Category Archives: Devotional

And he had to pass through Samaria – John 4:4

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Jesus was heading from Judea back to Galilee.  Samaria was on the way, sort of.  It might look that way with a quick glance at a map.  When I personally have been in that region, however, that is not the way we have gone.  When travelling between Judea and Galilee, we’ve always gone via the Jordan Valley, using the Jericho Road, which connects that valley with Jerusalem. 

It is not too far out of the way, and I suspect for the Jewish drivers that I have been with it is also helpful not to have to go through the middle of the Palestinian areas of the West Bank.  It seems that back in Jesus’s day they did the same thing for about the same reason.  Just replace the word “Palestinian” in the previous sentence with “Samaritan.”  We might think of it as choosing street that goes through our preferred neighborhood if one way is not that much farther than the other. 

But Jesus “had to pass through Samaria.”  The chapter tells us why as we read the story.  He needed to have a conversation with a certain woman.  Before it ends, he introduces himself to her as the Messiah (4:25-26).  Speaking to his disciples, Jesus adds the somewhat cryptic remark, “Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (4:34).  That is why he had to pass through Samaria.

Doing the will of God is not always the most convenient thing.  There may be other options.  But Jesus knew how important it was to do the Father’s will.  When planning our day, efficiency is not the only thing we should consider.  We should wonder who we might get to talk to or what we might accomplish if we remain open to the Holy Spirit’s leading – that is, open to the Father’s will.  It might not be obvious at first.

In Christ’s case, we can assume this is what he always did.  In our case, it might be something we need to start.  We might need to change our routine a little on a certain day.  There might be a woman waiting for us at a well who needs to hear about living water.

Whoever believes in him is not condemned – John 3:16-18

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16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

It is not uncommon for those who believe in Jesus to still feel a serious level of guilt, shame or condemnation over past or current failures.  We need to remind ourselves that there is no need for this.  This is not to say that sin is OK and not to be dealt with.  We need to repent, come to God again asking for forgiveness and taking our sin to the cross.

Have you fallen in the same way repeatedly?  I want to be careful here as I write this, because I don’t want to be perceived as going easy on sin.  But consider this additional passage, Matthew 18:21-22, where Peter asks about our need to forgive.

21 Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.

God is not asking something from Peter or us, which he is not already doing himself.  I believe this is one way we can look at the “is not condemned” phrase in John.  When Christ died for our sins, he died for all of them – past, present and future.  He gives us power to walk away from sin and the grace to walk in forgiveness at the same time.

In the words of Paul in Romans 8:1-3,

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.

Our sin is condemned but we are not.

 

And his disciples believed in him – John 2:11

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This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

The works of Jesus do not bring about the same response from everyone.  Two people can experience the same thing, witness the same event and participate in the same activity.  One believes and one does not.  The difference is in the person, not in the sign, which is one and the same for both.

“His disciples believed in him.”  These are the true learners, the real followers, the ones who are receptive to the signs.  The effect of the signs on the skeptic will be negligible.  

This was the first of the signs that John recorded. He will of course record several more, and as he tells us in John 20:30-31,

30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

The result is life for those who believe. For those who remain unmoved after exposure to the works and words of Jesus, there is no other hope.

And the Word became flesh – John 1:14

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The late Grant Osborne, commenting on this verse, said, 

In my opinion, this is the single greatest sentence ever written in the history of the human language, the deepest theological statement ever written.*

Here it is in its entirety,

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

We live very far removed from stable in Bethlehem and the cross of Calvary.  From our standpoint, we look back on millennia of church history, some of which is exceedingly troubling to look back on, assuming we ever take the time.  But if we go back far enough, we see the truth of the incarnation, the moment when God the Son took upon himself the nature of humanity.  This makes all the difference.

He became one of us.  One result of that universe-changing event is that we never have the need, nor even the option, to hesitatingly raise our eyes to heaven, turn our thoughts toward God, and imagine that he does not know what it is like to live the life that we live.

His was only one life, but it was full enough of relatable experience.  He was born under the specter of illegitimacy in a cultural setting where that mattered a great deal.  It would seem by the time he entered public life that his adopted father Joseph was deceased.  This means he bore substantial responsibility for the family’s provision while he was still young.  Though he attracted a following in his ministry, those closest to him and those who mattered in religious circles tended to misunderstand or oppose him.  Eventually he was betrayed by a friend, arrested, tried and sentenced to death unjustly.

There were those, however, like the Apostle John, who realized when they were in his presence that they were in the presence of deity.  He was human, but so much more than human – so much more than anyone or anything that anyone had ever seen.  His was a glory unique to himself.  

This didn’t have to happen.  Christ didn’t have to be born, or die, or take our sins upon himself at Calvary, or rise from the dead.  This was God coming down to meet us on our own level and living a life full of tedious, miserable human experience.  This life was made glorious simply because he lived it, and nothing he ever did could remain poor or miserable or insignificant.  

And he did it for our sake. 

No deeper theology need ever be written and no deeper encouragement need ever be offered than what we find here in John 1:14.  Let us never tire of it.  We have everything to gain from this reality and everything to lose if we fail to appreciate its wonder.

* Osborne, Grant R.. John Verse by Verse (Osborne New Testament Commentaries) (Kindle Locations 703-704). Lexham Press. Kindle Edition.