St. John’s Lutheran Church
Albany, New York
8 March 2026 + The Third Sunday in Lent
John 4:5-42; Exodus 17:1-7
The Rev. Josh Evans

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No one could have imagined:
back when they were getting ready to leave Egypt,
hurriedly cooking, eating,
packing up what little they had and could carry with them;
on the bank of the Red Sea,
the excitement swelling up inside of them;
on the other side of the sea,
having just watched their pursuers drowned,
themselves no longer slaves:
freedom,
a moment of celebration,
and a future filled with hope and possibility.

No one could have imagined:
the wilderness, the desert, the drought;
the physical and emotional exhaustion, the hunger, the thirst;
the uncertainty, the panic, the quarreling:
“Why did you bring us out of Egypt,
to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”
(We would have been better off in Egypt!)

No one could have imagined
a future so grim and so bleak
when it had once looked so hopeful,
once so full of promise and freedom and celebration.
Now what?
“Is the Lord among us or not?”

Then, out of nowhere, a miracle:
Water!
(From a rock!?)
God’s deliverance (again).
When all had seemed lost and hopeless,
God was surely among them,
hearing their cries,
knowing their pain,
just as God had done all along:
long before the Red Sea,
before the plagues,
before the burning bush,
before Moses.

***

She never could have imagined:
back on her first wedding day,
the excitement, the nervousness.

She never could have imagined:
the second,
the third,
the fourth,
the fifth –
as many husbands as there are possible reasons
for her complex marital history.
Women – girls – were, after all, mere property,
married off by their families for economic benefit,
with little to no say in the matter,
victims of a system that wasn’t designed for them,
traded and tossed about,
or perhaps the recipient of an unfortunate series of tragedies –
illness, injury, or war –
leaving her widowed,
with little to no recourse.

She never could have imagined
her life would turn out this way
(or maybe this is exactly how she imagined it
in a system that wasn’t designed for her).

She never could have imagined:
going out to get water from Jacob’s well,
under the unbearable, scorching heat of the noon hour,
when no one else would be around,
when she wouldn’t have to face them,
to see the way they looked at her,
the way they would turn to each other
and whisper and point and laugh.

She certainly never could have imagined
seeing anyone else at the well,
let alone a Jew.
Now he’s asking me (a Samaritan!) for a drink?
(But we don’t do that! It’s downright scandalous!)
She never could have imagined
there would even be a possibility of this “living water” –
she would never have to come out to the well again!

She never could have imagined
being so vulnerable with a stranger –
a foreigner, of all people –
of talking with someone about her life so openly,
out of fear of judgment and shaming.
She never could have imagined
that the person she was talking to was the Messiah.
She never could have imagined
being heard without judgment,
being seen for who she was –
by the Messiah! –
being the one to bring back good news to her people,
being the reason that many of her fellow Samaritans believed
because of her testimony –
an outsider, the first evangelist,
an outsider, the first to preach the gospel,
“Photine,” as Eastern Orthodox tradition names her –
“the illuminated one” –
who, in some traditions, tells not only her neighbors,
but even the emperor in Rome,
where tradition says she died as a martyr for the faith.

***

Maybe we feel like the Israelites:
lost in the wilderness,
seemingly abandoned,
fearful of what’s happening,
anxious of what’s to come.

Or maybe we feel like Photine:
isolated and judged,
perceived as less than,
whatever the reason.

Maybe the Israelites’ cry is Photine’s cry too:
“Is the Lord among us or not?”
Maybe it’s our cry.

“Is the Lord among us or not?”
we cry, as ICE continues to terrorize and disappear our neighbors,
as close as Sand Creek and Osborne Roads,
as the notification on my phone alerted me just a few weeks ago.

“Is the Lord among us or not?”
we cry, when over 100 innocent civilians,
among them dozens of young girls,
are killed in a strike on an elementary school in southern Iran,
in yet another war of our own making.

“Is the Lord among us or not?”
we cry, when the tragedies hit closer to home,
in more personal ways –
receiving the diagnosis,
or watching the slow decline or death of a loved one.

***

In our cries,
hear these stories of our faith:
In the wilderness,
God provides life-saving water from the rock.
At an ordinary well,
Jesus offers living water,
a source of connection and relationship with God
that can never be cut off.

Here in this community,
we return again and again
to hear the good news that God loves us,
to take our place around Christ’s table,
nourished and strengthened by these words of grace:
for you.

For you who doubt,
for you who are afraid,
for you who feel alone,
for you who are angry,
for you who cry out:
God is among you.

In our cries,
hear these stories of our faith,
and take heart:
God is among us.