MARCH 14, 2021 SUNDAY MESSAGE
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Gospel Redemption Part 6 - Mar 14, 2021
Transcription:
In the Gospel Story, THIS is the chapter of REDEMPTION!! Here, we have been exploring the love of Jesus throughout His life. This helps us to see Jesus’:
Definition of love
The redemptive properties of his love on this earth
What we have observed at this point is that Jesus’ Redemptive Love includes a multitude of components:
Love shows COMPASSION
Love engages TRUTH
Love trusts in God’s TIMING
Doesn’t always prioritize according to our values (maximize, opportunize...)
Allows gentle intrusion
Love is energized by FAITH
As we continue to move towards HOLY WEEK and Easter, we will His LOVE in the midst of betrayal, pressure, pain, and death...as Jesus heads to the cross.
Each of these individual components are intended to interact and come together as MORE than just individual parts...as a complete WHOLE!
Whenever you learn something, you often break down the parts and put them together. Like a stick shift:
Steering
accelerating
Braking
Checking mirrors
Clutch in and shifting gears
AND ALL OF IT needs to be done in a controlled environment.
I was in an empty parking lot near our house and the back roads with no traffic
Driving on an actual road takes more than these individual parts, eventually you have to make your way out onto the road and put it all together rhythmically in sync! As we look at Jesus’ interactions today, we see just that!
Author Paul Miller says Jesus “weave(s) together the distinct patterns of his love into a beautiful fabric as he strikes up a conversation with a woman in the middle of a tiring day.”
Today we want to put the individual parts of Jesus’ love together and learn from it...open your bibles to John chapter 4!
As we read, keep your eye on2 specific things...LOVE:
Crosses cultural boundaries to heal (explain this more)
is contagious and spreads
John 4 starting in verse 4. It says... Now he (that’s Jesus) had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, TIRED as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
At this point, Jesus’ following is gaining momentum and people are being baptized in his name. He decides to travel from Judea to Galilee which looks a little like this…
Sumaria becomes a symbol for the other: those we avoid, are afraid of, those who are different, have a distaste for, or even HATE!
I actually want us to use this as the basis for our first reflection question now. What, where, or who...is YOUR Samaria...
The point is this…
LOVE doesn’t avoid “Samaria” because JESUS doesn’t avoid Samaria!
LOVE crosses cultural boundaries and pursues the “other.” and, instead of avoiding forbidden territory, JESUS walks directly into Samaria.
It says that Jesus stops at Jacob’s well. Wells, in general, have a history in the narrative of God’s people and THIS WELL in particular!
If you remember, Jacob meets his future wife Rachel at this very well in Genesis 29.
Backing up:
Adam and Eve are created in the same section of Genesis 1 where a wellspring of water, for the first time, bubbles up in the Garden of Eden.
Genesis 24, A servant of Abraham is sent to find a wife for his son Isaac who meets Rebekah at a well and, upon consent, brings her back to marry him.
Moving forward:
Moses gets connected to Zapporah’s family (future wife) at a well in the land of Midian
Over and over again, wells are a connection place for marital purposes in the OT and all of this was COMMON KNOWLEDGE to anyone with a Jewish background especially if Jacobs well is the one you commonly visit!
One resource I looked at even said wells had developed into being known as a meeting place for singles (a bar, or even a dating app)
...and HERE IS JESUS MEETING A WOMAN AT A WELL, it’s awkward to say the least!
…AND, other than A+E (and one other account), there is a consistent theme of the men in in a foreign land and traveling back to their home to avoid marrying into a foreign people...but Jesus is traveling INTO a foreign land to meet a foreign woman at a well (this is important so hold on to it!!).
NOW, Jesus COULD have just let the moment slide but HE DOESN’T, he digs in below the surface a little further by asking this woman for a drink (which is exactly what happens with Rebekah in Gen. 24)!
In asking this simple question, His love crosses into socially forbidden territory in at least 3 ways:
1. FIRST, He breaks the social taboo and RULE of talking publicly to a woman as a man, particularly with no witnesses around.
This moment is important, in and of its own right, because one of the oldest sections of the Mishnah (Jewish oral traditions) is ʾAbot, which states:
“...and talk not much with women. They said this of a man’s own wife: how much more of his fellow’s wife! Hence, the Sages said: He that talks much with women brings evil upon himself and neglects the study of the Law and at last will inherit Gehenna.”
It’s important to note that Jesus intentionally BREAKS the Mishna code HERE and, in doing, confronts the patriarchal nonsense attached to it!
Jesus is constantly liberating women from the culture. Over and over, He:
engaged them in honoring ways and
INVITED women to travel around in his group of disciples
Quote: “The radical nature of the changes in the attitudes toward women that Jesus introduced are beyond description.”
2. SECOND, Jesus completely ignores the five-hundred-year-old hostility between Jews and Samaritans.
Jesus’ question sets aside all the bitterness of past history as he requested a drink from this Samaritan woman.
3. THIRD, Jesus is a religious man - a RABBI - and he is talking to a ceremonially unclean person. I want to bring some level of nuance to her history later but, the fact that she is getting water at the hottest part of the day means she is avoiding others and knows she has a less than stellar reputation (earned or labeled).
Jesus’ Audacity is likely shocking to her (it’s bad enough they ran into each other so she is likely not even making eye contact and trying to get water and go asap) Jesus says, “Will you give me a drink?”
While Jesus is referring to Spiritual things and NATIONS (as you’re about to see), this does look very similar to a first century pick up line and there is a reason for this! Let’s look at the woman’s response…
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew (Greek text says Jewish man specifically) and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
The way she emphasizes Gender shows that she is recognizing the relational implication...put yourself in her shoes and REMEMBER THE CULTURAL CONTEXT of the WELL:
She is thinking: “we both know the stories of God’s people meeting at wells (especially Jacob’s well) which ended in marriage. I am a woman, you’re a man, we’re meeting at a well.”
It’s one thing to meet coincidentally but he strikes up a conversation with her? So she, RIGHTFULLY should be thinking: “Really dude? What kind of meeting do you think is happening? We have at least 3 degrees of separation...are you hitting on me?”
Jesus clarifies but it’s still a little odd and coded spiritual language...
10 Jesus answered her, “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. 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?””
I love the conversational banter between the two: Boldness and clever conversational interchange and she is challenging him a little here!
Jesus switches to another metaphor about living water: both OT / Rev.
..she is still thinking more literal which is confusing: “you can’t even get water without a cup. Where you’re going with this?” and...
I THINK she is still trying to figure out his intent, “is this a Jacob and Rachel thing here?”
He’s making it clearer he’s not talking about LITERALLY Verse 13...
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
AGAIN, she is challenging him, right?
“tell me more about your MAGICAL WATER”
I don’t want to come down here if I don’t have to anymore.
Let’s clarify: What is “LIVING WATER?”
“Living Water is running water from a stream or spring, in contrast with water stored in a cistern (because it’s stagnant and there is a greater opportunity for contamination).”
In one sense, he is referring to this but Jesus is also talking spiritually and he is recalling something from Israel’s failed history:
Jer. 2:13. It says, "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water."
Humans (and NATIONS) are NOTORIOUSLY good at finding other Gods to worship and counterfeit versions of Jesus’ to obey. This is what is being referenced. Don’t settle for:
a lesser water source,
a lesser God,
a lesser way of life when the REAL THING is available and standing right in front of you!!
AND, here’s the kicker: if you receive it, it is ETERNAL, and YOU BECOME a source of water yourself!
So, what other cisterns or SOURCES might she (and we) be attempting to dig? In verse 16, the conversation takes another turn...
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.18 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.” (DAAANG!! Yet another “Jesus, mind your manners bro, we can’t take you anywhere!”)
LOTS of assumptions get put on this woman from these verses. I want to point out what “we know/don’t know”
Jesus IS being confrontational to SOME extent...not just bold b/c...
She IS finding her relief in some kind of relational entanglement BUT
in this cultural structure her survival depends on a male providing for her.
So, we CANNOT assume the fullness of this woman’s situation, backstory, and character. This is often taught (by a man) like this:
she is a scandalous
She is adulterous
After all she has had 5 husbands, she is on her sixth and she is talking to a seventh...
Some have even taken it so far as to mean she is a prostitute!
THEY teach that the point of this story is this woman’s sexual appetite and her history in that persuit.
This assumption is based on modern day cultural patriarchy and horrible exegesis because it’s NOT FOUND IN the text. She COULD have been:
Widowed over and over in a time with relatively high death rates
Abused by all these men
Abandoned by these men (women could not divorce men and MEN could divorce women in this culture for no reason at all)
Whether she is a participating villain or a victim of the cultural circumstances, the text does not give us these details but we know things are not working out or going well for her, and Jesus is MEETING her where she is at.
He is helping her to see that fulfilment can only be found in the one who can cause her to “Thirst no more!”
After this confrontation, SHE STILL RESPONDS positively because he is displaying supernatural knowledge. It says:
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
She moves the discussion to another topic focused on an ongoing religious debate between Jews & Samaritans… another empty cistern. Hope=Religion
Verse 21:
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Again, she tries to deflect and run from Jesus based on religious ambiguity: “who knows? Messiah will come and tell us everything someday” ...but JESUS shuts the running down as Jesus declares in verse 26:
(26 Then Jesus declared) “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
Notice: Jesus does not take up the debate at all! Rather, he points to a future time of salvation when worship will not be limited to any local sacred site AND with no separation between Jew or Gentile AT ALL...instead a “joining together.”
SO, two conversations have been taking place at this well:
One that is reaching out to a downcast woman on the fringes of society by offering satisfaction, healing, wholeness, and new life!
After seeking fulfilment in other relationships 5+1 then Jesus who is 7th (the number in the jewish culture that means completion) is the last person she will ever need to satisfy her thirst on earth (he is no abuser nor will he leave/forsake her).
Another that is INDEED pointing to a marriage proposal at work, once again, at Jacobs well. A SPIRITUAL marriage between Jews and Gentiles is being inaugurated by this meeting and this foreign woman is a living representative of non-jewish people. She has been elevated to “ambassador for the gentiles.”
Let me build this case even further:
First, remember: In all the other well stories, imperfect men were motivated to leave a foreign land by seeking wives out of a desire to keep separation of nations BUT Jesus REVERSED the exclusion by going INTO a foreign territory as a Jew speaks to the woman using language found in these encounters!
Second, there is another encounter at a well that I withheld earlier: Hagar (a foreign/egyptian woman who is married to Abraham) has a son named Ishmael. There is a great antagonism between Sarah and Hagar that develops into a separation of their sons and Hagar is sent into a desert:
Gen 21:15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there, she[c] began to sob. 17 God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. 18 Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” 19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. 20 God was with the boy as he grew up…
When God reps himself, it is MARKED by caring for the hurting, seeing the marginalized, and love for the foreigner.
And finally, Rev. 22:1-2 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
Jesus work on the cross will join their divided nations into one family of God through Him,
Wells of water spring up and a “generations long separation” between these two nations begin to heal at Jacob’s well with living water.
this is the plan and it has been from the beginning, as Jesus proclaims to a foreign woman, that God will marry together the Jewish and Gentile nations very soon!
Jesus’ ministry always RETURNS back to EDEN and points to a future Kingdom where the reconciliation of every tribe, tongue, and nation -EVERY ETHNICITY - are united as Children of God!
Before we go, I have to point out the direct fruit that comes from this moment...
27 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?”
28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
Jumping down to verse 39...
Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.
42 They said to the woman, “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.”
After Jesus finally reveals His full identity and his love is made clear that LOVE IS CONTAGIOUS
This woman IMMEDIATELY fulfills the promise Jesus spoke and BECOMES a spring of living water to everyone those in her community.
It spreads out and continues to operate with the power of healing, bringing people together, shalom, and salvation always while keeping compassion and truth intact!!
This is a POWERFUL STORY… astounding in it’s theology, healing power, AND it’s value for life change in the here and now...
The promise and ministry extended to the woman at the well is also extended to us all!
If you have been digging from empty cisterns, I want to invite you to draw from the well of LIVING WATER - Jesus Christ this morning!
If we have LIVING WATER, you are a SPRING - a SOURCE of living water...are you stewarding this well and offering it up to a thirsty people??
Just as Jesus reveals in Revelation, this water should work toward the healing nations and ethnicities...it’s the work of reconciliation in our day and age!
May we walk in the fullness of Gospel life!
COMMUNION:
(1 COR. 11:23B-26)
“The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
SAVE THE DATE: The 2020 Marriage Retreat is scheduled to be Saturday and Sunday, November 7 and November 8!
PRAYER REQUESTS:
We are hosting prayer team meetings for both the congregation at large and individuals to sign up for individual prayer.
SUGGESTIONS FOR WORSHIP:
Coty Miller’s own “Praise & Worship” Spotify playlist and “Praise & Worship” YouTube playlist (slightly different from each other), both of diverse music that are being constantly updated!
Bethel Music :
Bethel Music’s hours of live music YouTube Playlist, also being constantly updated
Bethel provides chords to most (if not all) of their songs here (just have to register email, but free!)
Live worship moments from the Upper Room YouTube Playlist
Journal writing! (I’m a writer too, so sometimes creative writing and writing my thoughts to God is my form of worship.)
Declare and worship with truth by singing and praying scriptures.
WORSHIP NIGHT! Dedicate a night to worship with friends and family, your house church or neighbors, those who need prayer, love worship, or just enjoy music through a video chat platform like Zoom. You can have one person leading at a time (switching off to whoever else wants to lead) while others sing along, pray, or prophesy, etc.
Serving your community, both online, in person, or both, is a great way to worship God, from spreading encouragement and God’s Word online to physically serving food to others. If you are able to go out and serve, click here for opportunities.
COMMISSIONING:
As Jesus said in John 20:21,
"Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you."
Go, be the Church!
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.