The Samaritan Woman at the Well (John 4:5-42)

We hear that our Lord “being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well” (John 4:6) We see here our powerful Lord who created all that exists without any labor, weary from the journey. We are reminded of our Lord’s great condescension when “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” It is so marvelous how as St. Augustine puts it that, “The strength of Christ caused that to be which was not: the weakness of Christ caused that what was should not perish. He fashioned us by His strength, He sought us by His weakness.” And just as Adam received his wife that was formed from a rib taken from his side while he slept in weakness, our Lord while sleeping on the cross in weakness gave life to the Church when he was pierced with the spear when the sacraments of the Church flowed forth. His weakness is our strength. It is in this weakness of our Lord that the Samaritan woman is able to encounter Jesus. Our Lord asks for a drink of water and the conversation goes back and forth about Christ’s Living water and the natural water in the well, with Christ eventually telling her, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again” (John 4:13)

Just as our Lord meant something spiritual when He spoke of the Living water that could satisfy her thirst for all eternity, he meant something spiritual as symbolized by the natural water from the well. The water in the well symbolizes the pleasures of the world in its dark depths which are drawn from with the vessel of lusts. This way of life never satisfies man, but only makes him thirstier and more malnourished spiritually. Only with great toil does man draw from this well that never satisfies. The Samaritan woman, while not recognizing fully the gift of the Holy Spirit that Christ was offering her at the moment, nevertheless expressed her unhappiness of drawing from the well of earthly dark pleasures by saying, “Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.”

By our Lord telling the Samaritan woman, “the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life,” He was giving her the same invitation that He gave to His disciples when He said, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) When we stop following all the passions of the flesh, we can finally live a simpler life where we can rest in God, knowing that all is well in God because nothing can do harm to us or our loved ones except sin.


Next our Lord asks the Samaritan to call her husband. We then learn that she has had five husbands and that the man she has now is not her husband. This is a seemingly a very strange transition in the story. However, symbolically speaking, it continues right in line with what was just taught about following after the pleasures of the world. The five husbands represent the five senses of the flesh: hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch, by which every man born is ruled by until he can make use of the mind and reason. They are called husbands because they are lawful and right because they are gifts of God. But as we mature, we are called to move on beyond these senses of the flesh to the true husband of Wisdom. We are called to now discern between just and unjust, between good and evil, between the profitable and the unprofitable, between chastity and impurity, and to love the one and avoid the other. But the Samaritan woman had not yet reached this point and this man that she is with, representing her reason, is not her true husband. When we are capable of reason, but do not yet have Wisdom as our head, we have fallen into and are ruled by error. As was mentioned earlier, as our Lord in His great condescension approaches us in His weakness and reveals to us our lack of Wisdom, we are better able to recognize the powers of Christ and begin to mature and Worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.


Then we are taught that it is not in physical mountains or temples where God is worshipped, but within man. We must ascend in the heart into the valley of weeping which is humility. We must make ourselves temples of God by striving after holiness.

Lastly, as we see the Samaritan woman come to the Wisdom of God, Our Lord is made her head as He declares to her, “I that speak with thee am He.” Now that she has received Christ into her heart, she leaves her water-pot that represents lusts, and runs to preach the gospel of truth.

May we learn from the account of the Samaritan women and cast aside all earthly cares and worship our Lord in spirit and truth, to whom be the glory, honor, and worship, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

The Myrrh-Bearing Women (Mark 15:43-16:8)

Today we hear of the burial of our Lord by the righteous Joseph of Arimathea. Mark 15:46 says, “And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre.”

Blessed Theophylact explains how we can spiritually imitate St. Joseph saying: “Let us also take the Body of Jesus, through Holy Communion, and place It in a [memorial] tomb hewn out of a rock, that is, place It within a soul which always remembers God and does not forget Him. And let that soul be hewn from a rock, that is, from Christ Who is the Rock on which we are established. And let us wrap the Body of Jesus in the linen, that is, let us receive It within a pure body. For the body is the linen and, as it were, the garment of the soul. For we must receive the divine Body of the Lord not only with a pure soul, but with a pure body as well. And we must wrap It and enfold It within ourselves, and not leave It exposed. For this Mystery is something veiled and hidden, not something to be exposed.”

Next, we hear about the Myrrh-Bearing women. Mark 16:1 says, “And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.”

St. Gregory the Great explains how we can spiritually imitate the myrrh-bearing women saying: “Thus as we hear of what they did, we must also think of our responsibility to imitate them. We too, who believe in Him who died, approach His sepulcher with spices if we are strengthened with the sweet smell of the virtues, and if we seek the Lord with a reputation for good works. And the women who came with spices saw angels, since those who advance toward God through their holy desires, accompanied by the sweet smell of the virtues, behold the citizens from on high.”

We are given a glimpse of the communion with God and His Angels and the Saints that was established by the death and resurrection of Lord Jesus Christ. The whole objective of creation is shown by the angels clearly communicating with Christ’s followers. The angels had lost a great number to the hand of Satan, but as St. Gregory the great again explains, our Lord brought about the restoration in heaven.


He says, “Our Redeemer’s resurrection was our festival day because it led us back to immortality, and also a festival day of the angels, because by recalling us to the things of heaven it completed their number.”

“Let us hear what the angel said to the women: ‘Do not be terrified.’ This is as much as to say: Let them be frightened who do not love the coming of those who live on high, let those be afraid who are weighed down by bodily desires and despair of being able to belong to their fellowship: but why are you who see your fellow citizens afraid?”- Gregory the Great

St. Gregory Palamas shares an Orthodox tradition that is somewhat hidden in the four Gospel accounts of the myrrh bearing women. He explains how the Mother of God was actually the first myrrh bearer.

He says, “All the other women came after the earthquake when the keepers had fled, and found the sepulcher open and the stone rolled away. The Virgin Mother, however, was there when the earthquake took place, the stone was rolled away, the tomb opened and the keepers were still present, though shaken with fear. When they got to their feet after the earthquake they immediately took to flight, whereas the Mother of God delighted herself in the sight without fear. It seems to me that the life-bearing tomb opened first for her sake (because everything in heaven above and on earth below was opened first for her, and through her for us) and that the angel shone like lightning on her account, so that even though it was still dark, by the angel’s abundant light she could see not only the empty tomb, but also the graveclothes lying in order and bearing witness in many ways to the fact that He who had been buried there had risen.”

It was fitting that the one through whom the creation encountered our God in the flesh was there at the first observance of the resurrection. The Archangel Gabriel once again proclaiming to the Theotokos the plan of salvation.

We are reminded of how all graces pass through her and we would wisely ask for her help in any difficult circumstance we find ourselves in seeing as it is only by her that we receive our Lord’s aid.

St. Nikolai Velimirovich makes a great observation about our Lord’s visitation to man, dead and alive saying, “A mother’s love cannot separate her dead children from those living. Still less can Christ’s love. The Lord is more discerning than the sun: He sees the approaching end of those still alive on earth, and sees the beginning of life for those who have entered into rest. For Him who created the earth from nothing, and man’s body from the earth, there is no difference between the earth’s, or his body’s, being a man’s grave. Grain lying in the field or stored in a granary – what difference does this make to the householder, who is thinking in both cases of the grain, and not of the straw or the granary? Whether men are in the body or in the earth – what difference does this make to the Householder of men’s souls? Coming on earth, the Lord paid two visits to men: the first to those living in the grave of the body and the second to those in the grave of the earth. He died in order to visit His dead children. Ah, how very truly a mother dies when she goes to the graves of her children!”

Our Lord is concerned with the dead, not because He can’t give them physical life, but because He does not force them to be spiritually alive. They must willingly do this themselves.

Likewise, we, imitating our Lord who loves each person more than their own mother, must be like Joseph of Arimathea and the myrrh-bearing women, caring for the dead with love and sacrifice, showing them the path to Life.

May our Lord count us worthy of those brought from death to Life when he visits the graveyard of this world for the last time at His second coming, Amen.