Food for Thought

Meanwhile His disciples urged Him,  “Rabbi, eat something.”

But He said to them,  “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

the His disciples said to each other,  “Could someone have brought Him food?”  John 4:31-33

Jesus probably sat there bemused and happily content.  I think the Savior of the world found delight in rescuing people from their darkness and pain which gave Him joy.  So much joy that He lost all need for food or water, a fact that disconcerted the disciples.  These poor guys were very much like the rest of us so tied to the physical realities we know that spiritual perspectives lose something in translation.  Jesus told them His food was to do the will of His Father who sent Him.  They couldn’t grapple, as many of us still struggle to do, with the spiritual completely cancelling out the need for the physical at times. 

Their very question “Could someone have brought Him food?”  showed how little regard they had for the woman at the well.  Being good Jews and Jesus being a Rabbi, they didn’t even consider she might have given Him something to eat, so they dismissed her out of hand.  Think about that for a minute:  They were so steeped and blinded by their own religious perspective they couldn’t even consider anything else.  Samaritans were declared unclean by Rabbinical authority, in their minds Jesus wouldn’t have accepted even a drink of water from her had she offered it for fear of becoming spiritually unclean.  Had they witnessed the conversation they would have been astounded and horrified.

When I see Jesus do this kind of thing in the gospel story, it serves as a warning to me that may be our preconceived perceptions of godliness or what God will or won’t do are skewed quite a bit.  For instance I can remember a time when it was almost unethical in American churches for a minister to wear a beard (late 1960s)–not quite a sin but certainly unacceptable.  Why?  What spiritual or Biblical authority gave people the right to claim such an ethic existed much less practice it?  Nothing in Scripture would have supported such a practice, rather nearly every Biblical male wore a beard as did Jesus so this concept was purely man made.  Yet what other programs, traditions and practices do we adhere to without Scripture to back them up?  I’m not saying customs are wrong or unholy, merely placing any spiritual value on them is not about righteousness in God’s eyes.

It’s something we need to be beware of certainly, and avoid as much as possible.

Jesus didn’t say He never needed to eat physical food again merely that at that moment He was sustained by the nourishment of joy.  He looked at the world differently; His view of the world kept spirituality in mind at all times and He instructed us to do the same.  His reference to the “harvest” looked at the town as a field of souls who needed to find life in a different better way.  His means of doing this came through a rejected, dejected and utterly useless soul to anyone else but the God of miracles and One who “called the things that aren’t as though they already were.”  He saw potential in this woman’s testimony and used it to save a whole town of people.

In keeping with His nature, Jesus remained there two days and loved on them.  The results were that those who believed told the woman who brought the news, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”  Jesus met people where they were and saved them from themselves and all their past bad choices.

This is the Savior, friend, Messiah, God and Master I choose to serve.  I love this man deeply and am loyal to a fault.  I fail Him regularly but I know His grace and mercy covers my failures and gives me hope that someday I will not fail Him anymore.  Someday I will only bring joy to His heart and will show Him how important He is to me by bringing others who need Him to a knowledge of who He is and can be for their lives.  Because of one lost, lonely woman a whole town was brought to light.  If this is what the God of heaven can do for them with a small seemingly insignificant person, what can He do with one of us?

Jesus Vs Protocol

Just then His disciples returned and were surprised to find Him talking with a woman.  But no one asked,  “What do you want?”  or  “Why are you talking with her?”  John 4:28.

 Have you ever noticed those established in any form of belief system or organization get kind of cocky about who can join and who can’t?  The disciples were outed by John A quite nicely here.  He showed their prejudices and exclusivism without shying away from them.

It’s one of the big ways God wants to change our hearts, I believe, because He’s not that way nor does He desire followers who behave in such a fashion.  We are not the privileged children of a wealthy person lording over everyone else and sharing it with those whom we like, but the children of an incredibly generous God who owns it all because He made it and wants to restore a relationship with His creation.

Those of you who have children will get this better than those who don’t.  The inherent love we have for our offspring is basic to our nature, which is why someone abusing or using their children is so odd, surprising and offensive to most of us.  God made every possibility which exists in our dimension and probably infinite dimensions outside of us, and like a good father He loves everything and everyone He created.  He craves reconciliation because it’s foreign to Him to be at odds with His creation.  He designed us to live in harmony so much so that it creates a hole in His heart when we live outside this design.

The disciples looked with disapproval on the woman, immediately knowing her past instinctively by the time of day she arrived at the well and judging her because of her race—or lack thereof.  In their small minds, educated as they were by elitist thinkers of the day, she wasn’t good enough or of the right nationality to enjoy Jesus.  It must have torqued their crank to no end to come back to Jesus only to find Him breaking three taboos in one blow.

We do it too.  Watch how you and I react to young believers or outsiders who don’t agree with our particular brand of Christian thought.  You’ll see the same trait everywhere we look because the nature of humanity hasn’t changed for all it’s “progress” in the last two thousand years.  The established norms of who is in and who is out haven’t changed all that much really, they’ve just adjusted sides today as to who is in or out.

These men wanted so badly to rebuke Jesus in one way, at the same time they believed Him to be God’s Son, so they were faced with a dilemma:  If He’s really God’s Messiah, then He can do no wrong and what He’s doing right now is part of the mission.  Distasteful, yes, but necessary.  They had a choice to make here to accept His authority or lose Him.

The same choice is set before us as well.  Will we buy into merely the forms of religious observance surrounding the Christian ethic or will we surrender ourselves to the mission of God through His Son, Jesus Christ?

Do you know a Samaritan woman or man?  We meet these kind of people everyday.  We must be healed of our jaundiced view of the world so we desperately need the eye salve Jesus promised His children (see Revelation 3:18).  Our vision must be cleared of humanism and earthly priorities in order that we might truly recognize the world, for every person alive is worth the life of God.

Now chew on this thought for a while and see with new eyes.

Living Water

The woman said to Him,  “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thristy and have to keep coming here to draw water.  John 4:1-26

She wanted the water that makes you never thirst again.

She wanted desparately to never have to come alone to this well again.

She wanted to come back into society without a stain on her character or a noticeable scar on her soul.

She ached for a time when she could look people directly in the eyes without trying to look defiant.

I suspect this woman’s detailed history is left in the dark because it isn’t important how she got where she was only that she turned away from her hellbent direction and fixed her eyes on the light.  Our pasts matter to Jesus less than we think.

O, I know psychology wants to parade it as the whole of our reason for wallowing in our current state–and sometimes we might even get better.  But to Jesus the past just didn’t count once a person left it behind.  I am not saying that our pasts won’t affect our future even in our present saved condition.  On the contrary, I believe many of our habits will haunt us until Jesus comes again–this educates us to the insidiousness of sin, the disgusting nature of it and the tenacity with which evil clouds our judgment.  None of this matters to the child of God who allows themselves to be immersed in the mind of Christ.  We never have to focus to intently on our faults nor rail against those who wronged or hurt us because our inside world dynamic changes with Christ in control.

It’s our pride which whispers to us that we are unable to find redemption, that somehow our sin is greater than God’s forgiveness, that we are too wicked or evil to be changed.  Nothing we have ever done or could ever do is greater than God’s ability to redeem a soul who is willing.  If we crave His forgiveness, grace, mercy, love and a change of character, He is willing and able to give it to us.  The only blockade standing in His way is our refusal to let Him.  To make our sin greater than God is to make our sin god; to make ourselves irredemable is to make Him out to be less than the Almighty Savior; to make us out to be beyond His grace somehow makes His grace unavailable to us only because we choose it over Him, not the other way around.

Again, our past, present and future sin is not important for these things He has the power to change.

Jesus revealed her past only to show her His power to know her heart and, get this, I’m sure it dawned on her that if He knew her sin, He also knew her pain—how she got started on this demolition race in the first place.  I don’t believe it was by accident Jesus came to Jacob’s well at midday, nor do I think it coincidental He spoke to her first out of all the villagers.  He chose her because she needed Him the most, and, if she could change, the miracle would be like a ripple effect throughout the country.

But besides that, Jesus just loved this gal.  He loved her so much that He came specifically to rescue her from her crazy, out of control lifestyle.  He wanted her to know life to the full.

“Those who have been forgiven much love much.”

In the world’s POV she already had a full life.  In heaven’s view we are all destitute and wanting.

But she’s not done trying to argue and divert Jesus from the point because she doesn’t yet know His heart for her.  So she said, “Sir, I can see that You are prophet. our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

O, clever, clever!  She didn’t want to talk about her problems with some stranger she’d just met so she brought up the oldest and most divisive subject she could muster.  A smile must have played on her lips behind the veil–if she even wore one.  No Jew could have resisted this bait, but she didn’t know whom she dealt with and this was not just any Jew, this was Jesus.

Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in spirit and truth.”

Woe!  Wait just one doggone minute!  No one, especially a Jewish rabbi, had ever talked like this!  Did you catch it too?  He said the temple and buildings man makes were of no consequence to true worship.  He made several points in fact:  1)Salvation is from the Jews–ie Jesus being the Messiah.  2) God only wants us to worship in spirit and truth.  3) God is spirit, the intangible, antithesis of physical matter (at least in our view).  4) The Samaritans worshiped something and someone they had no authority to worship.  Not that they didn’t have a right but they were going off on a tangent other than the one God ordained.  Jesus made it final and without equivocation that salvation and the worship of God comes from the Jews.

Number 4 eliminates all other ways to God as main veins of thought.  Men might be led to God through them and then to Christ in the end, but nothing matches the teachings about God which come from the Hebrew nation.  Jesus made it solid rock truth.  The “I’m okay, you’re okay” approach to God isn’t from God but is a confusion sent to muddle the stew.  This is the view of Judeo/Christian ethic.  It is exclusively one sided and looks at God one way.  If we accept Jesus as Messiah, God, Savior and Teacher, we must accept what He says as bedrock to our lives and nothing short of complete truth.

God wants us to let go our tendancy for images and tangible objective worship and love.  Jesus spoke God’s heart on the matter:  The Father longs for those who will worship Him for who He is not who they wish Him to be!

The woman is so impressed (I take this view from her reply) she makes a question into a statement, “I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming.  When He come, He will explain everything to us.”

O, clever woman!  You did what no man to date had ever done on record, you asked Jesus to state His mission and who He was.  In a small country rumors fly around fairly fast, so I’m sure she heard rumors of a teacher out of Galilee or some such thing.  John B’s testimony would have caused a whirlwind of discussion and rumors.  This woman wanted to know.  She hoped Jesus was the one–could it be?  She felt her heart beat faster and must have drawn a sharp breath as she said this. 

How do I know?

I don’t.  But knowing the facts after what Jesus said next, I can deduce the truth.

For the first time in His ministry, and to a gentile foreigner half-breed, adulterous, outcast woman, Jesus confessed, “I who speak to you am He.”

Lightening struck.  Of course!  She stood there stunned and completely unaware of the disciples just coming back from her home town after buying food.  In fact, she was so excited, stunned and completely transported to another realm of being entirely, she forgot herself and the looks of the disciple concerning her sex, time of day she came to the well, and her nationality, none of it affected her at all.

Leaving her water jar she raced back to town to spread the good news.

The disciples didn’t get to hear the dialogue because John A claims they were unaware of the transaction which had taken place.  So they must have just come back after Jesus’ announcement to her because John A says,  Just then the disciples returned and were surprised to find Him talking with a woman.  But no one asked,  “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

These men didn’t understand Jesus’ mission at all.  Oh, I’m sure they thought they did, but while they were jockeying for first and second position in the kingdom, a little sinner who wouldn’t have been able to hold her head up in their company from the weight of their scorn learned the truth of Jesus and believed.  Because of her a whole town was changed and made better.  I get a picture of everywhere Jesus walking flowers bloom out of season, trees bend to touch Him, the grass bends to soften his footsteps while birds and animals all over dart back and forth around Him in a celebration of their King.

He took this wilted flower of a woman and made her bloom again.

And, doggone it, He never did get that drink…

Breaking Taboos

Now He had to go through Samaria.  So He came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.  Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as He was from the journey, sat down by the well.  It was about the sixth hour.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water…  John 4:1-26

(I wrote a devotional on this chapter once before, which you can read here.)

I’ve heard and read many reasons for Jesus avoiding the Pharisees early in His ministry.  The explanation which makes the most sense was He needed to avoid the leaders for a time to build up the ministry itself so that when He began to confront them, His body of work would speak for itself and they would have to search for reasons to hate Him, which they did.  Jesus knew the need for restraint and timing.  If He peaked too soon, He wouldn’t accomplish the things we read about, the leaders could write Him off as a flash in the pan, and the crucifixion story might have happened another way.

Jesus understood timing and waited on God’s will to fulfill all righteousness.  The OT were, in many ways, written down for sole purpose of guiding Jesus while He lived on earth.  In other words, Jesus inspired the prophets and writers to record stories and predictions which would lead Him through His earthly mission.  I think this is one of the reasons why we don’t get it at times.  The language God set in a code His Son could understand—and we can too if we conform to the mind of Christ—in order that He could fulfill all righteousness.

So He’s sat a Jacob’s well in Samaria (a point in itself which irritated a good Jew because Jacob was their ancestor not these half-breed heathen Gentile-Jew wannabes) while the disciples went for food.  Traveling by foot everywhere is tiring work and probably built up a good thirst in everyone.  It should have been about mid-day so the sun would have been beating down on them pretty hard.

Women went to the well in the early morning or late afternoon or early evening to get water.  Only those who were outcasts from proper society came at odd hours to avoid the sniping comments or resentful looks of the “upright” citizens.  I don’t know what Jesus did between her arrival and the time He spoke to her, but I can guess He watched her sereptitously, observing her face, praying about what to say and how to begin the conversation.  I doubt He knew exactly what to do at first–unless His prayer time the night before revealed this situation–because He subjected His Godhood to human form and limitations.  His only source for knowing what needed to be said or done was His Father directing Him.  (Later we’ll learn why this is true because John A specifically addresses it.)

“Will you give me a drink?” Jesus asked the woman.  No preamble, no greeting and nothing to set the situation up.

Surprised He had spoken, she thought somehow this must be a trap to humiliate her or something.  Have you ever noticed that the outcasts of society always look for an offense from others?  In this instance she was correct in being suspicious because this Jew came from a line of people who had ostracized her people for centuries and fought wars with them.  Jews spit on the ground when a Samaritan passed by.  Jews hated Samaritans using any and every situation to humiliate them.  So this Jewish Rabbi (one could tell by the prayer shawl a rabbi wore) had to be setting her up.  So she answered in the only way possible as if His asking were a test, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman.  How can you ask me for a drink?”  A woman alone out near the town well meant she was open to being abused verbally or worse by anyone.  A man being at the well at midday probably scared her too because she would be extremely vulnerable.

Notice she put both gias into the prohibition for them to dialogue at all.  Traditionally, in a Jew’s view, anything she drew out would have been spiritually unclean, therefore undrinkable anyway.  So she reminded Him of this and probably tried to turn away.  I need to point out something here again:  She came in the middle of the day.  Jesus and any good man would know why–O, may be not the specifics but they would guess her reasons were pretty much centered around some kind of social ill and probably sexual in nature.  Anyone want to bet that her heart sank when Jesus spoke to her?  She knew He probably had put two and two together to come up with four and intended on putting the two of them together where no one would notice.

Jesus spoke again,blowing her efforts to dismiss the conversation. “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.”

She siezed on the opportunity to distract Him with a religious argument.  Notice in the dialogue she actually needles Jesus a bit with a disputed heritage:

“Sir,” the woman said, “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep.  Where can you get this living water?  Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?” 

She had Him up against the ropes!  No good Jew would let this pass.  She had called Jacob the father of the Samaritans and suggested they owned it by right of heritage.  Then she also had the audacity to refuse His request by asking Him a question about whether He could miraculously draw out the water He suggested from the well without her having anything to do it with.  This indicates there was no rope or bucket for public convenience but each brought their own. Jesus was at her mercy in a small thirsty way.  A woman had to work with anything to gain the upper hand where men were concerned.  She was an adulteress, most likely, or she wouldn’t be an outcast.  She probably also tended to flirt with men–and I wouldn’t doubt she was baiting Jesus a bit right now with banter in either hopes He would be distracted enough not to rape her, to goad Him into sex or something else.  Women who live with the sex banter of men learn to flirt as a method of defense sometimes until they can get away from them.

Jesus took the bait in the oddest way,  “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thrist.  Indeed the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

No sexual overtones here.  Jesus spoke as one teaching in the synagogue.  He made no referrence to her at all but spoke in the religious language of the day to direct her to what He wanted to say.  In fact, He offered her something without insisting on anything in return.

Intrigued, she asked (may be half sincerely by now), “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Bonhoffer suggest Jesus might have looked like humanity, but the moment He opened His mouth He revealed His divinity in a small measure.  I think the light was beginning to dawn on her that this man was seriously offering something good, pure and wholesome.  Her abused psyche didn’t know how to handle it but she ached for a time when she wouldn’t have to live with her disgrace and never have to show her status by coming here during the middle of the day again.

Then Jesus asked her to go do something she absolutely couldn’t provide. “Go, call your husband and come back.”  He told her.  It was improper in their culture for man to speak to another man’s woman alone.  Her heart sank. This rabbi guessed her secret and wanted to humiliate her this way instead of the obvious.  Hope washed away in dispair and she must have hesitated before answering, “I….I have no husband.”  Whether she felt shame or not is not recorded but her words show she was caught out and didn’t know what to do, though she didn’t give away the whole truth.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say have no husband.  The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.  What you have just said is quite true.”  Six men!  In that society she must have been desired by other men but a threat to women.  Jesus lays the truth out on the line.  She knows He doesn’t know her but here He is just quoting her history like He’s been around the region for years.  Her mind reels and she desparately tries to redirect Him to an argument, anything just to get Him off the subject of her public shame.  She tries flattery, every man loves flattery.

“Sir,” the woman said,  ”I can see that you are a prophet.  Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

Whew!  He won’t like that one, she must have thought.

Jesus grew amused and probably full of compassion at her futile attempt to escape His love and forgiveness.  She didn’t know that was His intention, but like a good fisherman He reeled her in and played the line out to allow her time to fight for herself, yet also to grab her interest all the more.

Do you see the method Jesus uses here to reach the hardened heart?  This woman, by our standards, was unreachable yet our Master reeled her in without firing a shot.  Sure, He scared the wits out of her by revealing her secret, but they were alone, since the disciples had conveniently gone away to buy food, something I don’t think was an accident either.  Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost.  Those who thought of themselves as righteous refused His efforts because they felt no need of His salvation.  This woman and others like her, however, longed for Him to save them.

The sheer wisdom in His method of reaching into this hardened heart should educate us in our own efforts.  Jesus could have debated theology, lineage and bunch of other issues which have continued to be problems to modern times, but He didn’t.  Instead He led her to a place where He could fill her life with forgiveness, joy and a sense of well-being.  For someone tired, hungry and thirsty from a hard day of travelling, He sure acted funny.

Trumping the Opposition

The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples then John, although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but His disciples.  When the Lord learned of this, He left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.  John 4:1-3.

I never really paid attention to this introduction to the meeting with the Samaritan woman.  I’m pretty certain it has to do with getting on with the main story rather than losing myself in the details, but I’m learning to recognize even the most inocuous entries as significant when dealing with Scripture.

I can’t tell you from the text exactly why Jesus reacted like He did to the Pharisees, but I can guess from what I know of them and their later attitudes toward Him.  For one thing, they were zealous for their brand of the Jewish religion, pretty much to the exclusion of all others.  Many of them had accepted John’s mission, I think because it harmonized with their own guilt based perspective to a degree, so the ones who hadn’t bought into it probably were on the look out for anyone who might start “sheep stealing” again.

Yet from the text we can glean some important clues as to why Jesus avoided the Pharisees.

First, the fact that this sect even noticed Jesus’ ministry enough for it to get back to Him as a report is a point to consider.  They must have been discussing it, for what other reason would it be a public gossip?  So their very interest showed their worry.  Also, knowing the rumor mill like I do, for the common people or anyone to learn of another person’s or group’s opinion means it had to have been some what of a public debate, which means someone brought the issue to Synagogue.

Second, John A goes out of his way to mention Jesus’ gain on John B.  The numbers of converts to Jesus’ way versus John B’s lets us know that the problem the Pharisees were troubled by was the numbers being added to Jesus’ following.  This sounds to me like they were worried enough to begin confronting the issue head on.  The Pharisees were an aggressive bunch of people, going out of their way to win converts and make sure eveyone knew just how studiously dedicated they were to the Law of Moses and God.

John A mentions another factoid we might want to ponder as well.  Jesus didn’t baptize anyone with water at all.  John make it quite clear who did the baptizing and this is a point where we want to sit for a minute to see the reason.  If Jesus had baptized a few people or even many, those baptized by Him would have thought themselves superior to those baptized by the disciples.  Paul troubleshoots this problem in 1 Corinthians 3 siting the divisive nature of such an attitude and by dent of his need to argue the point demonstrates the reality of it.  Jockying for position, arguing over who is more holy, quarreling about which apostle held the highest seat in Christ’s government, all these questions are nonsense to those in Christ.  No one gains lordship in the church unless given the gift of such, which means he or she becomes a bondslave to Christ and serves the Body of Christ in that role.

Jesus didn’t baptize because He knew our nature and tendancy to beat each other up over who’s first in the kingdom.  I’m pretty sure this is why God chose the rule of the least being the greatest, the last being first, etc., because He knew the nature of sin made us think of ourselves as little godlings and fight for supremacy.  So He directed the apostles to do the work even while He lived on earth to ensure no one would misunderstand or pervert the message.

Jesus avoided the confontation with the Pharisees because it would serve no purpose at that time.  He hadn’t begun the work of miracles on a large scale as yet according to John A nor had He been teaching much of anything but “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near!” in this beginning phase.  The time would come, which John A later records, when Jesus would confront them head on, but He wasn’t ready as yet.

We can learn a lesson from Christ’s example (easy assumption, huh) about timing our work, troubleshooting problems and dealing with business for the church.  The old saying “Timing is everything” is accurate here as well as elsewhere.  Jesus stepped out of that time table He worked out with His Father only once and that was at the request of His mother.  Other than this one incident, He stuck to His own sense of propriety and timing without wavering and no one could push Him rush ahead of the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

I can’t judge God’s timing better than others but I know there is one.  I also recognize that saying “yes” every time God calls us to serve no matter how small the service, is an opportunity to follow our Master and probably leads us to the big “yes” where He uses our talents in much larger context.  The principle of Christ’s education for us always begins with “he who is faithful in little will be faithful in much” because trust is earned.  Every time God puts someone in our path to serve we are to say “yes” and give of our abilities with a whole heart.

At the same time there is a season for our service within a certain context.  For example, I have a five year old son, touring as a musician full time right now would leave him without a father quite a bit so I am prioritizing his wellbeing while continuing to use my musical gifts in the local church.  If the opportunity presents itself later once he’s older, I’ll tour and serve the Lord in a larger capacity through that gifting.  In the meantime, my son’s growth and discipleship in the Lord Jesus is of far greater concern to our Master than my reaching thousand of people through song.

My time to do the other just hasn’t come as yet.

Do you see the significance of waiting on the Lord and serving in the capacity or place you are in at the moment?  It’s vital we get this because many of live outside of the “now” and yearn for the “not yet” to the point where our effectiveness in the present gets sacrificed for a dream of the future.

This very principle is one of the reasons I believe Jesus didn’t confront the Pharisees headon.  It would have accomplished nothing because He hadn’t given them ample proof as yet to His power and authority.  The miracles, teaching and outreach to sinners came through a series of events which hadn’t occurred as yet so until those things happened, Jesus waited.  His patience also proved a good chess move as well, because His reluctance to confront them inspired them to seek Him out and watch His every move “secretly” in order to know Him.  This was also their undoing, in a sense, for they saw first hand the power with which He approached humanity and couldn’t deny it.

Sometimes the best argument is simple action.

John 4 Overview

John 4

As I’ve said before, John is one of my all time favorite books because it looks into the mind of Jesus.  John A sought to be Jesus’ bud and close friend, that’s why he gained a reputation for being “the disciple that Jesus loved,” although I doubt Jesus played favorites.  The reason John A became so close to Jesus stemmed from his desire to be close and know Him.  This is one of the many lessons I take away from the book.

In Romans 4:17b we have a strange phrase which Paul slips into a discussion of who the children of Abraham are, it says, …the God who gives life to the dead and calls the things that are not as though they were.  In a discussion with a musician friend of mine in Cape Town, I quoted this verse but couldn’t remember where it was found. The reason I quoted this verse was because we were discussing the state of the dead–a favorite SDA argument–and I cited it as a reason why I don’t believe in the eternal, indestructable soul.  The more I absorb the Scriptures the more I understand that God may establish something for a while as a means to an end then, after a certain amount of time and development, change the conditions by which we operate, for instance the law of Moses.  Galatians speaks of a child being under guardians until he comes of age. Once the heir is of age, however, the guardians become subject to him.  This turn about makes for a change in the behavior and attitudes of those who have educated the heir to his present command.

I use the example a lot with those who struggle to grab this thought of a kid being told when he’s very young not to cross the street.  The “law” for the child is don’t cross the street, right?  As he grows up, however, the law changes.  Or does it?  What is the principle of crossing the street?  It’s purpose really points to “don’t get hit by cars” but since the kid can’t absorb this thought at a young age, the law when he’s young is “don’t cross the street without an adult or else!”  This is why we are under the spirit of the law and not the letter.  The letter kills the Spirit gives life.

Women in the Bible were not as downplayed as in other religions.  They were not considered property as much as other cultures and could own land, run businesses and live alone if they so chose.  They still lived in a patriarchal society and this didn’t help many of them survive because men, as anyone with eyes knows, can be real pigs sometimes.  Yet one thing I like about the Scriptures is the women who accomplished great things for the Lord but did so under the restraints of men who were weak and unable in their spirits to do what the Lord had for them.

Paul also says elsewhere that God chose to use the weak to shame the strong.  The next thought that comes to me is Joel writes “men and women” when he speaks of the Spirit of God being poured out.  Men have, in many ways, failed Christ.  I’ve come to believe God will now turn to the “weaker” sex and children to accomplish in the world what men have turned into a play for power and wealth.  So with this in mind, we begin to see the things that aren’t are as though they already were.

Paul says this about the curse of sin (remember Adam got the food curse, Eve got the subjection to men and childbirth curse, the serpent lost its wings):  it has been removed by the cross.  Not the physical curse nor the ripple effect of evil but the spiritual curse has been lifted.  He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be the righteousness of God.  The law states:  Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.  Jesus hung on a tree and became a curse for us so that the curse of sin might be done away with.

How does this work out in practical terms for the believer?

All creation groans for deliverance, right?  So the physical curse has not been lifted even though it has been nailed to the cross.  All of us, as a part of creation, long for the deliverance from the results of sin.  The place where I believe we should look a bit more carefully is in the area of subjection and provision.

Men provide food by tilling the ground, traditionally; women bear the children and are subject the desire of men–this means, besides the sexual “desire” she brought to the relationship, he ruled the house and everything she wanted had to be provided through him.  Before the fall, we must note, nothing was subject to anyone but God.  A woman stood as her own creature and didn’t need man to speak to God, then the woman subjected her understanding of God to the serpent, so her “curse” dealt with the nature of her sin.  Adam, however, sinned by eating the fruit.  The Bible would have made it clear if the persuasion held him too.  We also don’t get any sense of a time frame here either, so I doubt very much the fall happened over one conversation because it doesn’t make sense nor is it logical to assume Satan could turn a pure being from God in one confrontation.  No, the ideas festered in the mind of Eve and by the time she ate the fruit, she had Adam coming to hear the talking serpent.

The whole point of this discussion is not to establish guilt because, quite frankly, there’s plenty of blame going around and enough responsibility to share.  No, the point I’m trying to make is that the curse of sin for each involved in the fall mirrored the reasons they fell.  When Christ died, these curses of a spiritual nature were lifted.

Think about it. What does Christ say about worrying about food, clothes or drink?  (Read it in Matthew 6:25-34.)  He tells us not to worry about these things because God will provide them.  We have returned to the Garden in this sense where we work for our daily bread but never need to be worried about it again.  So man’s curse is lifted in the sense that he need never worry about providing food or shelter even though growing things still may be physically difficult.  But what about the woman?  The only part of her curse that can be actually lifted before the coming of Christ to make all things new is her subjection to the pleasure of men.

I don’t believe this means we don’t have a president/vice president system in the home but neither do I think women are any longer to be at the mercy or pleasure of men in general.  God has established the way a good home should run but it is not as boss and slave but servent to servant.  The head of the house should serve his family, the co-head should serve her family without seeking servitude from all the others.  What did Jesus say?  “Anyone who would be the greatest among you must be your servant.”  This goes against all of what we were taught to believe power and authority meant.

So we are free from the old need to be in charge, to fight for our provisions and now live in the freedom of Christ where we can be alive and full of good fruit and not worry about what may happen because we are eternal–which means the incidental time we spend here is less important than our eternal mindset.  Notice I didn’t say it wasn’t important but less important.

Now how does this work into this chapter?

Well, we see Jesus talking to a first a woman, second an adulteress, third a Samaritan (they perverted many of the beliefs of the Jews and made themselves the heirs of Abraham which really torqued the Jews crank).  Jesus, being a Jewish Rabbi, could not have even acknowledged her presence to be a good Jew, He should have ignored her completely.  Instead He opened a dialogue with her and by doing so showed us no one is beneath His notice, everyone is of equal importance to Him.  He didn’t justify her sin yet pointed it out so that she would know Him by this evidence.  Still, it is very significant that Jesus didn’t beat her up about her sin but merely pointed it out and told her she needed to change her entire life through Him.

Jesus took what was improper and made it okay. It wasn’t that it was actually improper in God’s eyes but it was in man’s tradition. Jesus came to turn the traditions of man on their proverbial ears–“I have come that blind may see and those who see might become blind.”  Those who identify with religion will grow blind and hard to the truth of love.  Those who fall in love with Jesus will see what true religion is all about.  Religion isn’t bad, folks, it simply means at its root something we practice constantly–like brushing our teeth.

So this is the setting for chapter 4. Jesus takes false taboos and shows us what His mission is and what ours should be in the world if we want to be His.

For Whom the Bell…

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”  John 3:36.

Psalms 103 has David claiming God doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, is slow to anger and ready to forgive.  Ezekiel 18, 33, 36 all say God takes no pleasure in the death of the anyone.  Following up on John 3:17 here we find John B declaring another truth it seems altogether:  Those who believe in Jesus find life, those who reject Him don’t.

My first question immediately is:  What about those who have never had the chance to hear?

God sent His Son on a mission to save everybody, right?  So it stands to reason every single person in the history of the world must be given an opportunity to believe or reject—the ultimate choice—Him or the trial’s unfair.  The lines, however, are drawn quite succinctly, precisely and unquestionably clear above, wouldn’t you say?

Yes and no.

Though the rules of the game are pretty clear, the methods of Christ show the future to be a bit murky.  Christ’s death and resurrection began the work of salvation but there’s much more to accomplish.  Paul proclaims in Romans 11:25 all Israel will be saved once the full number of Gentiles has been reached.  What does this mean except God will inform the world in a way which will be clearly understood?

As far as it stands now, the body of Christ has failed to spread the gospel to the whole world, and even when we do branch out from our comfort zones, we program into them all sorts of bugs and spiritual viruses that impede not only their growth but make the name of Jesus an byword among the watchers.  Not that this problem is universal because I’ve seen solid lovers of God out there, but many do what the Pharisees did:  traverse the world to make one convert then make him or her more worthy of hell than we ourselves are.

I really don’t believe the work of the Great Commission will be finished by us at all.  I’m not inventing reasons for us to stop trying rather just pointing out the limitations of the human will.  I don’t think human beings have it in them to follow anything with their whole heart much less the gospel.  O, we get obsessed by stuff, for sure, but rarely do we commit ourselves to the task at hand without some caveats and addendum attached.  I have a friend from high school who used to ask my brother and I,  “God doesn’t expect us to give up our whole lives does He?”  Strange as it may sound these were his very words.

Salvation is an act of God not of the human will.  Though we are commanded to go out and make disciples for Christ, I am coming to suspect God doesn’t really expect most of us to do so.  Let me clearify that statement:  The command carries with it an expectation of obedience, however, God’s realistic and knows we are but dust.  He also knows how badly damaged we are by our separation from Him, so He recognizes our limitations better than we do.  Through the command He expects us to obey and spread the Word; through His insight into our souls, He knows we will fail and He will have to pick up the slack.  No condemnation here rather a realization on my part that this work will be accomplished by God from first to last.

Many of us, however, proclaim our solid dedication while struggling with what it means and how to do it.  I, for one, wonder where my loyalty lies at times when I work long hours to earn a living but hesitate to stay at the gathering of God’s people or His work even a minute longer than necessary.  When my hesitation-interruptous gets the better of me, the words of Jesus to Martha ring like a bell in my head,  “Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken away from her.”  But we realists know that sitting still at Jesus’ feet only works so far before we have to get up to eat or go outside to the bathroom (for those with outdoor plumbing) or list off a million and one things more important.

I don’t think this is what Jesus meant, though, rather I believe He referred to an attitude of Mary’s heart.  She always had time for the Lord no matter what needed to be done.  I want this for my life as well.

Salvation is easy; living the life of a disciple takes discipline and determination, which hard.  Those who believe in Jesus and act on that belief will enter eternity.  Those who reject Him, for whatever reason, will not.  At the time of this writing, I have just a glimmer of a clue what this means to billions of people throughout history who have never heard the name of Jesus or had the chance to hear.

Yet one thing I do know:  I serve the most reasonable, merciful and gracious God known to mankind.  How do I know this for certain?  Jesus, God in the flesh, came to earth to grow up as one of us and then endured rejection and shame all for the sake of saving anyone who would listen.  If God is willing to go to this length to save, I cannot doubt He’s more than willing to move heaven and earth for the sake of even one person long dead.

Popularity Contest

“A man can receive only what is given him from heaven…He must become greater; I must become less.”  John 3:22-36

Jesus takes off after talking to Nic to go out into the countryside for while and in the course of this they baptize and He taught His disciples.

John A picks up on John B at this time to bring the chapter point home a little stronger.  John B’s disciples ended up in an argument over ceremonial washing with some Jews which set them off.  John A doesn’t get specific here about the subject exactly but does make it a point to mention the argument and what resulted from it.

The more I know about religious attitudes the less I seem to want to be party to them.  I don’t care whether they are liberal or conservative or somewhere in between.  These labels and practices are so much a part of man’s efforts to please God without actually serving Him whole heartedly that it boils down to a waste of time and mental energy.  I don’t know which is worse here the religiosity which causes the unbendable closed thinking or the liberal view of never pinning anything down.  Both sound to me like a godless way to live.

John B’s disciples also were jealous of Jesus’ disciples baptizing up the way a bit.  They came to John to complain, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan–the one you testified about–well, He is baptizing, and everyone is going to Him.”  This seems strange to me.  The fact that they acknowledged John B’s testimony concerning Jesus but still followed John B amazes me.  Their teacher just told everyone Jesus was the Messiah and the Prophet who was to come yet here they are worried Jesus would take away from John B’s following.  I mean, follow my logic here, isn’t that what’s supposed to happen naturally?  John claimed over and over again that He wasn’t the Christ but was here to announce His arrival and all the John B’s disciples were concerned with was whether he was being upstaged or not.

OF COURSE JOHN B WOULD BE UPSTAGED!

Jesus was the Messiah, God With Us, the King of kings, Lord of lords.  How could there be any other result?  John B’s followers were worried they would be on a losing team, if I know my human nature, or may be they were simply so loyal to this man they couldn’t move themselves to Jesus.  It’s like a contractor who likes one brand of tool over another in some ways.  No matter how much better the other tool is, there’s no convincing him that his tool of choice should be discarded for something he’s not used to and has never used.  We get so used to our habitual lifestyles and viewpoints we tend to push away anything better.

Jesus is better than everything, everyone and every other teaching because He offers life and a change of heart without all the self-worth crap the other religions teach.  God relegated all men over to death (worthlessness) so that He might have mercy on all (infinite worth).  This teaching isn’t a pretty slogan but a way of saying everyone belongs to God now.  Once Jesus conquered death by rising from the grave, the world belonged to God.  Technically, may be, it never belonged to anyone else but in spiritual terms God couldn’t redeem us (buy back our souls) without paying a price He set.  The wage of sin is death.  The price of rebellion against God–choosing to be our own gods–is death or eternal separation from Him. 

John B troubleshoots his follower’s misunderstanding without missing a beat.  I think it’s important to quote this section: 

“A man can receive only what is given him from heaven.  You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of Him.’  The bride belongs to the bridegroom.  The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice.  That joy is mine, and it is now complete.  He must become greater; I must become less.

“The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth.  The one who comes from heaven is above all.  He testifies to what He has seen and heard, but no one accept His testimony.  The man who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful.  For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit.  The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in His hands.  Whoever believes in Him has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”

John A, through John B’s words, gives us a conundrum.  If we choose to believe in the Son of God, we must accept His testimony about what is true.  The only way to validate it is to accept it–did you catch that?  Another thing which jumps out at me here is the John B’s turn of the phrase in the lst sentence: “whoever rejects the Son…”  Those who have not heard about the Son of God cannot reject Him.  Those who hear and refuse to follow what He says or commands, reject Him because we cannot in one sentence accept Jesus as a superior and in the next disregard His superior commands.  There is no way to accept Jesus but to move into obedience.

Not everyone who says “Lord, Lord…” will enter the kingdom of heaven because not all those who call out His name willingly submit to being His.  Just because we use the name of Jesus in a sentence doesn’t mean we obey Him, trust Him or believe Him.  We might believe things about Him, but that is not the same as believing Him.  If what He says is truth, then everyone who follows Him should learn that truth and live up to it.

Let me give you an example from history.

Abraham Lincoln fought the for the emancipation of slavery according to the history books I read in school.  However, the reality is more complicated than that.  Honest Abe fought to hold the Union together because the southern states wanted to secede from it.  The profits from the south sustained in some measure the north at times.  Although many histories claim the major reason for the war was emancipation, the primary reasons were economic and power fragmentation.  Slaves were freed, yes, and that constituted a major portion of the war propoganda, but even after the war slavery existed in some midwestern states for a time–until popular opinion pressured these places to relent.

We have lived up to the unity of power and economic ideals of America but not to the emancipation of slaves.  Yes, slavery is over, but the attitudes toward African Americans continues to be less than the ideal stated in the constitution which says, “We believe that all men are created equal…”  So those who are “freed” move into poverty and struggle to make life work, are given few chances to better themselves or make better lives for their children.

We believe Honest Abe worked for the deliverance of the slaves as part of his agenda, for he did believe in it, but the truth is that wasn’t his main goal.  Jesus, on the other hand, tells us He is the only way, the only truth, the only life and that no one comes to the Father except through Him.  Abe may not have lived up to his own rhetoric in his heart but Christ did.  History doesn’t have much to say about Jesus other than the gospels–unless one reads the gospel of Thomas from the apocryphal writings.  What we do have as records show a consistent man/God who fought for a lifestyle and teaching a way of freedom from man’s legalism.  This freedom equalled being children of God and growing to be like Him in everything by exposure and constant influence.

Jesus, John B and John A all show us that the only truth is found in Christ.  To actually follow Him is to follow His teachings, believing and practicing what He taught without deviation or adjustment.  We cannot add anything to Jesus and we certainly have no right or need to subtract anything from Him.  So our best bet is to follow Him whole heartedly or give up and find something which fits the paradigm we wish to serve.

I vote for Jesus.  He must become greater and I must become less self-absorbed.

A Church Tradition

An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing.  John 3:25.

The more I’ve watched church dynamics, the more I realize some things will never change.  Until Jesus comes we will be splitting hairs over methods, traditions and interpretations.  It’s human nature to declare for ourselves authority over others, since Eden, we believe ourselves to be little gods dictating truth to all around us.

Yet as I’ve grown in the Lord’s word, I realize more and more my authority matters very little.  The Bible is pretty plain without me adjusting or adding to it.  I see so many denominations—or even non-denominations—spring up over hair-splitting details that bear no real weight where the important doctrines are concerned and wonder how we come to this.  The world is watching, many waiting for us to trip and fall on our faces, while others long to see if what we believe and practice holds true.

The decorum of the church is paramount to the witness we present.  If we quarrel or argue constantly over words, meanings and practices, we show our faith to be disjointed or lacking the unity Jesus prayed for and demanded of His followers.  If we show by our humble acceptance of our differences that we will not be divided for small issues, we show grace and godliness to all who watch.

The disciples of John B believed Jesus and he were competing for converts, whereas John B understood the two of them were on the same side using different words, may be, but still on the same side.  If this is true, then those of us who conform to various views of certain practices within Christianity should remember we are on the same side.  Our goal is to present a clear picture of the crucified and risen Savior.  The more debatable doctrines we believe in and practice must be held to tenuously and regarded as more or less incidental.

I’m not saying doctrines are not important, instead I’m declaring with Paul that I am determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified first and foremost.  Everything else hinges on this priority, which therefore leads me to support others who may practice certain rituals I find silly or don’t practice mine.

Jesus must increase and all I am or desire to be must decrease.

The Character of Truth

“Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.  But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”  John 3:20, 21.

Truth produces a certain type of character trait, a certain fearlessness that stands out in a crowd.  We see it all around us—even in places we wouldn’t normally expect it, like the gay community.  Notice the moment they admit their urges for the same sex they come out of the closet (a dark and lonely place) into the light of truth.  What they practice may be wrong as far as Scripture goes, but once they admit the truth about what they desire to themselves and others they live loud and proud.

I’ve begun to understand the principles of God’s kingdom work no matter who practices them.  If a family practices decorum befitting a Scripture based moral life, they will benefit almost as much as the people of God.  God rains His blessing on the righteous and unrighteous alike without preference, the only difference between them in reception is their openness.

By stating the above, I’m not excusing, accusing or justifying anyone who lives an immoral life according God’s word.  Instead I’m pointing out the benefits of living in the light of truth.  The freedom and release which accompany such a move—not to mention the peace of mind—cannot be overstated.  People who finally admit the truth and confess it live out loud without shame or hesitation.

The problem comes in where sin enters the discussion.  Right now the world would just as soon we not mention sin and certain activities in the same sentence, and many are in the process of trying to make it illegal to do so in public at all.  This would be a great tragedy, yet inevitable as well for Jesus predicted this would happen.  Just because someone admits the truth doesn’t necessarily mean they see their actions or attitudes as wrong.  Sincerity doesn’t equal justified or being right by default.  Many a murderer has seen themselves as justified or sincere, many a fanatic has been sincere about their belief, this doesn’t make them right by any means.

We are not saved because of or by our sincerity of heart.

The difference between those who stand in the relative light of the world’s spotlight and those who stand in the light of the Word of truth are galaxies apart.  Defiance isn’t part of the truth’s character so those who think they will stand in defiance of God to His face may really do so to their own loss.  The truth Jesus speaks of here is not relative but definitive.  In other words it is truth as defined by our Maker and Designer.  No one who denies the Son of God as the source of truth will stand in the light for they will hate it.

Yet I believe there are people who desire truth to the core of their being who have never really grasped who Jesus is because the examples they have are murky and undesirable.  I’ve often wondered if when they meet Him face to face, they won’t see Him as the one their hearts have been aching for all along.

You and I have been forgiven our sin in Jesus Christ.  We have also been given a freedom to confess our faults without condemnation, turn away from them toward Jesus (even if it’s only for a moment) and find restoration spiritually.  The key element here confessing the sin, which by default is the act of bringing our misdeeds and thoughts into the light.  This act of confession is a righteous act and therefore a move into the light.  Admitting that something we desire or a desire itself is evil is an act of righteousness as well as declaring by doing so that God is the source of truth.  In other words God is right and anyone who opposes Him is wrong.

This is the essence of repentence, which is another act of righteousness.

When I expose myself to you by declaring myself a sinner—not merely in a general way but getting specific, I enter the light in a righteous way.  When I also admit that I like sin or a sin, I bring my darker desires out into the light to be exposed for what they are.  My heart is as wicked as anyone else’s, but so is yours.  The only righteousness anyone can claim is that which is attained through the loving, saving grace of Jesus.  The blood washes us from all unrighteousness.

So stand in the light with your sin open before God and those who follow Him with open sincere hearts.  Live in the light before the world with a humble, contrite and broken spirit in Christ, for our witness to the world is not one of faultless purity but of a life washed in the blood of the Lamb, which is the forgiveness of sins.