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Sunday Mar 8 – Third Sunday in Lent
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95 (1)
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42
“The Rest of the Story”
Grace and peace to you in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our Gospel today tells the familiar story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. But when I read it this week, it felt like one of those moments where we want to know the rest of the story.
Some of you may remember the radio broadcaster Paul Harvey and his program “The Rest of the Story.” He would tell part of a story—sometimes about an ordinary person or an unusual event—and then, at the very end, he would reveal the surprising ending. Suddenly the whole story made sense.
When I read this Gospel, I find myself wondering:
What happened next for this woman?
Because this unnamed Samaritan woman is someone society had already written off.
Right away we’re told that Jesus is traveling through Samaria. That detail matters. Jews and Samaritans had a long history of distrust and hostility toward each other—centuries of division, suspicion, and prejudice. Most Jews traveling between Judea and Galilee would go miles out of their way just to avoid Samaria.
But Jesus doesn’t.
He stops at Jacob’s well. And there he meets this woman.
She arrives at noon, the hottest part of the day. That’s unusual. Most women would come early in the morning when the air was cool and they could gather water together.
But she comes alone.
Over the years people have often assumed this woman was immoral because Jesus mentions her five husbands. But the truth is, the text doesn’t tell us why those marriages ended. In that time and culture, women had almost no control over divorce. A husband could leave. A husband could die. A woman could be abandoned. And without a husband or family support, survival could be incredibly difficult.
Whatever her story was, we know this:
she had become someone people talked about.
Someone whispered about.
Someone judged.
Someone avoided.
Maybe that’s why she came at noon—to avoid the looks, the comments, the quiet shame that can hang over a person when a community decides who you are.
And yet—this is where the story changes.
Jesus speaks to her.
That might not sound radical to us, but in that moment it was shocking. A Jewish man speaking publicly with a Samaritan woman. Crossing boundaries of gender, culture, and religion all at once.
Jesus asks her for water.
And suddenly this conversation opens into something deeper.
They talk about faith.
They talk about worship.
They talk about the Messiah.
And then Jesus tells her something extraordinary:
“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.”
He is offering her living water—a life rooted in God’s grace, dignity, and love.
What strikes me is this: Jesus knows everything about her life. He doesn’t avoid the truth of it. But he also refuses to reduce her to it.
He sees her fully.
Not as a problem.
Not as gossip.
Not as a label.
He sees her as a child of God.
And that changes everything.
Because the woman who came to the well trying to avoid everyone… becomes the first evangelist – dare I even say, the first preacher – in John’s Gospel.
She runs back to the town and says,
“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! Could he be the Messiah?”
And the people listen.
Many come to meet Jesus because of her testimony.
The woman everyone had dismissed becomes the one who brings others to Christ.
Now here’s where this story meets our moment in the world.
We live in a time when division seems to be everywhere.
Political divisions.
Cultural divisions.
Religious divisions.
Even divisions about who belongs and who doesn’t.
Every day we hear voices telling us who to distrust, who to fear, who to blame.
In some ways, the distance between Jews and Samaritans in Jesus’ day doesn’t feel so far away from the tensions we experience in our own nation right now.
But Jesus crosses the boundary anyway.
He sits down at the well.
He starts a conversation.
He offers living water.
That is the way of Christ.
And it connects with the other readings we heard today.
In Exodus, the people of Israel are wandering in the wilderness, thirsty and afraid. They question whether God is even with them.
“Is the Lord among us or not?” they ask.
God answers not with punishment—but with water from a rock. Life where there seemed to be none.
In Romans, Paul reminds us that God’s love doesn’t wait until we get everything right.
“While we were still sinners,” he writes, “Christ died for us.”
In other words, God meets us not when we are perfect, but when we are thirsty.
And if we’re honest, many people are thirsty today.
Thirsty for hope in a world that feels uncertain.
Thirsty for dignity in a culture quick to judge.
Thirsty for belonging in communities that sometimes push people away.
Maybe we know something about that thirst ourselves.
Maybe we know what it feels like to carry labels that don’t tell our whole story.
Maybe we know what it feels like to wonder if God really sees us.
The good news of this Gospel is that Jesus still meets people at wells.
Jesus still meets people in ordinary places—kitchens, hospital rooms, quiet mornings, long nights of worry.
And when Jesus meets us, he doesn’t shame us.
He invites us.
He invites us to drink deeply of God’s grace.
And then something else happens.
The woman leaves her water jar behind.
That detail is easy to miss, but it matters.
The very reason she came to the well is forgotten because something more important has happened.
She has encountered Christ.
And she runs to share that good news.
Maybe that is the rest of the story.
Not that this woman becomes famous or powerful.
But that her life becomes part of the larger story of God’s love for the world.
And maybe that’s true for us too.
Maybe the rest of the story isn’t about becoming perfect.
Maybe it’s about becoming witnesses.
People who say to others, in our own ways:
“Come and see.”
Come and see a love stronger than shame.
Come and see a grace deeper than failure.
Come and see a Savior who crosses every boundary to meet us where we are.
Because the living water Jesus offers is still flowing.
In baptism.
In community.
In compassion.
In acts of justice and mercy.
And when we drink from that well, we discover something beautiful:
We are not just people with a past.
We are people with a future in God.
And that future—full of grace, hope, and love—is still being written.
That, friends, might just be the rest of the story.
Amen.
God's Yes + My Amen 