Third Sunday in Lent, Cycle A
The connection between the Exodus 17 and John 4 texts is clearly the concept of life-supporting water in each of them. The mention of Meribah and of Massah in Psalm 95:8 links that psalm to Exodus 17:1-7. The connections between the Romans 5 text and the other three are tenuous. Perhaps an allusion to the concept of life-supporting water in Exodus 17 and John 4 can be made in the use of the reference in Romans 5:5 to the love of God being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us, or in the emphasis in Romans 5:1-5 on hope.
Psalm 95
This popular Community Hymn of Praise (used in Christian worship as the Venite Exultamus of the traditional Matins) includes a warning against disregarding the ways of the Lord in verses 7b-11. The people of the Lord who live with patient faithfulness shall dwell securely in the land. Those who refuse to heed the ways of the Lord will be rejected.
Exodus 17:1-7
In this text the proof of the presence of the Lord as the people moved through the Sinai Peninsula is given in the use of Moses’ rod to draw forth water from the rock at Horeb so that the Israelites and their cattle would live. The life-sustaining water was given, according to this text, not because the people were faithful to the Lord, but because they complained to Moses and Moses complained to the Lord.
Romans 5:1-11
The gift of God celebrated here in Romans 5:1-11 is more than water from a rock, important as that may be to those who wander in a desert. The gift here is the Holy Spirit and, more specifically, the life and death of Jesus the Christ. Paul wrote that Jesus died for the ungodly, for us while we were sinners. Certainly here the Lenten message is clearly focused.
John 4:5-42
There are some interesting similarities and some interesting differences between the First Lesson (Exodus 17:1-7) and this Gospel text. In Exodus 17:1-7 the proof of the presence of the Lord God with the people is given by means of the use of Moses’ rod to draw forth water from the rock at Horeb so that the Israelites and their cattle would live. In John 4:5-42 the proof of the presence of the Lord (Jesus) with the people is given in the statement of the Johannine Jesus that he is the Messiah who is coming, who will provide the living water so that those who drink of it will never thirst again. The Johannine Jesus as the Messiah who is to come knows all things and shows all things. The Samaritan woman and the many Samaritans from the city respond correctly; they believe in the Johannine Jesus.
By placing these two texts into juxtaposition, those who selected these pericopes intended to bring to our attention the claim of the Johannine community that the Johannine Jesus is greater than Moses. Perhaps the members of the Johannine community also wished to say the Johannine Jesus is greater than the Lord God as the ancient Israelites and as Jews perceived the Lord God, or at least that the Johannine Jesus is the Lord God among us.
It is our task as proclaimers of the Word to apply the message of this John 4 text in our situation, to communicate in some concrete way that Jesus raised from the dead is the Messiah who is coming and will provide for us living water so good that those who drink of it will never thirst again. The most important way we can do this is first to believe it ourselves, then to proclaim we believe it, and finally to demonstrate with our lives that we believe it. The responsibility of the other members of the congregations in which we serve is basically the same as our responsibility in this regard. They too are to believe the gospel in this text, to proclaim it with their lips, and to demonstrate it in their lives.
In order to indicate the essential unity of the message in Exodus 17:1-7 and in John 4, and in order to keep ourselves from falling into the sin of pride thinking we are superior to the Jews, we should note that while John 4 proclaims certain people believed that the Lord Jesus had come, it is proclaimed in Exodus 17:1-7 that the Lord God had come, even though many people did not believe. To proclaim the gospel even when there is no evidence of faith is as great as to proclaim the gospel that has been accepted by faith.
