Third Sunday of Lent – Cycle A
Reflecting on John 4: 5-42
Nearly every story in John’s gospel has an underlying meaning. His imagery and symbols lure us into the story, and then astound us with the true meaning, which we somehow glean without anyone explaining it to us (but please, let me explain it anyway).
Take those five husbands of the Samaritan woman, for example. Hmm… Was it possible for a woman to have married five different men? She certainly could have been widowed many times, given the dangerous times her husbands must have experienced, either as soldiers or the victims of soldiers.
Could she herself have initiated and carried out even one divorce on her own? It’s doubtful that this woman of suspicious marital history just recklessly went from one man to another.
But remember, this is John’s gospel. So what’s the brilliant, hidden meaning? Might the “five husbands” actually be the five pagan tribes, each with its own pantheon of gods, that the conquering Assyrians sent into Samaria after their conquest of that land in 722 BCE? Over time, they sent tribes from other conquests of Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim into what was, at one time, Jewish Samaria.
Hence, the five “husbands,” the pagan overlords who brought apostasy to Samaria. And that last husband, who’s not her husband at all? Chances are that’s the strange mix of those five religions that she has pulled together for herself.
Or maybe the “five husbands” represent the Samaritan insistence on only following the first five books of the bible, the Pentateuch. Jesus loves quoting the prophets, the Law, and the Psalms. He wants to offer the “living water” of full revelation to this bright, thirsty Samaritan woman.
In what ways do you have layers of meaning in your life?
Kathy McGovern ©2026