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The encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman begins with the real experience of human weakness: Jesus is tired, hungry and thirsty. Why was Jesus sitting at the well when the woman came? Because he was “tired from his journey.” And why was he by himself? “His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.” And when the Samaritan woman came, what was the first thing Jesus said? “Give me a drink.” Jesus is tired, hungry and thirsty.

His weariness already points us forward to his Passion. He chose to embrace the human condition with all the suffering that it entails, even in the simple ways, such as being tired from a journey and needing to sit down.

We find out later in the passage, though, that he was hungering for something more than ordinary food. When his disciples came back, they urged him, “Rabbi, eat.” He said in response, “I have food to eat of which you do not know ... My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here?’ I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest.” If the disciples then looked up, they would see the great crowd of Samaritans from that town coming to Jesus because of the woman’s testimony. Jesus’ food is to do the Father’s will, and that is to save souls. The harvest is ready to be gathered, and it is not the food the disciples bought in town. It is the crowd of people the Samaritan woman is bringing to him.

As for Jesus’ thirst, this too relates to his Passion and to his desire to save souls. From the cross, he said, “I thirst” (Jn 19:28). His conversation with the Samaritan woman began with his asking her for a drink. Did he ever receive it? His thirst was not primarily for water from that well; it was for the woman’s faith. Pope Benedict XVI said, “Christ’s thirst is an entranceway to the mystery of God, who became thirsty to satisfy our thirst, just as he became poor to make us rich (2 Cor 8:9). Yes, God thirsts for our faith and our love” (Angelus Address, Feb. 24, 2008).

All these signs of weakness — weariness, hunger, thirst — were embraced by Christ precisely as an expression of his desire to save us. St. Augustine was fascinated by this: the Son of God became weak so that he could make us strong. As true God he is strong; he is the Word through whom all things were made. And by becoming true man, he became weak. “The strength of Christ created you; the weakness of Christ created you anew. The strength of Christ brought into being what was not; the weakness of Christ saw to it that what was created would not perish. He fashioned us by his strength; he sought us out by his weakness.”

He thirsts for souls: for our faith, for our love. His thirst, his desire, is to give us an incredible gift: “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.”

We thirst, too. The Samaritan woman came to the well day after day because of thirst. But her thirst was not only for water. “You have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.” Her romantic history suggests that she has been chasing after love and not finding it — always dissatisfied and perhaps resigned to the fact that she will be dissatisfied forever. There is a thirst that will never be quenched and can never be quenched, so she believes. Until she meets Jesus, who says, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

His great thirst is to bestow this gift, if only we would realize that our deepest thirst can only be satisfied by him.