ENCOUNTER

Third Sunday in Lent

Introduction;

Good morning every one. As I welcome you all to celebrate Jesus today, I thank you for coming out to join our St. Patrick’s faith family to show your support and love. Because of your presence, our Kinmount community experiences Christ’s love and kindness.

We often hear and read from the Bible that God hears the cry of the poor. And today’s gospel is all about how Jesus the incarnation word hears the cry of the people who are away from the love and kindness of God.

There is a real story about John Newton who lived in seventeenth century in England. He was a tough man who wanted to accomplish every thing in his lifetime. He made a lot of money by buying people from Africa and selling them to different countries as slaves. Once as he was returning from Africa about thousand slaves, he faced with a huge cyclone. The ship in which he was bringing people was almost going to sink. John Newton never believed in God or practiced his faith for the first time, knelt before God and prayed saying, “ God… I never respected your creatures. I humiliated and treated them bad. I sell people from one country to another as slaves please forgive me. I will never do anything against your will. Please do with me as you please”. Right after his prayers there happened a miracle. Yes, the cyclone stopped and there came a deep calm. He could hear from Christ, ‘Do not be afraid. I will give you life-giving water”.

John Newton changed his life, he became a famous Anglican minister and He is the one who wrote the famous hymn which is being sung ten million times every year. The famous hymn is… “Amazing grace… how sweet the sound…”

Gospels are full of spiritual encounters. Every time people came to Christ with their physical and psychological needs, Jesus with love and kindness healed them. He gave them all everlasting life. Even He asked some of the people who got healed not to say anything to anyone but they went everywhere and spread the good news.

In today’s gospel we see a beautiful encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman who never experienced God’s love and kindness. When Jesus asked her for drink, she refused saying, “we are different from each other. I am a Samaritan woman and you are a Jewish man. You should not ask me for anything”. There we can see the loneliness and the longing of the woman for love and kindness. And our Lord says I am here to bring you into the fold and I will give you life-giving water. Yes, Jesus is our life-giving water. When we are with Him, we will never be thirsty of anything. We will be completed and full.

The question today is, are we ready to encounter Christ in our daily life? Christ is waiting at our well of life. He is waiting for us to give us life and salvation. He is waiting for us to open a new way to Jerusalem. Let us go to him and we will be satisfied.

This season of lent invites us to encounter Christ who we are. We do not need to change but when we are willing to come to Him, the change will happen in us automatically. There are people pushing themselves more and more spending time in prayers but they do not see any change in themselves because spiritual growth is not about how much time we spend in prayers and it is all about how we spend. Let us open our hearts willingly and there we will see a big change and a beautiful encounter with Christ our Lord. Amen.