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You can find the complete ENCOUNTERING GRACE resource for Lent 2026 here.
Reflections for Saturdays in Lent
Saturday 21st February
Saturday 28th February
Saturday 7th March
Saturday 14th March
Saturday 21st March
Saturday 27th March
Encountering Outsiders
Take five deep breaths and check-in with how you are feeling in body, mind and spirit. Take five more deep breaths and ask God to abide with you this Lent, and especially in this time today you have set aside for devotions.
In John 10, as Jesus speaks about the flock that belongs to God and those who will yet be gathered in, he declares, “I am the gate for the sheep.” Sit gently with this idea for a few moments. And then give thanks repeating quietly, “You watch over my going out and my coming in”.
On Saturdays, we linger in the noon day heat at the well in John 4.
So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’
The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’
Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’
The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’
Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’
The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’
The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’
Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’
The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’
Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’ Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’
Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him.
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’
But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’
Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’
Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’
- Remember that this meeting happens in the full light of midday in the middle east of the first century. Imagine the sun overhead, the weight of the water jar, the sound of water in the stone well, and the dry air on your skin.
- What is Jesus inviting this unnamed woman to understand?
- What images that the woman is familiar with does Jesus draw on to help her think afresh?
- What emotions is the woman struggling with when she says, ‘I have no husband?’ How does she navigate the gap between her theology and her daily life? How do you?
- Which verses in this reading are familiar to you? How far do they keep their meaning reading them in the context of this conversation?
- This Lent, as we take the pilgrimage road towards Easter, how much do you feel at the centre of things and how much do you feel on the margins?
You might like to say the Lord’s Prayer and use this collect:
Lord of the wellspring, source of life and truth: Jesus asked for water from the hands of a woman in the land of the stranger; may he teach us to name our need, to love our neighbour and to worship you in spirit and in truth, through Jesus Christ, who shows us who we are. Amen
Wait in stillness, recalling
I am the gate for the sheep
And then give thanks repeating quietly
“You watch over my going out and my coming in”.
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