Wellsprings of Eternal Life

Christ is risen!  Jesus said that his mission was to seek and save the lost, and we see a prime example of this in today’s Gospel (Jn. 4:5-42).  It is characteristic of the lost that they are not even seeking salvation, so Jesus has to take the initiative to rescue them, as He does with the Samaritan woman.  He continues this saving work even to the present day.

Jesus probably hoped that by now the world would have understood his message and opened itself to his gift of eternal life through the spiritual and sacramental life of his Church.  But for the most part it hasn’t, so Jesus has to continue his journey to all the “wells” of the world to seek out and save the lost.  The Gospel says that He was wearied with his journey, and with the merciless sun high in the sky, He sat down to rest.  I guess after nearly 2000 years of trying to save sinners who mostly resist Him, Jesus is indeed feeling rather weary.  Maybe He is saying now, as He said through the Prophet Isaiah nearly 3000 years ago: “What more could I have done for [them] that I have not done?” (5:4).  He has provided everything we need to find eternal life, but most people still seek their happiness elsewhere, and this must grieve the Heart of God deeply.  Sometimes I myself feel weary with the journey of this life in exile, though it’s no comparison to the weariness of the Lord on his endless and worldwide journey, as He ceaselessly invites reluctant souls into his Kingdom.  But He won’t rest until his house is full.

Today’s Gospel is all about eternal life, which is not surprising, since giving the gift of eternal life is the reason Christ came into this world.  That is pretty much all He talks about, in one way or another, and that is only because that is all that really matters.  You won’t hear Him giving advice about success in business or politics, and you won’t hear Him stressing the need for financial security or even temporal happiness.  Jesus always tries to get us to look toward the Kingdom of Heaven.  Seeking anything short of that will inevitably lead to disappointment, and eventually to despair and damnation.  Nothing in this life brings lasting satisfaction or joy, the lies of the advertising industry notwithstanding.  Our founder Fr Boniface once told us of a proverb he heard while in Africa: “This life is a footbridge; don’t build your house on it.”  That is sound advice, but most people aren’t interested in hearing it, yet the truth eventually catches up to us all.

The Samaritan woman’s series of failed marriages was testimony to her vain search for happiness and security in this life, and so perhaps Jesus saw that she was finally ready to hear the Gospel of eternal life.  But it took a little while for her to be able to see beyond the immediate concerns of this present life to accept what Jesus was trying to give her.

She had a lot to learn.  She knew neither the gift of God nor who it was who was offering it to her.  It is true that Jesus at first spoke in somewhat veiled language, using images that would be familiar to her.  This was simply to pique her interest and to get her to talk to Him.  If Jesus had begun by speaking of the Uncreated Energy of the Holy Spirit communicated to those who accept baptism in the name of the All-Holy Trinity and who thus experience an inner transfiguration that enables them to grow progressively into the likeness of God, which then makes them fit for eternal communion with Him in the glory of his heavenly Kingdom, she might have just walked away, thinking, “Poor man; he must have been sitting out here in the sun too long.”

So instead, Jesus just asked her for a drink, and then explained that He was able to offer her a better kind of water.  Once he got her talking about water, He was able to subtly move the conversation toward the mystery of divine grace, the indwelling Presence that is like a spring of water, an inexhaustible Source that provides not mere temporal survival, but rich and glorious eternal life.

Even though she still didn’t quite understand, she was irresistibly drawn by Jesus’ words, and she evidently decided that whatever it was He was offering, that is what she wanted.  But even though grace is free, it isn’t cheap.  It cannot be received without repentance.  Therefore Jesus had to risk her rejection, but He could not help her if she chose to remain in her sin.  So He broached the delicate subject by asking her to return with her husband.  When she heard those words, “your husband,” the wounds of her heart must have instantly re-opened.  “My husband!  Which one?  The one that left me, the one that beat me, the one that cheated on me, the one that promised me the world and turned out to be a deadbeat?”  Jesus knew her whole history, both her sin and her pain, and He wanted to cleanse the former and soothe the latter by the living water of divine grace He was offering her.

When Jesus finally revealed Himself to her as the long-awaited Messiah (something He told no one else outside of his inner circle of disciples), the woman’s enlightenment had begun.  She realized that the answer to her fruitless search for happiness would not come from finally finding a good man, or from any other form of material or emotional security.  What she was really longing for, without being able to articulate it, was eternal life.  Suddenly the Messiah appeared saying, “I will give you eternal life.”  Her heart resonated to this, and hope mysteriously welled up within her, as if God had just created that spring of living water in her soul.

So she went to share the good news.  “Can this be the Christ?” she announced to her fellow Samaritans.  But the real question, the one she kept to herself, was much more profound and personal: “Can it be that my wretched life is finally going to be renewed?  Can it be that my heart and soul will now be healed and that I will discover a joy that this corrupt world can never give?  Can it be that I have found Him whom my heart loves—not as a new husband but as my Savior, my Lord, the one who gives the Gift of God: the very possibility of breaking free from the straightjacket of sin and misery, enabling me to embrace life, a life fulfilled in God?”  We cannot know precisely what she was thinking, but it was surely something way beyond theological speculations concerning the Messiah, or the question of which mountain is the one where people ought to worship.  Once Jesus reached her heart, she knew her life would never be the same again, and she couldn’t be happier about that!

Jesus must have watched her with some satisfaction as she ran back to her village.  He was doing the will of his Father and accomplishing his work.  When the disciples returned with food, He wasn’t even hungry, and they didn’t understand what was going on, or who that woman was who had just bounded joyfully away.  Jesus simply smiled as He told them that there goes his food, his sustenance, for He had just rescued a soul from sin, secured a new daughter for his Father, sought out and saved what was lost.  He was “gathering fruit for eternal life,” and this is what He told his disciples they would be doing as well.

Jesus still journeys throughout the world preaching the Gospel of eternal life to any soul that will listen.  He still offers the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Source of that inner wellspring of grace by which the mystery of eternal life begins even in this life.  But eternal life, the life of grace and communion with God, is not compatible with sin and with the ways of a corrupt and self-indulgent world.  So it can’t be merely superimposed on a sinful soul.  The life of grace has to replace the life of sin.  The consistent teaching of the Scriptures is that the life in Christ is new life, different from the life of sin that leads to death.  During these days of the celebration of the Resurrection of the Lord, we sing of this new life and we try to let it transform us, especially through the Holy Eucharist.

But the Lord will perhaps have to bring up some delicate subjects that we’d rather not discuss with Him. He may have to ask us some questions about things that present obstacles to the gift He wants to give us. This, however, is not merely for the sake of pointing out our faults.  The Lord knows that to the extent we are attached to any sin, to that extent we are separated from Him.  And He finds this situation to be entirely unacceptable, for He wants our union with Him to be complete, and He wants our joy to be full.  He has to get us to realize, as He has been trying to do on his 2000-year journey throughout this world, that happiness cannot be found in anything but Him and in his Kingdom.  The world cannot supply it; there is no lasting happiness or security in anything short of eternal life.  So if we set our sights too low—even temporarily—we are not only cheating ourselves out of present happiness, we are placing ourselves in danger of losing eternal happiness.

Even though to follow Christ is not all happiness and pleasure as the world sees it—because we have to take up our crosses and deny ourselves if we are to be faithful to Jesus—if you ask someone who really knows Jesus whether they prefer the demands of a life of faith to the pleasures of a life of sin, they won’t hesitate to say they prefer Jesus and his Cross to the passing satisfactions and ultimately empty promises of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Some people might try to have it both ways: Jesus on Sunday and the world during the week.  But it doesn’t work that way; that will not bring eternal life.  Whoever is not with Jesus is against Him, and to be with Him is a full-time occupation.  Look at all the conversion stories in the Bible: once they met Jesus and decided to follow Him, they left everything else behind and didn’t look back.  True conversion is a radical break with evil and with former ways of life.  To embrace eternal life is to reject everything that is incompatible with it.

I won’t be able to convince you of this, because the preaching of the Gospel is insufficient in itself.  It is only meant to direct people to the Lord.  They have to meet Him personally, repent of their sins, embrace Him as their Hope for eternal happiness, and begin to follow Him devotedly and consistently.  The Samaritans became interested in Jesus when the woman testified to Him, and so they invited Him to stay with them.  After their firsthand experience of Him, they told her it wasn’t because of her words that they now believe, but because they met Him personally, and now they know that He is the Savior of the world.

Let us then seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, making eternal life the goal of our whole life—the litmus test, as it were, of all our thoughts, words, acts, plans and desires.  We will be able to do this if we keep our attention on that inner wellspring of living water, the grace of the Holy Spirit, and allow ourselves to be thereby purified and refreshed and refocused on the things that really matter, the things that lead to eternal life.  Christ is risen!