The Gospel of the Forty Days: Baptism, Part 4         In this fourth article on Christ’s command to baptize given to the Apostles during the forty days between His Resurrection and Ascension, we discuss the second effect and purpose of Christian Baptism: sonship, adoption, becoming a child of God. (The first being incorporation into Christ, discussed in the prior article.) How might Jesus have taught about this during those forty days?       Probably as St. John speaks of it: “To all who received Him, who believed in His Name, He gave power to become children of God; who were born ... of God” (Jn 1:11-12).       But how is one born of God? That was the question Nicodemus raised, and Jesus replied: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (Jn 3:5). “Water and the Spirit” is an obvious reference to the baptism that Jesus would institute. To the woman at...

Living Water        This Sunday is the Third Sunday of Lent, and our Gospel reading is John 4:5-42: the encounter of the Samaritan woman with Jesus at the well. But it is not just this one woman Jesus reaches – as important as that is. The whole town of Sychar is reached, the 12 disciples are taught, and we readers and hearers of the story also are encountered by Jesus.       The brief version of what happened is this: the woman comes to the well to draw water around Noon. Jesus is alone, sitting by the well, and asks her for a drink. As Jews normally would not speak with Samaritans, nor men with women in public like this, the woman says, How can you ask? Jesus answers, "If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water." Jesus' "living water" is certainly more than the H 2 O the woman came for. And so the conversation about water becomes about ete...