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THE THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT March 8, 2026 Pastor Tom Steers Christ the Saviour Lutheran Church, Toronto Lutheran Service Book –Divine Service Setting V (Pages 213 – 218) OUR OPENING HYMN: 693 “O Holy Spirit, Grant Us Grace” Confession and Absolution Page 213 Introit Psalm 84, verses 1-4; antiphon v.5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts! 2 My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. 3 Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God. 4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Glory be to the Father and to the + Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. The Salutation – Pastor: The Lord be with you. Congregation: And with thy spirit. Our Collect Prayer: O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy, be gracious to all who have gone astray from Your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of Your Word; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. OUR BIBLE READINGS – First Reading: Exodus 17: 1-7 Psalm 95: 1-9 Epistle Reading: Romans 5: 1-8 HYMN OF THE DAY: 609 “Jesus Sinners Doth Receive” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RODV7z-UQhI&list=RDRODV7z-UQhI&start_radio=1 Gospel Reading: John 4: 5-30, 39-42 CREED “We All Believe in One True God” Hymn 954 THE SERMON – The noon hour in Israel can be a brutal time of day. It’s hot. The Apostle John tells us it was about noon, or what they called the sixth hour, when Jesus sat down by a well in Samaria. Many Biblical events happened around this spot, but John wants you to remember a well Jacob dug. Jacob isn’t often remembered in our weekly readings. He was noted in Genesis for almost superhuman strength. He lifts the stone off the well for his ‘wife to be’ Rachel the first time he sees her. He lifts the standing stone at Bethel, which has been found, and is massive. He wrestles with God Himself. But strength is not the only thing Jacob was known for. He was also a sinner. Jacob deceived his father, Isaac, and engineered the birthright away from his older brother Esau. John wants you to think not of the founder of the Israelite nation, the faithful Abraham, but Jacob, the one who literally wrestles with God. Yet the Lord loves him. This is important. Here is a well dug by Jacob in a land that became Samaria. The Samaritans were a people of mixed ancestry, and because of this, the Jewish people didn’t accept them. Jesus, as you know, once used the example of a good Samaritan to explain to a Jewish man just who his neighbour was. At this noon hour, people would retreat to the thick adobe-like walls of their houses, waiting for the cooler time of day. Jesus was travelling in hostile territory. So, Christ could expect no welcome there. And here comes this woman. For people like us, who can just turn on a faucet, this has no impact. But for the first-century audience of John, who all knew the habits of peasant women in villages throughout the Mediterranean, they would have known immediately what this meant. Women always went together in the morning to get water. It was community time, an occasion when they socialized in an otherwise dreary world. No one got water at noon. It was foolish, way too hot, but here she was. Why? Everyone knew the sorts of women who came out at noon. It was the woman every mother in town warned her sons about. The woman who was the subject of gossip. Who had gone through a series of unsuccessful marriages. And now she was a social outcast. Here, in the middle of the day, she wouldn’t have to endure the stares and whispers behind her back. She was tired of it all, so she came out when she knew no one else would be there. But today, there was someone there. God’s only Son. Jesus asks for a drink. She’s surprised. How can He ask her, a Samaritan, for a drink? Jews don’t even talk to Samaritans. Christ has opened the door, and now He engages her in the real conversation. He has living water, so she would never thirst again. She’s thinking about the liquid kind, but Jesus has something else in mind. At first, she’s skeptical, wary, even a little snarky. She says, you don’t have a bucket, the well is deep. And if you have this “living water,” give me some already, so I don’t have to come out here anymore in this heat to haul it. She’s testing, even challenging Christ, with no idea of what she’s asking for, or who she’s speaking with. And that’s God, in human flesh. He knows her. Unlike the villagers, He doesn’t shun her or call her names. But the response to her attitude, to her sin, is simple. Come back with your husband. In order to give her the living water, Jesus has to break through the unbelief and the attitude. The request touches home. She doesn’t have a husband, and she says so. She’s had five men in her life, and is living with a fellow now, number six, who’s not her husband. The “living” water is not H2O, but the love of God given to a person exposed before His holiness. Someone shown to be broken and sinful, as we all are, and yet loved by Him, despite what she has done. Despite what all of us have done. Jacob, who dug this well, knew God’s love when he wrestled with the Lord many years before. By pointing directly to the darkest corner of her life, Christ is making it possible to give her the ‘living water,’ for it is the full, unmerited forgiveness of sin. As Jesus said in the Gospel of Mark, “Repent and believe in the Good News.” As Lutherans say, Law and Gospel. She sets her water jars down and races back to the village. She forgets herself, her place in the village, and the need for physical water. She tells the neighbours: “This man has told me everything I’ve done.” We can only imagine what went through the minds of people who heard her say that: “Everything she’s done?” This, we’ve got to hear. The poor, despised woman was the closest thing they had to a gossip magazine in that town. And so, they all came out. Meanwhile, the disciples return and offer Jesus some of the food they went to buy, but He’s no longer hungry. He’s been eating and drinking the very bread and drink of Heaven. He’s spreading the Gospel He came to share. The true life-giving water. It’s the reason He came to earth, to save sinners. The disciples wonder why He’s talking to a Samaritan, and a woman no less, yet they don’t ask why. But we need to. Soon, the villagers start showing up. John doesn’t have to record that exchange; it’s the discussion that happens whenever the Gospel comes to the lives of broken people. John only tells us what happens next. The woman's word has been confirmed. They’ve seen it for themselves, and they ask Jesus to stay and tell them more. Can you imagine people begging you to hear about Christ? And it’s the very gossipers who drove our Samaritan woman out to the well in the heat of the day who now accept the Word of God and Christ as their Saviour. Now they’re all there, sitting and listening to Jesus. Miraculous. Lift up your eyes, Christ says to us. The fields are ripe; the harvest is waiting. God has ploughed, and weeded, and prepared a crop through the work of His Law. People hide in shame, they have compromised lives, and they’re aware of it. They wait and long for someone who can say to them: God already knows this, and offers forgiveness through Christ. Repent, and believe the Gospel. Jesus knew all about the moral failings of this woman. He replied only with a brief request. He didn’t try to make her feel bad, to make her feel like dirt. And this is because, as with other sinners, Christ loves her and will go to the cross to save her. She already knew she had a problem. She knew the hard truth of her life, but now she encounters the greater Truth, the One who is the very Water of Eternal Life, her Saviour. Jesus has chosen the least likely candidate to be His instrument of salvation in this town. If people in our town were to change things, they might go to the city council, or the richest or most powerful person. Jesus starts with the outcast, the woman who is the example of what not to do. Yet despite her, He works an even more profound change than all the power and wealth could have ever done. This is the kingdom of God at work. Some people feel that because they’re not perfect, they can’t be a Christian witness. But neither this woman, nor the Apostles, nor any human being, is perfect. Fortunately, God doesn’t deal with us as we deserve, but as He loves. And Jesus doesn’t wait for us to get it right before He loves us, or before He asks us to serve Him and spread His Good News. As forgiven sinners, we are the perfect ambassadors of God. Because it’s all about Him. It’s all about Jesus, and His righteousness. May we receive the Good News of that forgiveness. And may it embolden us, like the Samaritan woman, to go and tell. Amen. PRAYERS OF THE CHURCH Page 215-216 SERVICE OF THE SACRAMENT Page 216 THE LORD’S PRAYER Page 217 THE WORDS OF OUR LORD Page 217 THE PAX DOMINI Page 217 Agnus Dei (The Lamb of God) Page 198 THE DISTRIBUTION Post-Communion Hymn 938 “In Peace and Joy I Now Depart” Post Communion Collect (Left-hand Column) Page 218 Benedicamus and Benediction Page 218 CLOSING HYMN: 543 “What Wondrous Love Is This”