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?

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