epistle lesson (Romans 5:1-8): “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die — but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8). The Samaritan woman didn’t sit on this good news about Jesus and his gift of living water, keeping it to herself. Almost immediately, she left her water jar there at the well and went out to invite others to come to Jesus and receive the same gift from him that she had received. And the net result? “Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony” (John 4:39). Like that woman in today’s Gospel lesson, we have good news that’s too good to keep to ourselves. That living water must be shared!

Jesus invites us to come to him and drink deeply of the living water that only he can give. As he himself tells us: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37b-38). Amen.