 
# The Life of Jesus Christ

###### Grace Communion International

###### Copyright 2015 Grace Communion International

###### www.gci.org

###### Cover art: Alexandre Bida. Public domain.

###### Scripture quotations, unless noted, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The "NIV" and "New International Version" are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

#

### Table of Contents

The Message of Jesus: A Bible Study

Playing Jesus— a Discussion with Bruce Marchiano

Jesus and Women

Jesus: Tempted on Our Behalf

Jesus Walks on the Water

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

Living Water

Jesus: The Unexpected Messiah

The Messianic Secret

Palm Sunday

A Tasty Sandwich (Mark 11)

About the Authors

About the Publisher

Grace Communion Seminary

Ambassador College of Christian Ministry

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Editor's note: Many of our articles about Jesus are in the volume titled _Exploring the Word of God: The Four Gospels._ They are also in smaller e-books about the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. See other e-books for articles about the birth of Jesus, the incarnation, the death and resurrection of Jesus.

## The Message of Jesus: A Bible Study

This study will be more meaningful if you look up the Scriptures and take time to think about it, rather than reading through in a hurry.

1. When Jesus began his ministry, what did he preach? Mark 1:14-15. When he sent his disciples out, what did he tell them to preach? Matthew 10:7; Luke 10:9.

Comment: Some ancient Greek manuscripts of Mark 1:14-15 say that Jesus preached the kingdom of God; others say that he preached the gospel of God. It is not necessary here to discuss which manuscripts are better, but we will discuss the version that is familiar to most of us—Jesus preached, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand" (NIV 1984)

Jesus was announcing the kingdom—not just the king—as being near. He was talking about nearness in terms of _time,_ not geography. "The time is fulfilled...." The time had come for God's kingdom to be established.

Likewise, when the disciples preached that the kingdom was near, they were not talking about the king, and they were not talking about a nearby territory. They were announcing that God's kingdom would soon be there. This was good news!

2. Was Jesus a king? John 18:37. Was he like the kings of this world? Were his disciples supposed to act the way rulers of this world act? Matthew 20:25-28. May we assume that God's kingdom is like the kingdoms of this world?

Comment: When we are studying something as important as the central message of Jesus Christ, it is not safe to make assumptions. God's thoughts are not like our thoughts, and his ways are not like ours. We need to look to Scripture to see what Jesus revealed about the kingdom.

The Jews had various assumptions about what the Messiah would do, but Jesus did not act the way they wanted him to. Their assumptions about the king were wrong, and their assumptions about the kingdom were wrong, too. Just as their ancestors had wanted a king like the nations around them (1 Samuel 8:5), the first-century Jews also wanted a kingdom much like the kingdoms of this world—with a military leader who enforced laws in a particular territory. The Jews wanted the Messiah to bring a kingdom like that, but Jesus brought something different. Let's study a few more verses to learn about the kingdom Jesus preached.

3. Did Jesus say that the kingdom had already come upon the first-century Jews? Matthew 12:28. Were people already entering the kingdom of God? Luke 16:16; Matthew 21:31. How were they entering? Matthew 21:31-32. Is it possible to enter something that does not exist?

Comment: When Jesus preached the kingdom of God, he told people to believe the message and repent (Mark 1:15). He criticized those who did not believe and repent, but praised the people who did believe and repent, and said that they were entering the kingdom.

Jesus was talking about a spiritual move, not a geographic move. People enter God's kingdom by accepting his rule, not by moving to a new territory. They enter God's kingdom by repentance and faith—they accept his rule in their lives. They accept Jesus as their King, and he reigns over them. They become his subjects, doing his will. Paul said that Christians have already entered the kingdom (Colossians 1:13).

Jesus, the King, has already been crowned with power and authority over all things (Matthew 28:18). He is already King. However, he does not force others to do his will, the way the kings of this world do. Rather, he reigns over those who willingly accept him as their King.

4. Did Jesus also speak of the kingdom of God as a future reality? Matthew 8:11; 13:43; Luke 13:28. Can something that exists right now expand and also exist in the future?

Comment: Jesus spoke of the kingdom as both a present-tense reality and a future glory. It exists now as a spiritual realm—in the world, but not part of the world—and it will later expand with power and glory when Jesus returns. The kingdom will then come in great power. God's power is already here, but it is veiled—present but usually not visible.

The kingdom is both present and future, already in existence but not yet visible in its fullness. The "already/not yet" nature of God's kingdom is similar to other spiritual realities:

##### • We are already saved, but the fullness of our salvation is yet future (Ephesians 2:5; 1 Peter 1:5).

##### • We have already been given eternal life, but its fullness will be given after we die (John 3:35; Mark 10:30).

##### • We will be like Christ, yet Christ is already being formed in us (Philippians 3:21; 2 Corinthians 3:18).

##### • We will live with God forever, but he already lives within us (1 Thessalonians 4:17; 1 John 4:13).

The Bible speaks of these spiritual truths not only as future gifts, but also as blessings we already enjoy in part.

In a similar way, Jesus spoke of the kingdom both as something that exists right now and something that will exist in a greater way when he returns. When he and his disciples announced that the kingdom was near, they meant the spiritual, invisible phase of the kingdom. For those who thought the kingdom would soon appear with power and glory, he told a parable to explain that there would be a delay (Luke 19:11-27)—but the parable also explains that some of the work of the kingdom must be done even before the kingdom appears in its fullness. Now is the time we are to believe, repent, be saved and enter the kingdom.

5. What did Jesus say would be preached throughout the world? Matthew 24:14. What did he commission his disciples to preach? Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 16:15-16; Luke 24:47. Should we conclude that preaching the kingdom is practically synonymous with preaching faith, repentance, forgiveness and making disciples?

Comment: According to Jesus, our goal when preaching is to make disciples, and we do that by preaching repentance and faith, baptizing those who believe and teaching them to obey what Jesus taught. For those who _reject_ Jesus as King, the kingdom is a message of judgment. But for those who accept him, it is wonderfully good news—the good news is that we can enter the kingdom now!

Since the good news of the kingdom is experienced only through faith, repentance and forgiveness, these aspects of salvation must be a prominent part of the gospel message. If people have faith in Jesus Christ and accept him as Lord, they enter his kingdom—even if they have never heard the word "kingdom." It is their _relationship_ to Jesus Christ that is crucial; the precise terminology is not nearly as important.

### Preaching about what?

What are Jesus' disciples supposed to preach about? The answer can be seen by looking at scriptures that use the Greek words for "preach":

##### Matthew 3:1; 4:17, 23; 9:35; 10:7; 24:14; 26:1

##### Mark 1:4, 7, 14; 5:20; 6:12; 13:10; 14:9; 16:15

##### Luke 3:3; 4:18-19, 43; 8:1, 39; 9:2; 16:16; 24:47

##### Acts 5:42; 8:5, 12, 35; 9:20; 10:36, 42; 11:20; 17:18; 19:13;20:25; 28:31

##### Romans 10:8, 14

##### 1 Corinthians 1:23; 2:2; 15:11-12

##### 2 Corinthians 1:19; 4:5; 11:4

##### Galatians 1:16, 23; 2:2

##### Ephesians 2:17; 3:8

##### Philippians 1:15

##### Colossians 1:22-23

##### 1 Thessalonians 2:9

##### 1 Timothy 3:16

##### 2 Timothy 4:2

The gospel can be described in many ways — a message about the kingdom, about Jesus Christ, forgiveness, reconciliation, salvation or peace. The most common biblical description is "the gospel of Jesus Christ."

### "The Gospel of ... "

Scripture describes the gospel in numerous ways. Here's how the word is most often used:

good news of Jesus Christ — 15 times

good news of God - 9 times

good news of the kingdom - 7 times

my gospel, our gospel - 6 times

the gospel of peace - 2 times

good news of God's grace - 1 time

good news of the glory of Christ - 1 time

gospel of your salvation - 1 time

### Preaching in the book of Acts

What did the disciples preach about? Here are the verses in Acts that use the words for "preach":

##### 4:2 — proclaiming that in Jesus there is the resurrection of the dead  
5:42 — proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah  
8:4 — proclaiming the word  
8:5 — proclaimed the Messiah  
8:12 — proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ  
8:25, 40 — proclaiming the good news  
8:35 — proclaimed the good news about Jesus  
10:36 — preaching peace by Jesus Christ  
11:20 — proclaiming the Lord Jesus  
13:5 — proclaimed the word of God  
13:32-33 — bringing the good news that God fulfilled the promise by raising Jesus  
13:38 — proclaiming forgiveness of sins through Jesus  
14:7, 21; 16:10 — proclaiming the good news  
14:15 — bringing good news, that you should turn to God  
15:7 — the message of the good news  
15:35 — proclaimed the word of the Lord  
17:3 — proclaiming the Messiah, Jesus  
17:18 — telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection  
17:23 — proclaim what you worship as unknown  
20:24 — testify to the good news of God's grace  
20:27 — declaring the whole purpose of God  
26:23 — proclaiming light to Jews and Gentiles

Michael Morrison

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## Playing Jesus—  
a Discussion with Bruce Marchiano

#### In his Epistle to the Romans, Paul reminds us to "clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 13:1). The Greek word is _enduo,_ meaning "to put on as a garment," or as an actor will put on a costume. Few people have had the opportunity to do this as literally as Bruce Marchiano, who played the lead role in a dramatization of the Gospel of Matthew.

Question: Playing the role of Jesus in Matthew had a major impact on you. Why?

Bruce Marchiano: Wow. I wrote a whole book to answer that question. I think it boils down to that scripture, "When you seek me with all your heart I will be found" (Jeremiah 29:13-14). That's what that acting experience was for me. It put me in a position where I had to seek him with all my heart. My mind exploded with the Wow of him! And within that glimpse of understanding, all my priorities were rewritten, all my motivational foundations were rewritten, everything I thought was important was rewritten. Ah, but even beyond that, my sensitivities were rewritten.

What an actor does is to try to step into another person's heart. To catch a tiny, tiny, billionth of a billionth of a glimpse of Jesus' heart was to rewrite my own heart, if I can put it that way. The depth of his compassion, the depth of his heartbreak over human pain, over the lostness of lost people, over people coming short of his plan and purpose for their lives.

There are times to this day when sitting at a red light I'll just break down in tears watching the people walking the sidewalk, as I think about their lostness, having caught a glimpse of Jesus' reaction to these things that we just call normal life. To have those little seeds planted in my own life was to rewrite my entire life.

Q: Were you a Christian before you starred in this film?

BM: I grew up very "churched." I went to Catholic schools until I graduated from high school. I had a deep understanding in terms of the awareness that there is a God, but I had no understanding of a relationship with God. People around me would get born again and they would start to share Jesus with me. I thought they were nuts. My whole life was about my acting career. Then, to make a long story short, the rug was pulled out from under it.

And I found that everything I had built my life on was "weak and shifting sand." All I can say is, I just turned to Jesus. I guess that all those seeds from those people who had shared Jesus with me over the years took root somewhere deep inside, because I knew in that moment I needed Jesus. I remember getting down on my knees and looking up saying, "Jesus, you've got to save me. You've got to save me." And he began to reveal himself in my life, and there was no looking back.

Q: How did you come to take on the role of playing Jesus in Matthew?

BM: I found out about the opportunity through the leader of a missionary team. I had gone on this mission trip. I didn't really want to, but I felt the Lord really wanted me to go. And so I went, kind of unwillingly. Little did I know that it would change the rest of my life.

The guy who led that missions team told me about the opportunity, and I made contact with the director. The director is a man who really seeks God, and he felt very strongly that the Lord wanted a born-again Christian to play Jesus. He also wanted someone who was not the traditional iconic figure—tall, Anglo-Saxon—but someone more authentic.

He sent me an audition piece for the scene where Jesus speaks very harshly to the Pharisees. As I was preparing for the audition, I thought, you know, it wasn't that he didn't like these guys. He loved them. He wasn't so much being harsh as desperately and passionately reaching out to help them.

I explained that to the director, knowing full well that it was a great risk, because I had never seen it done that way before. Little did I know that six months earlier, when the director began working with the script, he felt the exact same thing, that this scene needs to be done in love.

Q: It is quite obvious in Matthew that you portray Jesus as the Lord of love and joy—quite different from the way he is usually portrayed.

BM: Well, the joy was a surprise to me. In my church background, joy was not part of the program. You could use the word in a song, but you'd better not actually show it. The director pointed me to Hebrews 1:9 where it says of Jesus, "Therefore God, your God has anointed you with the oil of joy above your brethren."

I went down to a local Christian bookstore to try to find books about the person of Jesus. I couldn't find any—not about Jesus the man. To make a long story short, I eventually found this little Christian bookstore, and there, sitting in the commentary section was a small book titled, Jesus, Man of Joy. It was misplaced, and I knew that God was trying to say something to me. So that's where the joy came from, and that built and built. It just opened up—joy. Joy, that's what the kingdom of God is. It's joy.

At the end of the day all I really did was what Jesus said. He says, "I have loved you with an everlasting love." So as an actor I did that. Jesus didn't talk about loving people, he actually did it. He cried tears over their pain. Instead of just talking about compassion, he actually showed it.

There is never a moment when he doesn't love you. So everything I did, even the harshest rebuke, had to be founded on love, in the same way that you would tell your kid not to touch the stove. You would say it harshly, but it's founded in love. If you didn't love your kid, you wouldn't care if he touched the stove. And that's all I was trying to do. I was trying to keep them from touching the stove.

That became the challenge. Even in a line like "you hypocrites" or "you of little faith," the audience had to see that love. It became quite a transforming factor for me. I would walk away from those scenes and realize, wow, he loves me!

I remember we did one scene where Jesus tells the parable of the sheep and the goats. On the first take I talked about how he will say to the goats, "Away from me, I never knew you." Spontaneously I just started to weep and weep and weep. Unfortunately that's not the tape that got on screen. Believe it or not, in the middle of the shot an airplane went overhead and ruined the tape. But the outtake of that, to see "Jesus" weeping in the same sentence that he is talking about people who are going to be condemned, that's a revelation.

When we finished that shot, there were 300 people standing around. You could hear a pin drop. Nobody ever imagined it like that. It was just a revelatory moment. You've got to understand that what we were doing was the Word of God, and that it's living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword.

Time after time, I walked away learning something about Jesus' heart. Every day was just a lifetime of adventures. There wasn't one moment out there where it was just a job or drudgery.

Q: It seems that making Matthew has changed the direction of your life.

BM: Yes, the whole experience re-wrote my priorities, re-wrote what I thought was important in life, and re-wrote my professional direction. It's been tough to give up lifelong dreams, but at the end of the day those lifelong dreams can't begin to satisfy.

I just began to pray, "Lord, what is my life all about? What's the purpose for which I was born?" It's probably a guy thing, but I was thinking vocationally. I was thinking God was going to say, "You're a filmmaker," and that meant I wouldn't write books or speak anymore. Or, "You're a speaker." But that's not what the Lord said to me.

In the way he deals with me it's as if he said to me, "You were born for the purpose of revealing my Son to my people. So I want you to take every opportunity, whether it is a book, or an interview like this, speaking in front of people, no matter what setting I put you in, reveal my Son, reveal my Son."

Suddenly my life became clear. And I think the Lord would say to every one of us who claims to be a child of God, "You're born for the purpose of revealing my Son to my people."

Q: Do you have any exhortation and encouragement about how to share this with others?

BM: If I have to point to five highlights of my ministry life, one of them is my relationship with this denomination. I remember, ten or so years ago, as things were changing. I don't know the whole history—it doesn't matter—all I know is that I saw people in love with Jesus and bouncing off the walls with a fresh awareness of grace.

Back in those days I'll never forget thinking, "Wow—these people, all they know is grace and the love of Jesus." That's all there is to know, in a sense. And the celebration of freedom, because he's all about freedom and liberating people from sin, complication and self-reliance.

It was so exciting. I have said many, many, times that the transformation of your fellowship could be the greatest work of the Holy Spirit in the last 25 years.

Don't move from that place. Don't ever become a sophisticated denomination full of things. Just be a bunch of little kids in love with Jesus and stay there. Stay there. That's where the rest of us need to catch up to.

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## Jesus and Women

#### In the first-century world, the way Jesus treated women was considered revolutionary.

When she became a teenager, her father made the arrangements. This was the custom of the times. Mary would be married to a carpenter, Joseph, the son of Heli. From birth, Mary's role in life was set, for she was born female to a Jewish family. Yet her role in history was to be extraordinary. God chose her to be the mother of Jesus.

### Woman of courage

When the angel Gabriel came to Mary, she was initially troubled by what the angel's appearance might mean. The angel reassured her, explaining that she was the one chosen to be the mother of Jesus.

#### "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"

#### The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God."

#### "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her. (Luke 1:34-38)

Though she knew she was facing shame and humiliation, Mary, in faith, willingly submitted herself to God's will. She understood that it was possible that Joseph would not marry her. She would be considered damaged goods. Mary acted in great courage and faith.

Though God protected her by showing Joseph in a dream that he should accept her in marriage in spite of her being pregnant, the story of her pregnancy was out. Nevertheless, Joseph faithfully married an already pregnant Mary. A legacy of raised-eyebrow, finger-pointing gossip would follow them and Jesus throughout their lives.

Jesus Christ honored his mother throughout his life and at his crucifixion. Mary was at the foot of the cross. When Jesus saw her there, no doubt in shock at what she was witnessing, he compassionately let her and John know how she would be cared for after his death and after his resurrection:

#### When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother. "Dear woman, here is 'your son,'" and to the disciple, "Here is your mother." From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. (John 19:26-27)

Jesus' honor and respect was not reserved simply for his mother. It was extended to all women—an attitude largely unexpected and unknown in his culture and time. Jesus, unlike the men of his generation and culture, taught that women were equal to men in the sight of God. Women could receive God's forgiveness and grace. Women, as well as men, could be among Christ's personal followers. Women could be full participants in the kingdom of God. Jesus offered full discipleship to women.

These were revolutionary ideas. Many of his contemporaries, including his disciples, were shocked. Women were overjoyed and grateful, and many dedicated their lives to his service. Let's take a look, from the historical narratives in Scripture, at a few of these women of faith and how Jesus dealt with them.

### Mary of Magdala

In the early days of Jesus' ministry, one of the most unusual examples is the devoted following of Mary Magdalene. Among the group of women who traveled with Jesus and his 12 disciples was Mary of Magdala (Luke 8:2). Mary is almost always mentioned first in a list of the female disciples of Jesus Christ. She may have been one of the leaders of that group of women who followed Jesus from the outset of his ministry in Galilee to his death and afterward.

The risen Jesus appeared to her first. It's ironic that in a time when women could not be legal witnesses, Jesus chose women as the first witnesses of his resurrection. As British writer Dorothy L. Sayers said:

#### Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man—there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronised: who never made arch jokes about them...who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension: who took their questions and arguments seriously. _(Are Women Human?,_ page 47)

### Mary and Martha

Jesus taught that women were just as responsible for growing in grace and knowledge as men when it came to being one of his followers. This is clearly expressed in Luke's account of Christ's visit to the home of Martha and Mary, who lived in Bethany, a village about two miles from Jerusalem. Martha had invited Jesus and his disciples to her home for a meal. But while Martha was busily preparing to serve her guests, her sister, Mary, was listening to Jesus along with the rest of his disciples.

#### As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" (Luke 10:38-40)

Martha seems to have been the older sister and head of her own house. Jesus didn't chastise Martha for being busy serving, but he told her that her sister, Mary, had her priorities straight. "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her" (verses 41-42).

Jesus expected women as well as men to learn from him. Jesus did not feel that women's work— or men's work, for that matter— wasn't important. He was not saying it is wrong to be diligent and careful about our responsibilities. Christ was saying we should get our priorities straight. Women were called to be disciples of Jesus, just as men were, and women were expected to fulfill their spiritual responsibilities, just as men were.

### A daughter of Abraham

Another fascinating account is Luke's story of the healing of a disabled woman—on the Sabbath day, in the synagogue, right in front of the synagogue ruler. The healing not only shows Christ personally contrasting his new way of life with the old legalistic, pharisaical restrictions, but it also shows his deep regard for women.

#### On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. (Luke 13:10-13)

The ruler of the synagogue protested. He indignantly told the people there were six other days they could be healed. This was his means of chastising Christ for what the religious ruler considered as breaking the Sabbath. Was Christ intimidated by these words? Not in the least.

#### You hypocrites! Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her? (verses 15-16)

Jesus Christ not only faced the wrath of the Jewish leaders by healing this woman on the Sabbath, he showed his regard for her by calling her a "daughter of Abraham." "The idea of being a _son_ of Abraham was common enough. Jesus used that term in reference to Zacchaeus a few chapters later in Luke. But Jesus with this one modification of the phrase—from 'son' to 'daughter'—raises this formerly pitiful woman to a new status," say Ruth A. Tucker and Walter Liefeld _(Daughters of the Church,_ page 31).

Before his most hostile critics, Jesus publicly showed his concern and high regard for this woman, someone whom others had probably seen for years as she struggled in her affliction to come to the synagogue to worship God. Someone whom they may well have shunned because she was a woman and because she was disabled.

### Female followers

The Bible doesn't specify how many women traveled with Jesus and his male disciples, but Luke records the names of a prominent few, and mentions there were "many others."

#### After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod's household: Susanna: and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means. (Luke 8:1-3)

Think about these remarkable words. Here were women not only associating with Jesus Christ and his male disciples, but traveling along with them. At least some of these women—possibly widows—had control of their own finances. It was out of their generosity that Jesus and his disciples were at least partially supported.

Although Christ worked with the cultural traditions of the first century, he ignored the limitations that had been placed on women by their culture. Women were free to follow him and to take part in his ministry to the world.

### All are one in Christ

In Christ we are all children of God. As the apostle Paul wrote: "You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:26-28).

Paul's significant words, especially where they concern women, are bold even now, and were astonishing in the time he wrote them. This was another of Paul's transitional statements showing that a new covenant relationship through Christ had begun.

Now we have a new life in Christ. All Christians have a new relationship with God. Through Christ, we—both male and female—have become God's own children and one in Jesus Christ. Christ is calling all—men and women—to repentance and a new way of life. Jesus showed through personal example that it's time to put aside the old biases, the feelings of superiority over others, the feelings of resentment and anger, and to walk in newness of life with him and through him.

Many of you are striving to be women of faith. Many of you, like the bent-over woman healed by Christ in the synagogue, have to overlook some discrimination as you faithfully worship God and serve him. Don't get discouraged and give up. Jesus Christ calls you equal in every way in his sight, and heirs to his promises. As you humbly follow him, Christ will use you in his service.

For those of you who haven't taken that step, just as he freed that poor woman from Satan's debilitating physical affliction on her, Christ promises to free you, and all his "daughters of Abraham" who repent and follow him. Jesus Christ wants you in his kingdom.

Sheila Graham

### "A Heritage of Reaching Out"

#### At the time of this interview, historian Ruth A. Tucker was a visiting professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. She has also taught at Calvin College and Fuller Theological Seminary. She holds a doctorate in history from Northern Illinois University and is a popular speaker at seminars and Christian conferences. Her books include _Daughters of the Church_ (with Walter Liefeld) and _Guardians of the Great Commission._

Question: You have said in several of your books that the Bible shows that Jesus Christ had an unusual sensitivity toward women.

Ruth Tucker: Jesus had a remarkable perspective and attitude toward women. He was the Messiah, and he had come to bring the kingdom of God. He had come to live and to die and send a message to the whole world. He needed to mobilize all of those who would believe, all of his followers, including women as well as men.

We read about the 12 men who followed Jesus, but there were women in his company as well. Mary Magdalene and the other Marys followed him and carried the message of who Jesus was. What these women did goes along well with Jesus Christ's great commission that he gave before he died.

The men and women who followed Jesus had that great commission. It was not a commission that should cause people to rival each other in leadership or prestige or position and power, but rather a commission that calls for servitude.

The great commission is radical. It demands sacrifices and self-denial and calls for servanthood. Unfortunately in the church today, often following the management model in the world, we look for prestige and power, even as followers of Jesus. We may not intend that, but often that happens.

Q. Can any woman today— whether she is a young mother with several children, or perhaps a mother whose children have grown up and left home—serve Christ?

A. Absolutely. Any woman, and any man, should reach out to follow Jesus. We have such an incredible heritage of women reaching out in their communities. Often, when they have little children, they will involve the children in their ministry. They will get their adolescents, teenagers, all involved in the ministry as well. This can be done in the family setting. It can be done in groups.

We have women reaching out, often in social service ministries, helping others, meeting the needs of others in the community, bringing the message of the risen Savior at the same time.

Q. As you know, Paul refers to the older women teaching the younger women. How do you feel older women can serve the younger women in the church?

A. Older, more mature women in the faith can teach younger women and less spiritually mature women in the church. This ministry should also include women who may not be closely associated with the church, but in the community, who may have an interest in knowing more of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Women working together to serve in the community have been a major factor in church growth through the generations. When women reach out to other women, to other families, they help and encourage them and also bring the gospel message at the same time.

Women, young and old, ought to see themselves as they read the pages of the New Testament, that they are there, and that they have been there through the generations, following the command of the great commission.

Often, women are the ones who carry on the faith. That may be partly because men have been secularized more than women. Men are out in the marketplace, out in the workplace and in the world. They are often challenged in their faith more than women. Women have traditionally been in the home. They are the ones rearing the children. They are the ones passing along the faith.

Women have to see themselves from New Testament times on through history in this role. God has especially used women, given them a gift of faith from the very women at the cross, for proclaiming the resurrection down through the centuries. We must continue that in our neighborhoods, not just in our homes, but in our communities.

Today, women are going out in the workplace; more and more. I am concerned that passing on the faith in the family and in the neighborhood may be getting left behind. As women are getting more secularized and involved in their own jobs and positions, they find their time more and more limited.

As women, we need to hang on to our heritage, and encourage men also to be involved in bringing the gospel into the home and into the community, carrying on that great commission, to preach, teach, disciple and baptize.

Q. Women are busy, but economic realities here and around the world have forced many women out of the home into the labor force. How can these women find time to serve?

A. I think they need to serve the Lord wherever they are. I would challenge working women that the workplace is a wonderful place to carry out the great commission. When Jesus said to go out to all the world, the workplace is one of those places to reach out and share the faith, even as Mary Magdalene did, telling others about the risen Savior whom she had encountered.

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## Jesus: Tempted on Our Behalf

Scripture tells us that Jesus, our High Priest, was "tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin" (Hebrews 4:15). This powerful truth is represented in the historic Christian teaching that Jesus, in his humanity, is the "vicarious man."

_Vicarious_ is a Latin word that means "in place of another," or "on another's behalf." Through the Incarnation, the eternal Son of God, while remaining God, became human. Calvin referred to this as the "wondrous exchange." T. F. Torrance used the word _substitution:_ "In the incarnation, the Son of God abased himself, substituted himself in our place, interposed himself between us and God the Father, taking all our shame and curse upon himself, not as a third person, but as one who is God himself" ( _Atonement_ , p. 151). In one of his books, our friend Chris Kettler refers to "the deep interaction between Christ's humanity and our humanity at the level of our being, the ontological level."

In his vicarious humanity, Jesus represents all humanity. He is the second Adam who is far superior to the first. Representing us, Jesus was baptized for us—the sinless one baptized for sinful humanity. Our baptism then is a participation in his. Representing us, Jesus was crucified and died for us so that we may live (Romans 6:4). Then Jesus rose from the grave, making us alive with him (Ephesians 2:4-5). Then he ascended, seating us with him in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 2:6). Everything Jesus did, he did in our place, on our behalf. And that includes being tempted on our behalf.

I find it encouraging to know that Jesus went through the same temptations I face and overcame them in my place, on my behalf. To face our temptations and overcome them was one of the reasons Jesus went into the wilderness following his baptism. Even though the enemy was there to interfere, Jesus prevailed. He is the overcomer—on my behalf, in my place. Understanding this makes a world of difference!

In my _Weekly Update_ letter last week, I wrote about the crisis that many face concerning their identity. I shared three unhelpful ways that people typically identify themselves: by what they do, by what others say about them and by what they possess. It's interesting to note that the three temptations faced by Jesus in the wilderness had to do with all three of these identity factors.

You will recall that in the Gospel accounts of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness (in Matthew and Luke), the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the enemy. Jesus did not go through these trials alone. He was accompanied by the Holy Spirit. He was never alone—just as we are never alone.

After 40 days of prayer and fasting, the enemy came to Jesus and said, "If..." Now that's a big word, and I suggest that many of our own temptations start with the word "if." "If I could just..." "If you are..." "If you had your way..." etc. Satan taunted Jesus with the words, "If you are the Son of God..." In doing so, Satan was tempting Jesus to doubt his true identity in relationship to his heavenly Father—to lead him to think he needed to prove his identity and act in certain ways to secure it for himself.

Satan sends similar temptations our way—calling into question our relationship to God and leading us to think that we, by our own efforts, must achieve our identity as children of God. But Jesus exposes the lies of these temptations hidden behind all of the "ifs."

Jesus' first temptation involved the false assumption, _I am what I do_. Satan said, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." In other words, prove to yourself that you really are the Son of God. See if you have miraculous powers to feed yourself and demonstrate your self-sufficiency!

The second temptation involved the false assumption, _I am what others say about me._ Satan said to Jesus, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down and let the angels rescue you." In other words, prove to yourself that you are the Son of God by seeing if the angels will obey your command and then if others witnessing this spectacle will confirm to who you are.

Jesus' third temptation involved the false assumption, _I am what I possess._ Satan said, "If you are the Son of God, fall down and worship me and I will give you all the kingdoms of the world." In other words, prove you are the Son of God by having all the rulers of the world under your authority as you ought to. Simply submit to my authority to take possession of them all.

Jesus saw through the false assumptions behind each temptation. With each one he replied, "It's a lie!" For Jesus, there was no " _If_ I am the Son of God," but always " _Because_ I AM the Son of God." Jesus knew there was nothing he needed to do or possess to be who he truly was. Jesus knew who he was and remained secure in his relationship with the Father, confident in the Father's faithfulness. Under the pressure of temptation, the Holy Spirit, who had sent him into the wilderness in the first place, was there to remind him. Knowing who he was, Jesus had no need to prove it to himself. He had no need to act independently from his Father, out of unbelief, as if he could not trust his Father's love and provision.

Torrance reminds us that Jesus, being the Son of God, did not need to go through and overcome temptation for himself. In his vicarious humanity, Jesus met and overcame these temptations on our behalf: "It was for our sakes and in our place that Jesus lived that vicarious life in utter reliance upon God and in laying hold upon his mercy and goodness" ( _Incarnation,_ p. 125). Jesus did this for us knowing clearly who he was—the Son of God and the Son of Man.

For us to be delivered from temptations in our lives, it's essential that we know who we truly are. As sinners saved by grace, we have a new identity—we are Jesus' beloved brothers and sisters, God's dearly loved children. This is not an identity we earn, and certainly not one others can give us. No, it's something God has given to us through the vicarious humanity of his Son. We simply trust him to be who he is for us and then receive from him this new identity with much thanksgiving.

We take strength knowing that Jesus overcame for us the deceit of Satan's subtle, yet powerful temptations concerning the nature and source of our true identity. As we live in Christ, secure in that identity, we will find that what used to tempt us and make us fall becomes less and less powerful. We grow in strength as we embrace and live into our true identity—secure in knowing it is ours in relationship with the triune God who is faithful and full of love for us his children.

If we are not secure in our true identity, temptations likely will set us back. We may doubt we are Christians, or that God loves us unconditionally. We might be tempted to think that being tempted means God has begun to withdraw from us. But knowing our true identity as God's dearly beloved children is a freely-given gift. We can rest secure knowing that Jesus, in his vicarious humanity, overcame all temptation for us—in our place and on our behalf. Knowing this enables us to stand back up when we fall (and we will), make whatever amends we need to make, and trust God to lead us forward. In fact, confessing that we have fallen and are in need of God's forgiveness are signs that God remains unconditionally faithful to us. Were he not, had he actually abandoned us, we never would turn back to him to receive again his freely-given grace and thus be renewed in his welcoming embrace.

Let us look to Jesus who was tempted in every way we are, yet without sin. Let us rely on his mercy, his love, his strength. And let us praise God because Jesus Christ, the vicarious human, has overcome for us.

Joseph Tkach

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## Jesus Walks on the Water

####  Editor's note: The next two articles are edited transcripts of small group discussions.

Dan Rogers: Good morning, everyone. We've had a nice service so far, and it's now time for the section where we talk about God's word – take a look at it, and see not only what it said, but what it's saying to us today.

Our selection for today is from Matthew chapter 14 verses 22-32. This is the well-known story of Jesus walking on the water, and Peter's attempt to walk on the water. Before we talk about the actual text itself, the action takes place on the Sea of Galilee. I wonder if any of you know anything about the Sea of Galilee? Have you ever been there? Have you ever seen it? Is there anything you could share what's about?

Person5: I knew we're going to be studying this. It brought to mind the time when I did go to see the Sea of Galilee and I didn't realize how big it was. It's really huge and we saw a boat that they've pulled up from the bottom of the sea. It looks so tiny... That's what really stuck with me.

Dan: That small of a boat on that huge body of water. Right. I think we have a picture here on our TV screen of the Sea of Galilee and the type of boat that was common among the fishermen of that day. The boat is kind of interesting. You can't see the sail, because the sail is down, but that center mast was for a sail. Then they had four positions for rowers. The boat could accommodate as many as 15 people, which, looking at the boat seem that would be pretty crowded out there on the Sea of Galilee.

From behind you can get kind of the imagery of this how big that sea is. They call it a sea, but it's actually fresh water, and it's the lowest freshwater lake on earth. I have some dimensions of it here, which are kind of interesting. As Pat said, it's quite big, 33 miles in circumference, 13 miles long, approximately 8 miles wide at its widest point, 64 square miles are covered by Sea of Galilee. It's 200 feet deep and 682 feet below sea level. It's fed primarily by the Jordan River. It's located 27 miles east of the Mediterranean and 60 miles northeast of Jerusalem. That's a good day's walk.

Storms come up on that lake. Does anybody know anything about the storms that frequent the Sea of Galilee? Has anybody read anything, or have you ever seen it in a movie? What did it look like?

Person6: It seemed like it's very violent. It's very strong.

Dan: Living here in Southern California, we're familiar with the phenomenon known as the "Santa Ana winds," and you know how they come. They come down through the canyons. That's what happens there.

There are canyons on east and west sides of the sea and the wind gets funneled through them, and at times particularly when ... It really catches speed going through those canyons, you can have some pretty serious weather out there of the sea. They've seen waves as high as at least 10 feet [Wow.] out on the Sea of Galilee. No. You usually think of a lake as pretty calm, but this one at times betrays its calmness and can turn violent very quickly and almost without warning. That gives us a little bit of maybe background of what we're dealing with. A pretty big size lake or sea, and a pretty small boat in comparison, is what we're going to be dealing here in the story.

Let's take a look then in Matthew chapter 14, and we begin reading in verse 22, which says, "Immediately, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he dismissed them he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray."

Now, this is interesting. Why do you think that Jesus wanted to get rid of the disciples, which immediately he made them? He didn't ask them – he _made_ them get into the boat. What do you think is going on here?

Person5: I think after what we've read about the hugeness of everything that went on before, I think he needed a time just to be alone and also the time to be recharged by the prayer.

Dan: What's the context that we find in the story in, in the book of Matthew? What things have just happened and Jesus' life and the life of the disciples?

Person1: He just fed the 5000.

Dan: Right. He just fed the 5000. That was probably a day's work, feeding over 5000 people. Charles, you had a comment?

Person7: I was going to echo what Julie said, and it was the fact that there's a period here of several parables that Jesus is teaching. This is in a period of a lot of teaching right now as well...so he probably needed some time alone after all this teaching.

Person3: John the Baptist.

Dan: John the Baptist. What happened to him?

Person1: Was beheaded.

Dan: Yes. John the Baptist had just been killed. What relationship did he have to Jesus?

Person3: He was his cousin.

Dan: His cousin. Yeah. This is a pretty hefty blow, the death of your cousin. What about Jesus' disciples? Did they have any relationship with John the Baptist?

Person3: Yes. They were followers.

Dan: Yes, they had been followers of John the Baptist, at least several of them, before Jesus. Here we have some people who knew John quite well, were very close to him, and now he's dead. They feed the 5000. I think Jesus says, "I need some alone time."

Jesus was the Son of God. Why did he need alone time? What's with that? Here he is praying. Since he's the Son of God, why is he praying and why is he seeking time to be alone?

Person6: I think he's modeling for us, for one thing. I think he truly had a need to be alone with his Father, and on top of that, he's modeling how we ought to respond during a time of stress. That the right to do is to go to God and seek his face and seek that solitude and quiet stillness.

Dan: There was something he couldn't do with his disciples, the group around him all the time, because they were always arguing, bickering, doing something, and he just needed some alone time, but here again I bring up the point: He's the Son of God. Was he praying to himself? How does he pray to God when he's the Son of God? Why is he praying? Why does he need to pray?

Person3: He's totally human, totally in his emotions.

Dan: He's, as well as being fully God, fully human and living out his humanity as a human, and so humans need to have alone times. They need to pray, particularly in situations like this.

We find that he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Now, I'm struck by the fact that he liked to go up on a mountain. Have you ever found it interesting to go up on a mountain to pray?

Person1: Mm-hmm (Affirmative)

Dan: Why? What is it about going up on a mountain to pray that makes it special?

Person1: Being in God's nature. Just seeing his majesty just lay before you and it just makes you feel closer to God.

Dan: When you get up higher you feel closer to him. [Laughter] I think there is truth to that and seeing his creation.

Person7: It helps you to find your place. As you go up, you can look back from where you're coming, you're looking back over your city or your town, and because you realize how vast that is and how small you are in comparison to the greater creation.

Dan: Right. It gives you some perspective, doesn't it? Isn't it interesting that how many times in the Bible significant events take place on mountains? We call it a "mountain-top experience." Going up to the mountain and coming back down, like Moses did. He had a rather miraculous thing happen to him after he came down from the mountain, didn't he?

Kind of interesting. Miraculous things happen to people when they come down back off the mountain, so let's see if something miraculous happens. Of course, we know the story, it did. Let's read on: "When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat was already a considerable distance from land buffeted by waves because the wind was against it."

What strikes me there is, how was Jesus supposed to catch up with his disciples? What do you think they thought?

Person5: He hadn't told them.... They didn't know.

Person7: All we know is he dismissed them.

Someone: He told them to go.

Person1: They probably didn't know he was going to rejoin them.

Dan: Or when. That's kind of an unusual situation. How do you think they felt?

Person3: I think they were worried.

Dan: They may have been worried. Yeah, worried about Jesus. Worried about what was happening, what was going to happen to their ministry that he said they have, and this is unusual. He disappears. We don't know when we'll see him. We'll go, "This is a big lake. We're going to cross the lake. When will we see Jesus again? Maybe he'll get a boat tomorrow and get across."

Person6: I wonder if the disciples even wondered if Jesus knew that they were in trouble, that they were in the midst of a big storm. He's off somewhere and they're in the boat, and they probably didn't even know that Jesus already had an overview, but they were just ... He doesn't know we're out here drowning...

Person5: But they did go in faith that he told them to go, and they did it.

Dan: Yeah, and they are a considerable distance, as the New International Version translates that, considerable distance out in the water this time. They're being buffeted by the waves, and I love this phrase, "Because the wind was against it." What do you think they mean by the wind was against it?

Person3: It is pushing it.

Dan: Pushing the boat?

Person3: Yes.

Dan: Do you think it was pushing them the way they wanted to go?

Person6: No. I think pushing them out further into danger.

Dan: Right. They would like to have maybe rowed to shore. Remember they have four oars in there. The sails are of no use right now, but they were probably manning those oars and rowing for all they were worth, but the wind just wouldn't let go of them. Now, if you know anything about Jewish cosmology, and you probably do, there are two places that you expect to encounter demons. You know what two places in Jewish cosmology they were?

Person7: Water is one of them.

Dan: Right, on the water, out on the sea. Remember in the book of Revelation where all these evil looking critters come from?

Person5: Out of the sea.

Dan: It's dangerous going out in the sea. Because you might encounter something out there. And the other place would be the wilderness, out in the desert. They're a little worried about something going on here that maybe more than meets the eye, and I think there's a hint when Matthew says, "The wind was against it." I think maybe he means more than physically, that things are not going the way they should. We're experienced fishermen. This doesn't look right, what's happening here tonight.

Person3: They were no longer in control.

Dan: Yeah. That's another good point. They had lost control. I think that's an excellent point. Because we know someone is going to come who takes control, who has control. Kind of a lesson for them that they don't have control of their lives or their situation. In verse 25 we read, "During the fourth watch of the night..." Does anybody have a translation that tells you what time that is?

Person6: Three o'clock in the morning, that's why it's early.

Dan: Three, and that's early. Three o'clock in the morning. "During the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went out to them walking on the lake." Walking on the lake – why was Jesus walking on the lake? Why didn't he fly? I mean, good grief, if you're going to do a miracle, why not do a big one? Why not fly? Why not suddenly appear in the boat with them? Why do you think Jesus might have been walking on the water?

Person3: Amongst the waves that were terrifying them.

Dan: He was there at ease.

Person3: Yeah. At ease walking right to them.

Dan: Yeah. I think we forget that these waves are great, and yet Jesus comes out just walking like I think we've seen in the movies, on a peaceful little lake. He's walking through these waves and the sea is bouncing up and down around him and he's walking across it.

Person5: Perhaps it's to reassure them, too, that as (because being very versed in the Old Testament), they knew they had the story of Exodus in the turmoil and everything that went on there, and the big waves that God stilled.

Dan: Very good. There's a little imagery there, walking between the waters and not being harmed by the waters if you're the chosen of God. There's a testimony as to who he was. He's walking like the Israelites walked through the Red Sea, and he's come down from the mountain like Moses. There's a lot going on here that the imagery... Do you think the disciples got all this imagery at that time? [Laughter]

Someone: They're hanging on to the boat.

Person7: Earlier you were saying that this issue of evil spirits or demons in the water is a potential... He's walked on top of the water, or is anything there that we may have missed, that Jesus is on _top_ of the water, on top of any evil spirits that might be there? I don't know...

Dan: Yeah. It could be. Go back to Barbara's point that he is in control of all things. It's amazing, but yeah, this demonstrates his control, his peace, his promise, his faith, a lot of things. Again, the disciples had no thoughts about these things right now. Twenty years later, they reflect back, maybe, and to figure this out, but now, they're just scared. We find that "Jesus went after them walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified." Evidently, they didn't recognize him? Why do you think they didn't recognize him?

Person5: There's too much turbulence?

Dan: Too much turbulence. Okay.

Someone: Waves throwing up.

Person2: They're expecting demons.

Person3: It's a ghost.

Dan: You tend to see what you expect to see, not what is always really there.

Person6: Plus it seems so unbelievable. I mean, it's not something you would expect. That would not be something that I would immediate come to the conclusion that oh, it's Jesus. When you're already scared of demons and all those things out in the water, like you just explained, that your first assumption would probably be it's a ghost, or a demon, or something evil.

Dan: Fear hinders your vision. When you're afraid, it's harder to see Jesus, because you're worried. Your mind is where?

Person1: Your own personal storm.

Dan: Right. Where is Jesus?

Person2: He's there.

Person5: But he doesn't come to them until, or at least they don't see him, until after a lot has really happened.

Dan: Yeah. He is there, but they don't see him. Even when they see him, they don't recognize him. Isn't that a question that people tend to ask when they're in a crisis: Where is God? He's there, but we don't see him because we're not expecting him, and we're not looking for him, and really knowing that he is there.

Person6: What strikes me on this is it doesn't say that Jesus came and just calmed the storm and then walked across. Maybe I'm missing something here, but the way I read it, he's walking through the storm.

Dan: Right. That's the way it appears to me, too. That's how I read it. He's walking right through the midst of the storm, which really is amazing. He's walking on the lake and they were terrified. They said, "It's a ghost." They cried out in fear like a little girl. Oh no. That's not in there... [Laughter]

Dan: Had these fellows ever been out on the sea before? Yeah. They were fishermen. Most of them. Had they ever been out on that lake? Yeah. It was probably, maybe, one of their boats, unless they rented or borrowed it from someone, and yet these brave, experienced seamen are terrified. Something out of the ordinary is definitely happening here. Now they thought they saw a ghost. Did the disciples believe in ghosts?

Someone: Probably not.

Person3: They had them in their background.

Person6: Maybe it's still in there somewhere.

Dan: Yeah. You fall back on what you've grown up with, what you've heard. Did the Jewish people believe in disembodied spirits roaming the earth? Yeah, they did. Is Jesus a disembodied spirit?

Person5: They think he is. [Laughter] He's walking on the water.

Dan: There might be an interesting message here from Matthew (and other New Testament writers as well) of the reality of Jesus' humanity, that he is not some disembodied spirit who they perceive as a man. He _is_ a man. He's not a ghost. He's not a disembodied spirit. He's a man, but he's a man who is walking on the water. How do you think he did that? What technique did he use to walk on the water?

Person3: He's God.

Dan: He is God, but he's operating, he's fully human. How could he do this?

Person3: By the Spirit.

Dan: I would say by the Spirit. That's the way he seems to have done everything in his ministry, is by the Spirit. He might say that same happened to Moses coming down from the mountain and glowing. He was a man, but he glowed by the Spirit. Let's say Jesus was a man, but walking down off the mountain and parting the sea, he walked like a man, but through the power of the Holy Spirit. It also shows Jesus is in control, like what Barbara's raised there. He's in control. He's in control of what?

Everything. You mean even storms?

Dan: He's in control. The forces of nature. Who in the world could be in charge of all creation?

Someone: God.

Dan: Yeah. The Creator. Who else would be in charge of all the creation, but the Creator.

"They say, 'It's a ghost,' and they cried out in fear, but Jesus immediately said to them, 'Take courage. It is I. Don't be afraid.'" Have you ever noticed how many times Jesus had to say to his disciples, Don't be afraid? Take courage, don't fear, and don't be afraid. Why do you think he had to continually encourage them not to be afraid?

Person5: There was a lot against them.

Dan: We're fearful. When things get against us, we get fearful. What have we seen that fear does to you, though, when you have that kind of fear?

Person2: Blind you.

Dan: It blinds you. Yeah.

Person3: Makes you crazy.

Person1: You start questioning everything.

Dan: Questioning, doubting ...

Person3: Can't see the truth.

Dan: Fearing. Can't see.

Person5: You can't do anything.

Person2: It paralyzes.

Dan: It kind of reminds me of the fellow who buried a talent because he was afraid. Everybody else did well. His problem was not that he only had the one. His problem was he was afraid, and when you're afraid, as Barbara said, you do crazy stuff, stuff that's not right, and you lack faith. You don't trust God, and you just make things worse. Isn't it challenging as a human not to be afraid?

We're going to find out, as we read on in the story, what a challenge it is. Verse 8, "Lord, if it's you ...," [Don't you love Peter's cry?] "If it's you [he's still having a little trouble], Peter replied, tell me to come to you on the water."

Now, notice that Peter didn't say, "Let me come to you on the water," or "Can I come to you on the water?" He said, " _Command_ me to come to you on the water." Why do you think he put it that way? Why did he ask Jesus to command him to come to him on the water?

Person3: He wanted Jesus to make it possible that he could come, because he was afraid.

Dan: He was afraid, but he felt what? If Jesus commands ...

Person3: ... it would happen, because he's seen it.

Dan: All right.

Someone: He just thought, he's been seeing it.

Person6: He wanted to make sure it was going to work. [Laughter]

Dan: If it didn't work, whose fault was it going to be?

Several: Jesus'.

Dan: Can we ever do that?

Person7: Yes.

Dan: Oh, God, you have left me down. I asked you for this and I prayed about it. I prayed about it, and it didn't happen. It didn't turn out the way you wanted it. I don't know what's going on with you, God, but you're not listening or something out there. Yeah, I think there was a little human tendency there to "let's put this on God. I have nothing to do with it. If I fail, it's God's fault."

"So Jesus eventually said, 'Come.' Then Peter got down out of the boat." Would you have gotten down out of the boat?

Person5: Probably not.

Person3: I would hope so.

Dan: You notice that the 11 did not get down out of the boat? There was only one out of the 12 who did, but that's what? Peter's personality? Peter's nature? The others were saying, "Let's see how this thing works out. If Peter makes it, maybe we'll walk, too, but first, let Peter go." Peter got down out of the boat and walked on the water. How cool is that? Peter is walking on the water.

"He came towards Jesus, but when he saw the wind, he was afraid." What happened here? He saw the wind and was afraid. He walking on water.

Person3: He took his eyes off Jesus.

Dan: Very good. Fear blinded him, and now he couldn't see Jesus, because he's afraid. He saw what? The wind?

Person5: He saw what was going on immediately around him and said, "This is impossible."

Dan: Thankfully, we never do that. [Laughter] I think we can understand it. God, I know you're there, but look's going on around me? Oh, my goodness. What's going to happen next? I am impressed that Peter walked on the water. "He saw the wind and he was afraid and beginning to sink, cried out, 'Lord, save me.'" What do you think of his actions there? He starts to sink.

Person5: He knew who to turn to.

Dan: He knew who to turn to. Let's give Peter a lot of credit. He realized "I'm not in control, but I have a feeling Jesus, you are. [Barb: And you love me.] I need you to save me." Isn't it the cry of all humanity, or should be, "Lord Jesus, save me"?

Person6: I like it that he didn't yell to his friends. Throw him the oar over here.

Someone: Throw me a line.

Dan: You get the feeling that he was past the point of no return? There's a gospel account of Peter swimming. We know Peter could swim. Being a fisherman, we would assume he was a pretty good fisherman having grown up on the lakes, spent his life out there fishing, but at this point, he realizes he can't swim back to the boat. There is no alternative if Jesus doesn't save him. He's a goner.

"Immediately [verse 31], Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. 'You of little faith,' he said. 'Why did you doubt?' When they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, 'Truly, you are the Son of God.'" What do you make of Jesus' words to Peter, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?"

Person3: He was teaching him.

Dan: What do you think the message was?

Person3: He had to believe.

Dan: He needed to believe. He should have had more belief.

Person3: In Jesus.

Dan: Right.

Person5: I think it also probably looks ahead to the time at the crucifixion when Peter said, "I'll never give up on you," and he did, and Jesus is saying, "Don't doubt."

Person6: I think I take these words as very tender words, I guess. Because his first reaction was to save Peter, and to grab him and pull him out, and then he told them, oh, come on. It wasn't that he let him struggle or sink, or he could have dived after him really, but he took it easy on him. He saved him first, and I see these as very tender words even though they're strong. He saved him first and then he taught him.

Dan: Yeah. Some of us might say, "Well, let him learn his lesson. Let's have him drown almost and... I think you're right – Jesus was kind in his admonition. I don't even know if it's a rebuke. Peter, he says, had little faith.

Person5: But he had some.

Dan: He had some. How much faith do I have?

Person3: And how much do the disciples have? They didn't go.

Dan: They didn't even go out on the water.

Person3: But he was working with him. [Dan: Yeah.] individually...

Dan: I think the point it is, can you be saved with little faith?

Person3: Yes.

Person5: Yes.

Person3: Or with no faith.

Dan: Virtually no faith, because Jesus has faith for you. We have to trust not in our own faith, but on the faith that Jesus has.

Person6: He supplies for us.

Dan: Yeah, he had a little faith, but he was still saved. What condition was Peter in, do you think, when he got back in the boat?

Person3: Wet. [Laughter.]

Person1: Ghostly looking, looking very wet as a sheet.

Dan: Probably. Do you imagine the water was hot or cold?

Several: Cold.

Dan: And the wind was blowing. I think he might have even turned blue. How do you think he feels all wet and frozen lying there on the boat and all the other 11 looking at him?

Person3: Humble, embarrassed.

Person5: But yet he did walk on water for a little bit. "Did that really happen?" He had to be thinking about that, too.

Person7: Jesus was so full of love that in this ... I have to see that Peter's gained some additional love for Jesus, and he recognizes that "I desperately need you" and I have to see his heart growing even more there.

Dan: Then Jesus tells the storm to stop, and Peter's thinking, "yeah, now, after I'm back in the boat. Why didn't you do that before, when I was walking out there?" Anything we can learn from that?

Person3: He would have learned.

Dan: The storm actually helped Peter, didn't it?

Person3: Yes.

Dan: Did storms in our lives ever help us? They're not very pleasant ... We don't like them.... God seems to saves us out of most of them. He will save us for all eternity, but sometimes you get wet.

Person3: Cold.

Dan: He lets you get wet.

Someone: Hungry.

Dan: Then in saving you, you don't come out unscathed. Why do you think Jesus didn't stop the storm until it was over, though?

Person6: It would have had far less impact, I think, than if he would have calmed the storm. With this scenario, he didn't just calm the storm. They also walked on the water. They almost drowned. He was there in the midst...

Dan: ...of the storm.

Person5: In the midst – I just thought of that, too – in the midst of the trial and the crisis. Jesus was there when he was walking on the water, and he was still in the midst of the storm, and he was still cold and shivering, and all of that, but he was still there. He did perform the miracles, too, in the midst of the trial, in the midst of the crisis.

Dan: Right. That's amazing. And you know, has God promised us no problems in life? Do you read that? ...persecution... Jesus has never promised us no storms, but what has he promised us?

Person3: Storms.

Someone: That he will be with us.

Dan: He promised that he will be with us in those storms.

Person3: To the end.

Dan: Right, to the very end, and he will save us.

Person6: Even with little faith.

Dan: Even with a little faith that we have, he will still save us. Any lessons that you take away from this story today from this biblical account, anything that really just particularly stands out in your mind?

Person6: I think for me, there are several, but the one of them that just keeps popping in my mind is as a mother of two small children, the approach of that graceful loving way of dealing, the way Jesus dealt with their tantrums sometimes, or their doubts, or their fears, and how Jesus approached almost as a parent to them, how tender and full of mercy and love it was, even when they were in the midst of a crisis, tantrum, or doubt or a fear. As a mom, I think I just really want to take that same approach in life to deal with my children in a tender way, a loving way, even when there's only very little faith, and even when there's a lot of doubt whether I'm doing the right thing for them. They doubt me, I can still be there in a loving way, on that level. Of course, there's a deeper level as well as far as my personal relationship with Jesus, and the storms that I do go through and knowing that he will pull me out. He might not calm the storm, but he will be there and he won't let me drown.

Dan: Okay. Very good. What else?

Person3: There's lessons on many levels. There's the blessing of training, that Jesus was training his disciples through this whole experience about the storms and in saving them, like Suzie said about them.

Dan: Even when he is not visibly present.

Person3: Right.

Dan: You still have faith and he will save you.

Person7: The modeling at the start of the story, we have Jesus going up to the mountainside to be with his Father to recharge his batteries, to get some peace after having fed the 5000, knowing what is yet to come in his ministry, just spending a time alone with God, just a reminder that even in the midst of struggles, we need to cling to our Father.

Person5: I think that was one that I got, too, is that he was there getting close to his Father, getting recharged, but he knew about the disciples. He knew the problem they were having and he did go rescue them.

Dan: Right. How do you think maybe this speaks to people who ask that question, "When bad things happen, where is God?" How does this speak to that?

Person7: He's there. You may not see him. The storm may blind us, but he's there. We have to look for him.

Dan: He's not only there in spirit. How else is he there, do you think?

Person2: He's physically present.

Dan: Physically present, and not only in his being, but in whatever humans may be there as well. God is present, and there is no good but of God, so whatever happens to us in storms, if it's not Jesus who pulled us up ... What if it's a rowboat that came out and pulled Peter out of the water? Was Jesus still there?

Person3: Yes.

Person2: Absolutely.

Dan: Yeah. Peter's present in the people in the rowboat. You know the old joke about you know guy was waiting on his housetop in the flood for the Lord to save him, and the rowboat came up and he said, "No thanks. The Lord is going to save me." The helicopter came, "He said, No thanks. The Lord's going to save me." He drowned and went to heaven. When he's in heaven he said, "Lord what happened? You didn't save me." He said, "Well I sent a rowboat and a helicopter for you." [Laughter]

Sometimes we don't see the ways. Again, we're blind to the ways that God comes to us. We look for God to come to us in the way we _want_ him to come, and the way we expect him to come, and when it's not that way, sometimes we're blind to it and don't see it.

Person1: I think also how much has our faith grown through each storm we face. Does our faith grow each time? Or do we allow more doubt?

Dan: I think you make a good point. One of the things about Peter was he had some faith, he thought, and he walked on the water, but even at our highest points, when we have faith to walk on water, as humans, we still revert, and then the next time, didn't learn the lesson at all. Now we doubt. Now we're sinking, and you'd think, Well, Peter, if you walked on water a while..."

Person1: Why didn't you keep going?

Dan: Why didn't he keep going? We humans, we're up and down. Thank God, it's not our faith that saves us.

Person6: What I love about this Jesus who's so fully human, he must have felt the storm and the boat rocking, and he must have been getting wet and cold. He was in the storm with them. He was not the one who was miraculously all dry and probably didn't feel the cold. He must have felt all the elements in the midst of the storm. He put himself there. To me, it's what makes Jesus so approachable knowing that I'm in a storm. "You might not calm the storm, but I know you know what it feels like."

Dan: Yeah. There's a lot to learn from this story, isn't it?

All right. Well, that concludes our message portion of the service today. We'll sing the final hymn, and have a closing prayer, and dismiss for the day.

Dan Rogers

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## Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

Dan Rogers: Good morning. It's good to see all of you here today. We've had a nice time singing and worshipping together and good time of prayer. Now, it's time for us to get into God's word and talk about our message for today. As you know, we're going to be reading from John chapter 4 and the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Before we actually get into the text, I thought it might be interesting just to talk about the background of Samaria and that part of the world and the Samaritan people so that we have a little bit of background to work with as we get in to the story.

Anybody here who wants to volunteer some information about Samaria or the Samaritans? What can you tell us about that country and the people who live there?

Female: They were hated by the Jews. I know that. Here, Jesus was walking through it.

Dan: Okay.

Female: That's interesting.

Dan: There was some kind of antipathy between the Samaritans and the Jewish people. Anybody know what that's all about? Why? They're neighbors. How come they don't like each other? Anybody remember?

Female: Different religion.

Dan: Yeah. How so? How was it different?

Female: They worshipped at different places.

Dan: Aha. Did they worship a different god?

Female: Yes.

Dan: Did they think they worshiped a different god?

Female: No. They thought they ...

Dan: The Jews thought they worshiped a different god, but the Samaritans thought they worshipped the same god as the Jews but as Barbara said, they did it in the wrong places, and the Jewish religion, in the Old Testament, was very place-conscious. Jerusalem was God's headquarters on earth and how dare they not worship in Jerusalem and worship somewhere else? Anybody know where they liked to worship? Anybody can remember?

Dan: We could figure it's probably going to be on the top of a mountain.

Female: Yeah.

Dan: What mountain was it? Anybody remember?

Female: No.

Dan: Okay. Mount Gerizim. You knew that, didn't you?

Female: We knew that.

Dan: They built a temple on the top of Mount Gerizim and they worshipped their god who they thought was the God of Israel. They almost considered themselves Israelites, which was a real insult to the Jews because it was like they were lying about their national identity, claiming to be the true people of God, claiming to worship, and doing it in a false place and in a false way with false priests. The Jews hated this defilement, as they saw it, of the true religion which they had and yet the Samaritans, sometimes, could not understand this because they thought they were worshipping the same god as the Jews did.

But then, during the Maccabean period just prior to the birth of Jesus by a couple of hundred years, John Hyrcanus led an armed force of Jews up Mount Gerizim and destroyed their temple which was an affront to the Jews, but now this became a very horrible thing in the life of the Samaritans. The Samaritans never got over the Jews coming up and destroying their temple. For years afterwards, they continue to go up Mount Gerizim and to worship in the rubble of the temple that the Jews had destroyed.

Over the centuries, this animosity have been building and reached a fever pitch. Everybody know where Samaria is?

Female: Real close to Israel.

Dan: Israel, to the Jews, to Judea. I have a little map here and if you can see it, it might be helpful just to give you an illustration. If you can see that there is Galilee in the north and there is ... Samaria is in the middle and down here is Judea. You can see that you have Galilee to the north, and who came from Galilee?

Female: Jesus.

Dan: Jesus and... 11 of his 12 disciples came from Galilee, and then there's Samaria.

Female: In between.

Dan: Judea is to the south of Samaria and Galilee is just to the north and you notice the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River flowing along there and sort of dividing the land from what they call the Transjordan.

Dan: If you were going to go from Jerusalem down here, it would appear you had to go through Samaria but wait ... Jews don't like Samaritans and the Samaritans don't like the Jews, so what do you think that the Jewish people going north and south from Galilee to Jerusalem would tend to do?

Female: Go around it.

Dan: They would tend to go around it and it was an easy trip. They just had to cross the Jordan River, go up that side, and then cross back over into Galilee, and they preferred that, lest they encounter any Samaritans and touch any unclean Samaritan or some Samaritan thing that had been touched. It was typical to go around Samaria to get from Galilee to Judea and Judea to Galilee, kind of an interesting little detour that they had to take.

We have some pictures here too on the TV screen. You might want to look at this area. This is in the late 1800s. This is what the site of what's called Jacob's Well in Samaria looked like. You might notice that it's in the side of a hill, and we don't typically think of having to go into a cave-like area to get to a well, but that's what it looked like in the 1800s, and then we have a more modern picture. As you notice, they've turned it into tourist attraction and built a wall around it and now, people can file in and it's labeled in three languages there, Jacob's Well. Both Jewish scholars, Muslim scholars, and Christian scholars do agree that this was Jacob's Well that's spoken of here in John chapter 4. It's pretty good archeological evidence for that.

I think we have one more picture. This is what it looks like inside. Can you see the bucket? Of course, it has been touristified to make it a shrine worthy of visiting, but it gives you an idea of where it was, and it's still there to this day. You can actually go to Jacob's Well and visit.

All right. We got some pictures to give us a little bit of background, a little bit of geography. Now, let's go to our text at John chapter 4. We read here that "the Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John." This is not good news for the Pharisees. The Pharisees thought they controlled the territory outside of the temple. If you want to know the religious marketplace of the day, the Sadducees controlled the temple. The Pharisees had everything else.

Now, here's this what we would call wild card, John the Baptist. He is not exactly an Essene but he kind of looks like one. He is not a Pharisee. He is not a Sadducee and he is getting followers. This is marketplace competition.

Now, John is gone, but of all things, there's another guy coming on the scene who is taking away people after him, and that's Jesus. He is getting "more disciples than 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."

You remember our little map there where everything is? Now, notice verse 4. "Now, he _had_ to go through Samaria." What do you think John means, he _had_ to go through Samaria? Did he have to go through Samaria?

No. Most Jews did not want to go through Samaria and went around it. Could John mean something more?

Female: He was led to go through Samaria.

Dan: He felt led, felt a compulsion, felt a need. This gives you the sense of what? A mission?

Female: Yes.

Dan: The wonderful thing about reading the fourth Gospel is the writer, John, loves to use double entendres and two and three and four layers of meanings in so much of what he says. We always have to read beyond what appears on the surface when we read John. "He had to go through Samaria. 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 and it was about the sixth hour." Anybody got the time in your translation?

Female: Noon time.

Female: Lunch.

Dan: What do you make of this "Jesus was tired from the journey?"

Female: Been walking a long time.

Female: It was hot.

Female: He needed something to drink?

Dan: What do you think John is telling us about the nature of Jesus?

Female: He's very human.

Female: He too gets tired.

Dan: He got tired? Yeah, he wanted to rest and he was thirsty.

Female: He needed food and drink.

Dan: It's noon time. Verse 7: "When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, 'Will you give me a drink?'"

Okay. It's noon time and we have a Samaritan woman coming out from the city of Sychar. The well was outside of the city, so she has to come out of the city, walk out to this area where we saw the well located, go in there with her pitcher or bucket or whatever she had, her rope and all of that and draw water. Does anything strike you as unusual about this scenario of the Samaritan woman coming out at noon time to draw water?

Female: That seems an odd time to draw water. You would either do that in the morning or at night when it's not so hot.

Dan: Right.

Female: To come out in the middle of the day seems out of place.

Dan: Right. Do you notice anyone else coming out?

Female: She's by herself.

Female: No friends.

Dan: If you read the Old Testament, as Suzie indicates, there are many examples of women coming out for water in the stories as you read the Old Testament and they always come out at morning or in evening. Never at noon.

Why else might a woman not want to come out to a well outside of the city by herself?

Female: Safety.

Female: Robbers.

Dan: Who would typically stop by wells during the middle of the day?

Female: Strangers.

Female: People passing through.

Dan: Travelers, right. Probably caravans, and who knows who they are and what they're up to, so it would be kind of a dangerous time for a woman to come outside of the city walls by herself in the heat of the day to draw water. There's something strange going on here, and as Barbara suggested, she does not seem to have any friends. She has to come out by herself all alone—an unusual situation.

Male: It could be she's avoiding other people.

Dan: Maybe she doesn't want to be with them, right? "Jesus says to her, 'Will you give me a drink?' His disciples had gone away into the town to buy food." Every time I read that verse, I think of kind of the jokes that go like, "How many disciples does it take to buy lunch?"

Male: All of them.

Dan: What's with that? Would it take 11 disciples to go into town and buy lunch? What do you think is going on here?

Female: He sent them all.

Female: It was the plan.

Dan: Yeah. He sent them to buy lunch. I don't think you needed 11 to go into town to buy lunch. That would be a pretty big lunch for 11 people to have to carry. Do you think Jesus had something in mind here?

It looks like this was planned. He had to go through Samaria. He stayed by the well and sent them all away so that he could be alone and, "aah!" Surprise, here comes the Samaritan woman. We don't know the background. We don't know how Jesus knew all this, whether he was led of the Spirit or whether he had word that this happened or how. All we know is the story, so we have to take it at face value.

Let's see what we can glean from it. Jesus said, "Will you give me a drink?" Then, in verse 9, the Samaritan woman said to him, "You're a Jew. I'm a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" Then John, for the benefit of his writers who don't know history, said, "For Jews do not associate with Samaritans." Something very unusual is going on here. What do you make of Jesus asking her, "Will you give me a drink?" What do you think is happening here? What's going on? Why would he do this?

Female: A Jew would never address a woman and never address a Samaritan.

Dan: Right.

Female: He was showing acceptance of her which was ...

Dan: Yes. Even though he asked her a favor, he was showing that he accepted her equal to himself.

Female: So weird. He is breaking down some major walls here.

Dan: That's very strange. Some major barriers of religion, of genderism, of classism and all those isms are being dramatically broken by Jesus. She gathers that he is Jew, we read that in the text. How do think she figured out he was a Jew?

Female: The way he dressed.

Dan: Yeah. Without even hearing him speak, but then when he said, "Will you ..." "Mhmmm ... I recognize that accent." It's Galilean if you ask me.

You must be a Jew, but I think the way he dressed and he was probably dressed somewhat like the rabbis of his day. Here you have someone who possibly is not only a Jew, not only a male, but possibly a rabbi, and he is talking to a Samaritan woman. This is earth-shattering. This is just not done.

She even almost mildly rebukes him for his nerve. How dare you speak to me?

Female: Don't you know you'd be contaminated? You may be hurt.

Dan: Verse 10: Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asked you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." What do you make of some of these statements? We've got the gift of God, we got living water. What do you think these things are talking about here? Let's start with the gift of God. What do you think that might be? "If you knew the gift of God ..."

Female: Jesus.

Female: If you knew who is talking to you and what I can offer you, you would beg me for the living water.

Female: He is being very plain in one sense with her because he hasn't talked to others in this way before.

Dan: In the book of John, he hasn't even talked to his disciples this way. He's talking to her in a more open way than he did with anyone that he met, at least, in the book of John to this point. Is there anything called the gift of God in the New Testament you can think of other than Jesus?

Female: The Spirit, the Holy Spirit.

Dan: If you knew the gift of God, that Spirit. If the Spirit worked with you, if you just know the gift of God and know he's with you and who it is that asked you, the Son of God ... Whoa! He's getting into a Trinitarian theology here.

Talking or hinting about the Spirit, hinting about who he is, assuming that she knows some God in heaven who unbeknownst to her is the Father but he is really working with her in a Trinitarian way which he has talked to no one else about, at least at this point, his ministry throughout the Gospels.

Female: He must have known that she's very receptive in her circumstances, of coming at noon and that she was a candidate to be very open with.

Dan: What made her a good open candidate?

Female: He knew her heart. Just her brokenness probably.

Female: No friends and ...

Dan: Coming out alone at dangerous time of the day.

Female: She was vulnerable.

Female: Felt very empty.

Dan: What do you think of her, let's say, intelligence and understanding?

Female: I think she was curious already and obviously was wondering about him and she was almost seeking an answer from him.

Dan: The first thing she does to him when he says, "Give me a drink of water," is to do what?

Male: Ask him a question.

Dan: What do we call people today who ask questions about Jesus?

Female: Seekers, learners.

Dan: She was, "Hey, wait a minute. I want to know more here. This is interesting. Tell me what's going on." She was indeed somewhat receptive. He said, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asked you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." What is living water? What does that expression mean?

Female: Water that will make you live forever.

Dan: That's how he's going to interpret it, as water that will make you live forever but let's say if you were just ... took him at face value, do you know what they would mean by living water in that day?

Female: It would be fresh water.

Dan: Fresh water because it's alive and not dead like the Dead Sea but not full of salt but living water. Where did living water usually come from?

Female: Springs?

Dan: Springs, yeah, flowing water from ... but wait a minute – this is not a spring. This is not flowing water. This is a well. He says, "I asked you for a drink out of the well but if you ask me, I would give you living water, flowing water." Rushing water, not just sitting-still water at the bottom of this well.

"Sir," very respectful. "Sir," the woman said. "You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?" What? You're going to go down to the very base of the well and find out if there's anything running in from outside somewhere? You don't even have a bucket. You don't even have a rope. How are you going to do this? "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?" What do you find interesting about that statement?

Female: She's very feisty.

Female: She really thinks that he might be. she's hoping that he might be.

Dan: She's engaging with him as an equal, isn't she? "You may be a rabbi, but I know a thing or two."

Female: Right, because she's saying that she knows something about her ancestor Jacob. She knows a little bit about the ... maybe she even knows something about living water what he is referring to.

Dan: She could have been tongue-in-cheek saying, "I get your message but I don't understand how you're using it." Yeah.

What do you think of this, "Our father, Jacob?"

Female: That's probably who she thought was the most important person at that period of time.

Dan: Does anyone know where the Samaritans actually came from who were living in Samaria at that time of Jesus, their national origin or their regional origin? Do you know where they originated from?

The northern tribe of Israel was taken captive in about 722, 721 BC by the Assyrians. The Assyrians brought in people from some of their inhabited lands to replace the northern kingdom of Israel that they've taken. They didn't take all of them. They only took a small portion (relatively, probably) away, but they did replace them with others, and then there was intermarriage between the northern tribes of Israel that remained and all of these, let me call them Macedonians as a generalism of where they came from, that were replacing them. You got kind of a mixed breed. You know how the Jews feel about mixed breeds?

Dan: That's bad.

Dan: What does she say?

Female: She's giving a common link.

Dan: She's saying we're related to Jacob.

Dan: If you were a Jew, who would you have said your father was?

Female: Abraham.

Dan: Is that interesting? The Jews say our father, Abraham. The Samaritans say, our father, Jacob.

A little difference in theological views here. Are you greater than Jacob? After all, Jacob is the greatest of all the patriarchs from their estimation. Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him, will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

What a statement! What is he saying to her? How do you interpret that statement? What do you think it meant to her?

Female: Life.

Dan: What kind of life?

Female: Good.

Dan: Good life, the best life.

Female: Fresh and clean.

Male: Eternal life.

Dan: Had Jesus offered anyone else that you know of in the Gospels at this time in his ministry eternal life?

Female: No. I don't think so.

Female: He talks about it gushing, so it's a lot. It's not like he's going to just give her a little portion of it but a lot of ... the whole amount.

Dan: There's a power there. There is a force in the sense of a spring of water welling up from the source, and flowing out and up to... the source will give you eternal life. I am impressed at the theology that Jesus is laying on this Samaritan woman. This is pretty deep and evidently, he feels she can process it.

I'm also amazed at how he ... if you noticed, he leads her step by step and he began by saying, "Will you give me a drink of water?" That one question, based on her response, he then went a little further. Then based on her response, he went a little further and now, he's going, "You can have eternal life, if you will."

Female: Yes. Exciting.

Dan: At verse 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." She's interested, isn't she? "Okay. You're offering, I'm buying."

Female: She sounds excited.

Dan: "I don't know exactly fully what you're talking about, but it sounds good to me. I want it." What's the reason she gives for wanting this water so that she will never thirst?

Female: She doesn't like her life.

Dan: What makes you think that?

Female: She doesn't want to come there ever again.

Dan: There's something about coming to the well that she doesn't like.

Female: By herself in the heat of the day.

Female: It could be her business.

Dan: It could be something, the way ... something going on in her life.

Dan: It could be her business. It could be something going on in her life. We don't know yet. Of course we do, because we've read the end of the story, but we don't know yet what it is, but she's not happy.

She wants some changes. She wants to change her life. This is really quite remarkable. Jesus has not dealt with anyone like this. Of all people, the first one he deals with is a Samaritan and a woman. The 12 are "out to lunch." [laughter]

So he says to her in verse 16, "Go call your husband and come back." She says, "I have no husband." Jesus seems to have known that.

That always reminds me of asking the children, "Did you eat that cookie?" You know that they did, so why do you ask them?

Female: See what they'll say.

Dan: I think he asked her just to see what she would say, and she said, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You were right when you say you have no husband." He didn't say, "I know you're a whore."

Dan: What did he do? What approach did he take with this woman?

Female: Very gentle.

Female: Respectful.

Dan: He complimented her, didn't he? Because she told the truth. She didn't lie to him. She didn't try to deceive him. She could have, but she was just honest and forthright and said, "Yeah. I am who I am and I don't have a husband." Jesus said, "You're right."

Female: She made herself very vulnerable to someone who was giving her hope perhaps. He held something that she wanted that sounded interesting. It was giving her hope. She was being very forthright.

Dan: You get the feeling that her life had hit bottom. She's, "I got nothing to lose. You got some living water? I'll go for whatever it is. I don't fully understand but I'll tell you, where I am, I'll take whatever you have to offer."

Female: It seems like that ... just from reading and I know it probably was a lot harder than it seems, drawing water and going out in the middle of the day, but that could not have been the end of the story. Just that she was this desperate to get out of that particular job. It seemed like there was layers underneath that she really wanted to get out of.

Dan: Yeah. Her whole way of life, perhaps. She wants to leave.

Jesus said to her, "You're right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands." The interesting thing here is that he said she had five husbands.

Female: In that culture, you had to have a protector. You had to have a husband.

Female: Somehow, she had five husbands.

Dan: Yeah. We don't know what happened to these five husbands, do we?

Female: No.

Dan: Do you think all five died?

Female: It doesn't sound like it and why not?

Dan: Unless she's a more dangerous woman than ... but she had five husbands.

Female: She may have had abusive husbands.

Dan: She may have had abusive husbands and so we're assuming perhaps she had had five husbands. Maybe she was divorced. In Jewish law, how many times were you allowed to divorce?

Female: Once.

Dan: Actually more. They allowed three. None was the ideal. One, you were kind of "errrr." Three, that's the limit. She had had five.

Male: I don't know what Samaritan law was. I have no record of it but ...

Female: Three, five ... five men put her away maybe.

Dan: Yeah. That's what I was going to ask next. Could a woman put away a man?

Female: No. Rejected.

Dan: Five men had put her away.

Female: Rejection.

Dan: Who was it awhile ago? I think it was it Pat who said she was feisty.

Dan: A strong woman. A strong-willed woman, which was probably not very favorable in her culture.

Dan: Five men had put her away.

Dan: Do you think it was because she was strong willed? There could have been other reasons, various reasons.

Dan: We don't know what they all were, but five men ...

Female: She seems very intelligent too, so maybe that was intimidating to the men.

Female: She seems like she had some sort of education. She does talk about as if she is aware of Jacob, of what's going on.

Female: She understands where he is from, so she doesn't sound uneducated, and he is engaging her as if she understands what ... And perhaps that was intimidating to five husbands.

Female: That they were supposed to be very quiet.

Dan: I'll share a comment, this man is giving me water and saying, "What are you talking about?" Immediately, she spars with him.

Now, it tells us something about her nature. Here in verse 18, Jesus says, "The fact is you have had five husbands." Evidently five legitimate, legal arrangements, and the man you now have is not your husband, an illegal, immoral arrangement. What did he say to her? "You adulterer, you harlot, you whore?" What did he say?

Female: He said, "You spoke the truth. You were honest about this."

Dan: He did not put her down. He did not rebuke her. He did not criticize her. He complimented her for her forthrightness and her honesty. She again speaks to him with respect at verse 19. "Sir," the woman said. "I can see that you are a prophet." What do you make of that statement? She said, "I see you are a prophet."

Male: He knew stuff that he couldn't have known.

Dan: He sees things that other people don't. He obviously is an intelligent man versed in knowledge of his day.

Female: She sees that he's a rabbi. She doesn't see a Jew. He's probably ...

Dan: Probably a rabbi, a teacher, a Jew, yeah, and he is not a Pharisee or Sadducee who she may be familiar with, but he stands outside of them like a prophet. Sort of like John the Baptist type of prophet, but it's interesting to note that in the Samaritan religion, they were looking for one sent from God who would be the descendant of (of course) Jacob, who would come and free their people and they did not call him the Messiah. They called him, the Prophet.

They were looking for not just a prophet but The Prophet, but I think that we can see here that Jesus is already leading her to think in a certain direction about just who he might be and he's already offered her eternal life. Wow!

Female: She must have been really surprised too that he didn't condemn her. She must have been so surprised by his response. I can only imagine her bracing for the rebuke that was to come when it was obvious that she had five husbands and was living with a guy now. His response I think triggered some of that respect that she seems to display in the ways she talks to him because she's probably floored.

Dan: Yeah. I think so. She's now very respectful, calling him a prophet and I think she's deeply touched. This is moving her emotionally.

Female: She was probably ready to put up her defenses if he had come back.

Dan: Probably used to it, don't you think? Daily ... yeah.

Female: Yeah. She's got gloves on.

Dan: She was ready, but his approach was totally different from what she was used to or expected. She says to him, "Our fathers worshipped on this mountain. [That would be Mount Gerizim.] But you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." There is a key difference.

If you worship in the wrong place, you can't be God's people. The place is what's important, and that's what divided them primarily. 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 now has come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God the Spirit and his worshippers must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Wow! What a message! "A time is coming," he said to her, when who is going to worship the Father?

Female: All people. It says ... yeah.

Dan: But in particular?

Female: The Samaritans.

Dan: The Samaritan woman, first of all, and the Samaritans secondarily. There is a time coming when you – that seems to me a prediction.

Female: He's very personal to her right now.

Dan: Yeah. When you, the woman, you the Samaritans, you're going to worship.

Dan: Who are you going to worship?

Female: The Father.

Dan: Anything about that strike you as unusual?

Female: Because it was Jacob that they worshipped? ...

Dan: Yeah. I wonder what she thought he meant when he said, "You will worship the Father." He might be right she might tell. He means Jacob.

Female: Or maybe he means Abraham since he is Jewish.

Dan: Or maybe he means Abraham. How many people did Jesus teach about the Father in his ministry?

Female: His disciples?

Dan: Very few—and I don't think [it included] the disciples. They haven't heard about the Father. He is telling her about the Father, maybe before anyone else hears. He is revealing the Father to her and saying that, "You are going to worship the Father." To worship him, probably you ought to know who he is. Again, we get back to (in my estimation) some very heavily Trinitarian theological utterances here by Jesus to the Samaritan woman, of all people, but neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. What does that mean? You're going to worship the Father.

Female: A place ...

Female: The place is not important here.

Dan: Yeah. The place would not be important any longer. "You Samaritans worship what you do not know." They didn't know the Father. They honored Jacob, looking for a prophet. They were a little bit confused. "We worship what we do know." At least we Jews have some things right.

What do you think he means, "salvation is from the Jews?"

Female: He was born Jewish. He is the Son of God.

Dan: The Messiah comes from Judah. One of the reasons the Maccabeans (who freed the Judeans from the Syrian armies and so forth) and they were very pleased throughout the Seleucid reign and all of that), but as much as Judas Maccabaeus and the Maccabean family did, the Judeans never really quite fully accepted them. You know why? They weren't of David.

You got to be of David. Salvation is of the Jews and in particular of the line of David, if you're going to be the Messiah, so they were looking to Jacob and they were looking for a prophet and Jesus is saying, "No. Salvation is from the Jews." A son of David, from the tribe of Judah. [Jesus may have said that, but John likes that phrase a lot, and he uses it quite frequently.]

"A time is coming and now has come when the true worshippers..." What do you think he means by true worshippers?

Female: For me, what stands out, he didn't call them the Jews or the Samaritans. He just calls them the worshippers so ...

Dan: That's a very good observation.

Female: ... taken away the ... basically, the background of the person.

Dan: It's irrelevant whether you're a Jew or Samaritan.

Female: Your identity now is the worshippers.

Dan: It's not the location. It's not your national identity. It's who you worship.

Female: It's not your gender.

Dan: It's who you worship and you come to know him. The true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. What do you make of the triad? The true worshippers will worship the Father in the spirit ...

Female: And in truth.

Dan: ... and truth, and who is the truth?

Female: Jesus.

Dan: Jesus is the truth. We've got worshipping the Father and the Spirit through the truth. "For they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks." Anything strike you as interesting about that statement there?

Female: He doesn't seek the ones that just give lip service or to him, goes to the temple and they think they're the worshippers.

Dan: He's still looking for people like the Samaritan woman of all people who are authentic, who are open, right?

Dan: Anything else?

Female: That have the spirit of God in them and are using it.

Female: It sounds like he's still seeking and he's looking.

Dan: Who's doing the seeking?

Female: The Father.

Dan: Anything interesting about that? Wouldn't we expect that in most religious circles that you must seek God ...

Dan: ... and yet Jesus says, "You're not seeking God. God is seeking you."

Female: Jesus went to seek her.

Dan: Aha. He sought her out. God is seeking for people like you.

Female: He knew her and he understood her.

Dan: Wow. I'm not a Jew. I'm a woman.

Female: I'm a sinner.

Dan: Exactly. God is seeking true worshippers like you.

Female: I think it's interesting too it says here a couple of times "in spirit and in truth," connecting those two together, that spirit and truth, they go together, they are inseparable. It seems that he did it two times here.

Dan: Right. As he says, "God is spirit and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth. The only way to the Father is in the Spirit through the truth, the Son." Any other worship that is not Trinitarian, I would say you're missing the boat.

I am amazed at how Trinitarian his teaching is to this woman... While as you know that disciples who are still down at McDonald's buying lunch while this deep Trinitarian theological discussion is going on out by the well.

Female: He didn't do it there, instead of with her, so they couldn't add their two cents.

Dan: What do you think would have happened, that Barbara raises an interesting point?

Female: They couldn't believe that he was talking to her, first of all. They would make her feel that she was condemned. They couldn't help themselves, but Jesus came not to condemn.

Dan: They probably would have been judgmental. They would have judged both Jesus and her. They would have tried to stop him. They would have sent her away. He knew he had to get rid of them in order to do ...

They were not yet ready for the level of discussion that he was having with this woman. Verse 25, the woman said, "I know that Messiah [and John helpfully adds for us Greek speakers] called Christ, I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."

Female: Here she says, "So, she must have known something."

Dan: She knows about the Messiah.

Female: She knew about the Messiah which is a little unusual for a Samaritan.

Dan: She's probably familiar with the Jewish customs, evidently, so she is educated, well-read, well-versed. Now, Jesus, I think, has led her thinking and has shifted it away from Samaritan by saying, "Salvation is of the Jews," she has come back and connected the dot and saying, "I know the Messiah... I know he will come," and what does she say her understanding of the Messiah is?

Female: He will proclaim all things.

Dan: Right. He will explain everything to us.

Female: She's probably very happy about saying this. This is probably something that's always been inside of her. She knew that the Messiah was going to come someday to rescue and now she could verbalize it because she's happy, she's excited. The woman said, "I know that the Messiah is coming," and she didn't have any Samaritans denying her of that or anybody else.

Dan: Yeah, that's a pretty straightforward statement, "I know ..."

Female: She just let it come out. It's there. It's hidden. Now, it's out.

Dan: Then, Jesus declared, "I who speak to you, am he." How many people has he revealed himself as the Messiah to? You can read the whole of book of Mark and they call it the Messianic Secret because he never tells anybody who he is, and this Samaritan woman meeting her for the first time, he says, "Hey, I'm the Messiah."

Female: Wow.

Dan: Now, for some comic diversion, the disciples return. "Just then, his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. [That's just not right. This is improper.] No one asked, 'What do you want?' or 'Why are you talking with her?'" What do you think the scene must have been like?

Female: They couldn't believe it.

Dan: I've almost imagined them nudging, "You ask him." "No, I'm not going to ask him. You ask him." "Peter will ask him." "No, I've had enough trouble. I'm not asking him."

Female: I think the body language probably revealed everything, though. They didn't need to say anything. When you have that kind of shock and surprise, most people can't hide that. They probably were already revealing their true feelings about it without having to say anything.

Dan: Non-verbal expression said it all.

Female: Our children's Bible says, "What do you want _from_ her?" That's what he said ...

Dan: Ohhh, that's not a nice thing to say.

Female: I know. That's what this says. I know. You'll never know. Maybe they knew.

Dan: That maybe what they were thinking ...

Female: Maybe they knew that was her business and ...

Dan: They thought that she was a woman of ill repute.

Dan: They just said ... You know what? It reminds me of this Sergeant Schultz on _Hogan's Heroes,_ "I see nothing. I know nothing. I'm going to pretend like I don't see this. Don't anybody say anything." They were shocked indeed.

Female: They probably were worried about their reputation too if this is leaking out to the public ...

Female: ... that our Master is talking to her ...

Female: What are people going to think of us?

Female: ... and how does this reflect upon us?

Female: He will lose his credibility.

Dan: Definitely. This is a major scandal.

Dan: Verse 28: "Then leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town." What does that indicate?

Female: She was excited.

Dan: Excited. She forgot she came out to get water. That's not important. Interesting, that water is not important anymore — I found the Living Water.

Female: She didn't really let the disciples deflate her feeling that she just experienced with Jesus. She just, "Oh, I'm out of here, to tell everybody."

Dan: Does she keep her mouth shut?

Female: No.

Dan: No, but she said to the people, "Come! See a man who told me everything I ever did." What do you think that may indicate?

Female: That he could possibly be the Messiah.

Dan: Right. Do you think her fellow citizens of Sychar knew a lot of the things she had done?

Female: Yes.

Dan: They knew, and this man told her everything she had ever done and showed her nothing but love and respect. How had the city folks treated her?

Female: She was fetching water in the middle of the day ...

Dan: By herself. You get the feeling she was kind of ostracized, marginalized by the city because probably they knew everything she had ever done, and yet Jesus knew everything she had ever done and treated her with respect and offered her eternal life.

Female: She was happy. She had a different attitude if somebody that wasn't repentant or ... you told what they did then, "Oh no, I didn't do that." I may be very mad and angry ... But instead she was very excited.

Dan: She's very honest about it and excited. Yeah. Some people call her the first evangelist. If evangelism is indeed an overflow response, this is what we see here. This woman was filled with this spirit. In a sense, she was overflowing with good news and couldn't wait to share it, even with people who didn't particularly like her or respect her. She couldn't help herself. She is so filled and so excited she has to tell people about Jesus. Indeed, in the Gospel of John, she is the first evangelist and she is a Samaritan and a woman.

The 12 are still standing around the well.

She says, "Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" I think she thinks it is, but I believe she asked that question to get their interest. "Come and see him. What do you think? What do you think? This could be..." In other words, if I say he's the Christ, you're going to say, "Nah." You come and decide for yourself and see if this is not the Messiah.

Male: Why does she say Christ and not Prophet?

Dan: Yes, isn't that interesting. It's a good point. Why?

Male: Because hey weren't looking for the Christ.

Dan: No. This would have been a shock. I thought he went to the Jewish folk.

Female: And he's here.

Dan: He's here, the Jewish Messiah is here, in Sychar in Samaria? I've got to see this for myself. I think that's a good point. Got their curiosity up. "I have to see what's going on here. This doesn't make any sense to anything I know about what's supposed to be happening religiously."

Female: I think, to me, what strikes me here is she must have really been filled with the love of Jesus at this moment because instead of the response of, "Oh, I just had this great exciting experience, but I am who I am and nobody is going to believe me. Nobody is going to ... They're going to laugh at me. They might kick me out even further." She didn't have any of this response. She was filled with confidence and love to share this good news, which to me seems would be very supernatural. This is the love of Jesus that filled her. This is not a natural response.

Dan: Her eyes appear to be open and her ears appear to be hearing at this point and she's really connecting with Jesus. We find verse 38, "the people came out of the town, made their way toward him." Meanwhile ...

Male: Back at the ranch.

Dan: ... back at the ranch, Jesus' ever deeply, spiritual disciples, are urging, "Rabbi, eat something. Eat! Eat! It's lunch time." He said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." Then the disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him some food when we weren't looking? We were in town. Where did he get food?"

Female: They were talking to themselves too. They still didn't ask him any question.

Dan: Yeah. I think they were smart enough not to ask. Verse 34, "My food," said Jesus, "Is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work." Hmm.... finish his work. Whose work do you think the Samaritan woman was?

Female: His.

Dan: Yeah, the work of the Father and the Son through the Spirit.

"Do you not say four months more and then the harvest?" What does that mean? Anybody know what, agriculturally, that refers to? Four months to the harvest.

Female: You plant and then you wait for the harvest to be ready to reap. He's saying, "I plant ..." It's almost like he's saying, "I've planted the seed and the harvest is already ready." There's no waiting here.

Dan: Yeah. That's interesting. What I've read about the agriculture in Palestine is that when the rains come from like November to March and the soil is tillable and you till the soil and then you plant the grain (usually the barley and the wheat), and then you do nothing. You've done all you can do. You just wait and God has to do the rest.

I'm struck by that analogy of cultivating, planting, and then waiting for God to bring the harvest and do the work. Normally, in the agricultural cycle of things, that took four months. Indeed, they would cultivate, plant and say "four months to the harvest, four months to the harvest," and sit back and do nothing.

Female: Hope.

#### Dan: "Do you not say four months more and then a harvest? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest. Even now, the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. [Interesting.] Thus the saying, one sows and another reaps is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."

What do you think is going on there? "Open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest."

Female: Maybe he's teaching the disciples that the harvest may look different than what they might have expected. It might be in the form of a woman, a sinner— that might be the harvest, where the disciples would not have looked at her as somebody to bring to Jesus. They probably would have tried to shield him from her and get her away, and he's turning things around and says, "No. My harvest looks very different. You need to look around. It's ready."

Dan: Right.

Female: Then, the time too.

Dan: Yeah. I imagine the setting something like ... I don't know there was. I imagine it this way, that Jesus is speaking and the disciples are on one side and have their backs to the city. Who's coming out of the city?

Female: All the people.

Dan: All the people are coming out of the city and the disciples are just standing there with their backs to it and Jesus was going, "Hmmm... the harvest is here and the fields are ripe and here comes the harvest."

The disciples are going, "What's he talking about?" Then, you can imagine the look when they turned around and saw the whole city coming out. I wonder if they even got his words then, but he told them, it's a process. Isn't that interesting? There is cultivating, there is sowing, and there is reaping. Not necessarily one person does it all, but it's all a part of what God does, but it's people participating with him in various phases as he works with the people.

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." When the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them and he stayed two days. Because of his words, many more became believers. 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.

According to John, the first group of people to say this ...

Female: Are Samaritans.

Dan: ... are Samaritans, of all things.

Male: Yeah, a little village.

Dan: Who would have thought in a little village led by an evangelistic female? What conclusions does anybody draw? What really stands out in this story to you? Something that really strikes you?

Female: The harvest is there. It's finding it. It's looking around and seeing it.

Female: He helps you see it too, because he says, "It's here. It's coming."

Female: And do not cut. They're saying that, "They can't know Christ. They're not good enough. They haven't done all the right things."

Female: To look beyond.

Dan: They're people of another religion, of another country.

Female: It's not a matter being good.

Dan: How should we preach to them? They won't get it.

Dan: Hmmm ... maybe they will better than some who've grown up in Christianity. Anyone else?

Female: It's the manner of his love and their background. She was prepared for this time and place and he had her in mind.

Dan: The least, the last, and the lost ...

Female: Yeah. He knew exactly what she did.

Dan: ... are the ones that Jesus tends to go to first and they tend to be the first to receive him, the most open.

Dan: It's a remarkable story that tells us many things about God's love for all people, and there's goodness and there's God working in the lives of all people in all countries, all nations, all ethnic groups, all religions or no religion at all. God is still there loving those people and working with them. It's quite a story, Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Let's conclude with a closing hymn and a final prayer.

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## Living Water

In the developed world, we don't really need to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." Our supermarkets have great variety from which to choose. It is the same with water. Millions of people in the poorer parts of the world must pray, "Give us this day our daily water"—and then walk several miles to get it. We, on the other hand, are spoiled for choice. In the Western world, bottled water is a multi-billion dollar business. My local supermarket offers at least 12 varieties, each promising to be superior to the others. Some people argue that none of them is actually better than plain old tap water, which is one hundred times less expensive. Maybe that's true. I don't know.

Though I am not an expert on water, Jesus was. He not only turned water into wine, he walked on it. And in the beginning, he created it. You will remember the account in John's Gospel, where Jesus met the Samaritan woman who was drawing water from a well. He told her he could supply her with a never-ending supply of what he called "living water." This water was so superior that whoever drank it would never be thirsty again.

Clean drinking water was scarce in Jesus' day, so the woman naturally asked him how she could get this exceptional water. The phrase "living water" usually meant moving, flowing water. The woman knew there was no flowing water nearby. The only water available locally was in that well. Jesus was using a play on words. He explained, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 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" (John 4:13-14). This was a great metaphor, since water is essential to life. Just as the physical body needs water to continue living, so does the spirit.

When we become physically thirsty, water satisfies us. However, we are not just physical creatures. We are made in God's image and we have a spiritual appetite, whether we recognize it or not. We can become hungry and thirsty spiritually for a restored and right relationship with God. Jesus explained that he was the source of the "spiritual water" that can quench the thirst of the spirit. By drinking the living water, one can live and never thirst again.

The woman was astonished, not only by his extraordinary offer. In fact, she may not have fully understood it at the time. What astonished her was that Jesus spoke to her in the first place. She was a Gentile, a woman, and had a somewhat dubious reputation. She was used to being shunned by her own people. A Jewish man should have gone to great lengths to avoid her. Nevertheless, Jesus accepted her and offered hope and encouragement.

This story teaches us that Jesus offers his forgiveness to everyone. No matter how many sins one has committed, Jesus offers new life—and he offers it to all humanity. By reaching out to an outcast Samaritan woman, Jesus showed that his kingdom is for everyone from every nation, every tribe and every culture.

Our denomination is greatly blessed to be truly "international"—not just in word but in fact. I am humbled that the Holy Spirit sees us as a "safe place" to bring people looking for grace and truth. We did not go seeking several thousand members in Mozambique. They were looking for a "well" to satisfy their thirst for truly knowing and worshiping God. Right now, their need is physical as well as spiritual and so we will do what we can to help them. However, let's not forget our own backyard. Physical food and drink is not the critical need for most Western nations. But they are spiritually undernourished and in desperate need of wholesome spiritual food and clean living water.

When Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, he opened up a whole new perspective to his ministry. His disciples were shocked to find him talking to "that kind of woman" (John 4:27). But they eventually came to understand that Jesus had a ministry to all the world—not to just a select few.

We are privileged to participate in that ministry today. Think about it next time you see the array of rather expensive "superior" bottled waters on your supermarket shelf. Remember, the best water of all is free. You just have to know where it comes from.

Joseph Tkach

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## Jesus: The Unexpected Messiah

Why didn't Jesus go down in history as a failure?

In fact, why did he go down in history at all?

He lived on earth at a time when his people were expecting a Messiah to deliver them from the Roman occupation. It seems there were many zealots and fanatics eager to appoint themselves to that position. Some even gained a following, but their efforts came to nothing. Most died unknown, and even those we know about are just footnotes in history. However, Jesus is not a footnote in history. He remains considered one of the most influential, if not the most influential, human being who has ever lived.

When he was crucified 2,000 years ago, his followers were left in confusion. Most were expecting the Messiah to be a royal military leader who would overthrow the enemies of Israel and be honored by the Jewish religious leaders as king. This would be the proof of his Messiahship and this is what they expected Jesus would do.

Just a few days earlier, he had entered Jerusalem to the acclaim of the crowds. At last, it seemed, he was going to make his move and lead them in a war of liberation against the Romans. Then he would establish his kingdom, restoring the fortunes of his people. Those who had followed him would be given key positions. But before the week was over he was dead — executed like a common criminal, rejected by the religious leaders and his followers went into hiding.

No one (except for Jesus) expected this to happen. Although there were different ideas among the Jews about what the Messiah would do, there were some common themes. Being crucified was not one of them. In fact, coming to such an end would have been high on the list of events proving someone was _not_ the Messiah. So why did his followers continue to believe in a Messiah who, instead of leading them to victory, only seemed to have brought ignominy and suffering on himself?

Let's look at it from the disciples' point of view. Clearly, Jesus did not fulfill any of those common expectations for the Jews of his day. Instead of routing the Romans, he came as the Prince of Peace, not even carrying a weapon. He was born in a borrowed stable and buried in a borrowed tomb. He was executed in mid-life by a method reserved for slaves and common criminals. So, why would his followers maintain that he was the Messiah? Why would they not just cut their losses after his death and move on? Why would they even be willing to be killed themselves for this Messiah?

New Testament scholar N.T. Wright explains it well:

#### There were, to be sure, ways of coping with the death of a teacher, or even a leader. The picture of Socrates was available, in the wider world, as a model of unjust death nobly borne. The category of "martyr" was available, within Judaism, for someone who stood up to pagans... The category of failed but still revered Messiah, however, did not exist. A Messiah who died at the hands of the pagans, instead of winning [God's] battle against them, was a deceiver... Why then did people go on talking about Jesus of Nazareth, except as a remarkable but tragic memory? The obvious answer is that...Jesus was raised from the dead. (N.T. Wright, _Jesus and the Victory of God,_ Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1996, p. 658)

Suffering would not have been necessary for the kind of Messiah the people of his time were expecting. He could have lived to a ripe old age, and then have been enshrined in legend and history like David, Joshua, or Gideon. Even if he had lost his life in a struggle against the Romans, he could have had a place of honor. But to live in relative obscurity and then die in disgrace — what kind of a Messiah is that?

But Jesus was so much more than a military hero. He had come, not just to deliver Israel from the Romans, but to rescue all humanity from captivity to evil and death, and reconcile humanity to God. And to do that, he had to suffer and die. On the very day that Jesus rose from the dead, he spoke of himself, saying, "Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and enter into his glory?" (Luke 24:26 NASB).

The full glory of the Messiah is seen on the cross. This was an important point that Jesus' disciples had missed until after his resurrection. Many still miss this point today. The glory of Jesus as our Savior was not shown only through his power and resurrection, though it could have been. His glory certainly was not shown through any status or position he had on earth. Rather, his glory was also shown in the incredible suffering he willingly endured as an expression of his immeasurable love for those he came to save.

As Paul wrote to the church at Philippi:

#### [Jesus] being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:6-8).

After his resurrection, the full realization of who Jesus was, and what he had come to do began to sink in. As his followers absorbed the wonder, grace and glory of both his crucifixion and his resurrection, they were transformed. Led by the Holy Spirit, only then did they began to fulfill his "Great Commission," taking his message of forgiveness of sin, victory over evil and death, and of salvation to the whole world. Convinced of the truth and reality of who Jesus was and what he had accomplished, not even the suffering of hardships, persecution and, for some, execution could stop their proclamation reaching "to the uttermost parts of the earth." And we today are the beneficiaries of their mission and ministry that was handed on to others who were also faithful channels of God's own reconciling and renewing work down through the generations.

As Paul put it in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15:

#### For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

Let's take time to renew our own sense of wonder and commitment, as we each do our part in carrying on the Great Commission. It is a message this world needs. It has been well said, "He may not have been the Messiah all had hoped for, but he is indeed the Messiah of great hope for all."

Joseph Tkach

## The Messianic Secret

Have you ever wondered why Jesus never preached Jesus? He went about doing good, the Bible tells us. He healed the sick and cast out demons and taught large crowds around the countryside and smaller groups in the synagogues.

But he carefully avoided declaring that he was the Messiah. In fact, he went out of his way to keep his identity as Messiah a secret. We read for example, in Mark 1:40-45,

#### A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, If you are willing, you can make me clean.

#### Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. I am willing, he said. Be clean!

#### Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured. Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: See that you don't tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.

#### Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

We are not going to talk about begging Jesus on our knees for healing. I suppose many people have taken this passage as an example of what to do when we sincerely desire to be healed of an affliction.

But just about as many people have been disappointed to find that Jesus did not respond to them in the same way as he responded to this leper. So there is no sense in our pretending that if we go to Jesus on our knees and beg for healing that we will assuredly receive it.

We believe that Jesus has given us the greatest healing of all—healing from our sins—but he does not always heal our physical ailments. We trust him to do what is right and good for us and to stand with us in our suffering, but experience has taught us that we do not always receive exactly what we ask for.

We are also not going to talk about offering the sacrifices that Moses commanded for cleansing. Much has been said and written about the differences between the old and the new biblical covenants, so there is no need to cover that again now.

What we are going to talk about in this message is the question of why Jesus did not want the healed leper to tell anyone about his healing. Jesus gave the healed leper the strong warning, See that you don't tell this to anyone. But the former leper did not obey Jesus. He went straight out and freely spread the news.

As a result of this man's disobedience, Mark tells us Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. And even in the lonely places, people came to him from all over.

So, what do you think?

Should we applaud the former leper, or should we lament his disobedience to Jesus' strong warning? I am reluctant to try to answer that question, except to say that I have found that it is smarter to obey Jesus than not to obey Jesus.

But in today's world, we have the view that telling people about Jesus by whatever means we can muster is the most important activity in which we can be involved. So when we read that the healed leper went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news, we tend to get excited and wish we could have that same overwhelming joy and evangelistic fervor. Maybe that's why some Christians like to magnify healings and other blessings into advertisements and publicity opportunities for the gospel.

But Jesus didn't want that man to go out and spread the news. Jesus wanted his identity to remain secret. In verse 34, we read that Jesus would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.

Similarly, in Mark 8:27, Jesus asks the disciples, Who do people say I am? Peter replied in verse 30, You are the Messiah. Good answer. But Jesus responded not by saying, Good job, Peter, but by warning the disciples not to tell anyone about him. Let's read the passage in Mark 8, beginning in verse 27:

#### Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, Who do people say I am?

#### They replied, Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.

#### But what about you? he asked. Who do you say I am?

#### Peter answered, You are the Messiah.

#### Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

That is the very opposite of what we might have expected. We want everyone to know about Jesus. But Jesus did not want everyone to know about him. What's going on? We get a clue in the next few verses of Mark 8:

#### He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

#### But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. Get behind me, Satan! he said. You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.

Do you see what's going on? Let's think about it. Why would Jesus not want his disciples to tell anyone about him? Here was the visible, flesh and blood, miracle-working Jesus walking and preaching all over the country. What better time for his followers to lead people to him and tell them who he was?

Unlike today, when we have to tell people to trust in Jesus in faith, they had Jesus in the flesh. But Jesus was clear, strong, and even stern in saying, Don't tell anyone who I am. Let's go back to Mark 8 and read it again.

#### He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

#### But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. Get behind me, Satan! he said. You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.

Do you see the difference between what Peter thought the Messiah would be and what Jesus knew the Messiah was? Peter was so certain about his perception of the Messiah that he stopped Jesus and rebuked him for all that crazy talk about rejection and being killed and rising on the third day. Peter must have thought Jesus had been in the sun too long. Everybody knew what the Messiah would do, and here's Jesus ranting about getting killed.

So Jesus took the moment to call things as they were. He rebuked Peter. Get behind me, Satan! he told Peter. The word translated Satan means enemy or adversary, and it must have stung Peter. You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns, Jesus went on.

If even the disciples, and even Peter among the disciples, didn't know what to expect of the Messiah, how much less would the general public in Judea know what to expect of him? Let's move to Mark 11, and get a close up of what the public perception of Messiahship was.

#### As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying to them, Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, Why are you doing this?' say, The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.'

#### They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, What are you doing, untying that colt?

#### They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted,

#### Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

#### Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!

This was what people expected of the Messiah: A triumphal entry into Jerusalem. This was fulfillment of prophecy, and it fit with their perceptions of what the Messiah would do just before he took over the leadership of the nation and led his armies to victory over the occupying Roman armies.

But they were wrong.

When people finally heard that Jesus was the Messiah, they were overjoyed to receive the news.

The problem lay in definitions and expectations. What the people expected the Messiah to be and to do was quite different from what Jesus the Messiah actually came to be and to do. The people expected a king who would rally the people, and with the blessing of God, lead them to victory over their Roman conquerors and restore the kingdom of David in all its glory.

They did not understand what the Messiah was all about. Their idea was different from God's idea. When they heard the term Messiah, they misunderstood it, because they had been conditioned to expect something else.

With this in mind, we begin to see why Jesus did not want his disciples or those he healed to spread the news about him. It was not the right time for the people to hear. The right time for the news to spread was after Jesus had been executed and raised from the dead. Only then could the real purpose of God in sending Messiah be understood for what it was.

In our world today, there are many concepts about God. If you talk to 10 people on the street, you will likely find 10 different opinions about who God is, what God is like, how God deals with humans and what God expects of us. Surveys by George Barna and others have shown that even among Christians, ideas about who Jesus is, what grace is and how it works, sin, forgiveness, faith, repentance, obedience, and so on, vary widely.

If there is so much variety among believers, how much more do ideas about Jesus vary among non-Christians? Suppose, for example, I approach a stranger sitting on a park bench and ask him if he knows Jesus. Suppose the stranger's idea of Jesus is that of a long-haired, wispy-looking weakling. Suppose his mother used to tell him that Jesus didn't like it when he played cards, or ran and played on Sunday. Suppose his most frequent exposure to the word Jesus was on a dirty cardboard "Do you know Jesus" placard glued in the parking garage of his apartment building? What would likely be the first impression this man would have of me and my question? Would that promote the gospel?

Suppose, on the other hand, I met the man, and over a period of time developed a relationship with him. Suppose we became friends. Suppose the way I treated this friend usually reflected the love of God. Suppose he eventually found out, as friends usually do, that I am a Christian. Would that tend to change his flawed perspective on Jesus and Christianity to a more accurate one?

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 points out that there is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven. Among these are a time to plant and a time to harvest and a time to be quiet and a time to speak up. The time to spread the news about Jesus came after his resurrection, not during his ministry.

Until his resurrection, there could not begin to be sufficient understanding of who he really was. Even the disciples were consistently ignorant about Jesus' full identity and mission until after the resurrection. The same principle applies today—people are often not ready to hear and comprehend who Jesus is until they experience his resurrection life in his people, the church.

The call to discipleship is not an individual call to a personal faith apart from the life of the body of Christ. It is only in the context of the body of Christ, the church, that we experience the life of union and communion, of oneness, that we have in Jesus by the Holy Spirit.

Let's read 1 Peter 2:12: "Be careful how you live among your unbelieving neighbors. Even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will believe and give honor to God when he comes to judge the world." You probably noticed that Peter did not say, Press your unbelieving neighbors for a decision. Peter's focus is on the honorable behavior of believers.

Why? Because it is through our honorable behavior, that is, our love, that our unbelieving neighbors see Jesus in action. Peter says this will result in their belief at a time when God chooses. The words, when he comes to judge the world, is a reference to God's timing as opposed to our timing.

The foundation, the root, the core, of telling people about Jesus is not a set of facts. It is love. Not just a feeling, but real love that displays itself in how we live with one another. Most important of all, Peter says in 1 Peter 4:8, is that we continue to show deep love for each other.

In a similar vein, Paul wrote in Galatians 6:10, "Whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone, especially to our Christian brothers and sisters." In other words, Peter's and Paul's instruction on spreading the good news centers on the witness of love, not on a well-rehearsed speech. It is our lives in him and his in us that show people who Jesus really is.

Instead, Peter wrote in 1 Peter 3:15, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. When a person asks about our Christian hope because they have experienced Jesus in us, then that person has a more accurate perspective of Jesus. They ask because the Spirit prompts them, and the catalyst the Spirit uses is the love at work in the body of Christ.

And our conversation, Paul said in Colossians 4:6, "should be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone."

People listen to friends. People listen to those who have proven they care. People listen when the relationship is real, not artificial. People are not our personal gospel projects. People are people, valued by God at the highest level. Relationships must never be thought of as a means to an end, even if the end is to present the gospel. Relationships are the end and love is the means. The gospel is the truth of God's faithful, loving relationship with humanity in which Jesus, as God, brings God to us and as human, brings humanity to God. In Jesus, there is perfect union and communion between God and humanity.

Peter wrote in 1 Peter 4:10: "God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another, so that God's generosity can flow through you." God has richly blessed us with active parts in his work of building up the body of Christ, the church, and reaching out with the gospel to nonbelievers. At the heart of that work is love. Where love is, there is Christ. There is no love apart from Christ. God is love, John wrote.

That's what the disciples and the crowds didn't understand about the Messiah. They thought the Messiah would be a warrior champion to throw off the Roman yoke and restore Israel's glory. But the Messiah was the Father's gift of undying, indestructible, self-sacrificial love.

The gospel is the truth, and the truth is a Person, Jesus Christ, who is God in the flesh, love in the flesh. To share the gospel is to share him, which is to love. He can only be understood in relationship, not in a list of facts. The Messiah did not merely bring good news; he is the good news.

Mike Feazell

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## Palm Sunday

Early in its history, the Christian church, desiring to worship Jesus by focusing on the great saving events of his death and resurrection, formed a tradition of celebrating in the spring what became known as "Holy Week."

Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus' entry into Jerusalem amidst a huge demonstration of support by the common people. No doubt, most of them were thinking that Jesus would declare himself a Messiah in the tradition of the Maccabees, who had temporarily restored some of the Jewish nation's glory nearly two centuries earlier. Even some of Jesus' disciples thought that Jesus was the warrior-king who would deliver them from Roman oppression (John 12:17-18). But Jesus' entry into Jerusalem was far from the "triumphant" entry of a conquering military general riding astride a white war horse. We know some of the details from Luke 19 and John 12.

Jesus entered Jerusalem from the humble town of Bethany, riding on a donkey. Bethany was about two miles from Jerusalem, just off the road from Jericho. There would have been some houses and trading stalls along the road leading into the city. So when the people heard he was coming, they lined the road to greet him. They threw their coats and cloaks in his path, as well as the branches of the trees.

The palm branch was a traditional symbol of Israel, so waving it was like waving the Jewish national flag. They waved palm fronds in the air shouting "Hosanna," which in Hebrew means "God saves" and "Blessed is the king of Israel!" (John 12:13, quoting Psalm 118:25-26). This is how people in the first century greeted a visiting king—they would go out to meet him, praise him and then escort him into the city. These people were welcoming Jesus as their king.

At that time of year, since the Passover festival was only a week away, there would also have been many sightseers and pilgrims in the area. Many would have heard about Jesus the great teacher, miracle-worker and, perhaps, the one who would lead them to freedom from Roman oppression. They may have remembered Zechariah's prophecy: "Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey" (Zechariah 9:9).

No wonder everyone greeted Jesus so enthusiastically!

Well, not everyone. The religious leaders, who had an interest in maintaining the status quo, saw him as a threat. "'See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!' they said to one another" (John 12:19). The atmosphere in Jerusalem was always tense during the religious festivals. The political leaders feared the gathering crowds could result in demonstrations and protests that could easily get out of hand. The religious leaders, such as the Pharisees, feared the same since they did not want to give their Roman overlords an excuse to crack down.

Some of these words that the crowd sang and shouted in praise were also chanted in the temple during the Passover festival. But these people were praising him for the wrong reason. They thought he had come to liberate them from Rome, and thus missed the real point of these scriptures. The Messiah had come to liberate them and all of humanity, from a much greater oppression—the absolute tyranny of evil in the human heart and society and from alienation from God.

It was an understandable mistake, given the situation at the time. It is a mistake many still make today. They see in Jesus someone who can help them fulfill their agenda. Today we know of some appalling examples, like the malevolent sectarian militias in Africa who attach the word "Christian" to their cause, while committing crimes against humanity. Most of us would never go to these extremes. But we all can make the mistake of that Palm Sunday crowd—using the name of Jesus to advance our personal projects and agendas, while calling it "God's work."

We do well to remember that Jesus said, "They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules" (Matthew 15:9). It is so easy to shift the focus away from Jesus and onto ourselves. Some people still approach the Lord's Supper with a sense of foreboding. They strive to "examine themselves" to see if they are "worthy" to receive the bread and wine.

Can you see how this shifts the focus away from Jesus and onto ourselves? It can lead us to think in terms of what we have done, and cause us to focus on our attempts to either condemn or justify ourselves on that basis. But Jesus told us to partake of the Lord's Supper in memory of what he had done for us (Luke 22:19). Through his self-giving, Jesus delivered us from the delusional prison of self-justification, freeing us both to receive and to extend God's forgiveness.

The apostle Paul referred to the events of this important season as having primary importance in salvation history: "For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve" (1 Corinthians 15:3-5).

These central events of the gospel, which began to unfold on the road into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, did not just change the history of one small nation. They altered forever the destiny of everyone who has ever lived. That is something to celebrate!

Joseph Tkach

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## A Tasty Sandwich (Mark 11)

Have you ever picked up one of those small, multi-layered sandwiches at a buffet and been surprised at how tasty it was? A Bible story can be like that—perhaps a bit confusing at first with its multiple layers, yet surprisingly tasty and nourishing once you get into it. There's a story like that in Mark chapter 11. The first layer goes like this:

#### As they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard him say it. (Mark 11:12-14)

Why did Jesus do that? It seems at first glance a rather unreasonable thing to do. It wasn't the season for figs—so why blame the tree? Was the pressure of the last weeks of his earthly ministry getting to Jesus? No, he knew exactly what he was doing. He didn't mutter this under his breath—as verse 14 indicates, he made sure his disciples heard.

Mark then adds another layer to this "tasty sandwich":

#### On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, "Is it not written: 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it 'a den of robbers.'" (Mark 11:15-17)

What Jesus did here was a public relations nightmare! Approaching the city the day before, the multitudes greeted him as a conquering hero. This was a particularly sensitive time of year, and the occupying Romans were on the lookout for trouble. Jesus had "flown under the radar" in his triumphal entry, so the sensible thing for him to do now would have been to keep his head down. Instead, he causes a major incident in the most sensitive spot imaginable—the Temple. He charges it with being unfruitful in prayer for the nations.

This shocking proclamation exposes the corruption and hypocrisy of Israel's religious elite. Jesus is accusing them of abandoning Israel's mission to be a light to the nations, and attempting to keep God's blessing for themselves. Jesus is asking for trouble!

Then Mark adds another layer:

#### The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. (Mark 11:18)

Jesus' prophetic word was sure to provoke a showdown with the religious elite. But it wasn't quite time yet. So...

#### When evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city. (Mark 11:19)

Jesus' cursing of the fig tree was not about the tree. It had no fruit through no fault of its own. That would be clear to all. He was using the incident with the tree to illustrate a far more important lesson. But it was not a lesson that the disciples grasped at the time, as we see in the last layers of the story:

#### In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!" (Mark 11:20-21)

Jesus' reply to Peter might seem rather unsatisfying—perhaps even condescending:

#### "Have faith in God," Jesus answered. "Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them." (Mark 11:22-23)

Let's review what Jesus is saying here in context. He is not giving advance notice of a breakthrough in civil engineering. This lesson is no more about the mountain than the other was about the fig tree. In the ancient world, "mountains" often symbolized empires and kingdoms. Casting them into the sea symbolized their judgment—being thrown into a place of destruction (Mark 9:42). This was likely baffling to the disciples, because what Jesus predicted did not happen immediately. The disciples were weak in faith, and so the one who "does not doubt" here is Jesus. He has no doubts that his Father will bring this to pass—that he will judge the Jewish religious elite and the Roman overlords who refuse to bow to Jesus' lordship. Eventually, they will be thrown down.

The point here is that the kingdom that Jesus is inaugurating by the authority of his words and deeds stands over all other authorities, religious or secular. His rule and reign has begun and he knows that it will reach its fullness over time. Jesus' words of judgment—sorting out what is what—will come to pass, even if there is a delay, just as there was between the words Jesus spoke and the effects seen upon the fig tree. This delay does not diminish the effectiveness and certainty of his authoritative word. In that regard, remember the prophecy of Micah:

#### In the last days the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. (Micah 4:1)

These "last days" have been unfolding for a long time. The Temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70 and then, by AD 476, the Roman Empire ceased to exist. Yet we still await the ultimate consummation of the last days, which will occur at Jesus' return in glory. The kingdom Jesus inaugurated 2,000 years ago eventually will completely overthrow all opposition, whether religious or secular. But, according to our Lord's way, this overthrow comes gradually, and not through cruelty, force or intimidation.

Instead, the kingdom advances through the pronouncement of the Lord's word by his people who, themselves, live by faith in that word. Opponents to Jesus' kingdom reign are thus conquered "from the roots," over long periods of time and in ways generally not immediately seen. For these vanquished foes, rather than revenge, there is forgiveness, love and mercy.

The time span between the inauguration and consummation of the kingdom involves a process of judgment that leads to peace—a peace that the world is unable to understand, for it goes against the grain of human nature (John 14:27). Those whom Jesus chose to join him in the next stage of his ministry needed to understand, as do we. We await the fullness of the kingdom with patience and a hope that will not be disappointed.

With concluding words from Jesus, Mark adds a final and rather surprising layer to this tasty sandwich:

#### Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. (Mark 11:24-25)

Here is the unexpected, perhaps shocking, way the kingdom unfolds. Through clarifying judgment, over time, all opposition to the kingdom is overcome as it is exposed for what it is: _nothing_ compared to the rule and reign of God in Christ, which alone gives life eternal.

As believers, we pray for and thus welcome this unfolding judgment—not through revenge or condemnation, but by extending the Lord's forgiveness to all. This we do because our concern is that deception be lifted and all enter God's glorious kingdom, receiving God's forgiveness as his redeemed children. Because we have received that forgiveness, we have passed through the Lord's loving and freeing judgment, which led to our repentance. And now we wish for others to gain what we have received. Ultimately, God's judgment, delivered to us in Jesus Christ, is a word of compassion and salvation. And that is a tasty sandwich indeed!

Joseph Tkach

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## About the Authors

**J. Michael Feazell** was vice-president of Grace Communion International and Executive Editor of _Christian Odyssey_ magazine.

**Sheila Graham** was a writer and editor for Grace Communion International. She wrote our most popular article, on the Proverbs 31 woman. She is retired, living in Texas.

**Bruce Marchiano** is a Christian actor. He gave this interview for _Christian Odyssey_ magazine. His website is marchianoministries.com.

**Michael Morrison** has a PhD from Fuller Theological Seminary; he is the Dean of Faculty at Grace Communion Seminary, the editor of this e-book, and author of many others.

**Dan Rogers** was superintendent of ministers for GCI Church Administration & Development. Dr. Rogers has retired, but now teaches at Grace Communion Seminary.

**Joseph Tkach** is the president of Grace Communion International, and author of several books. He has a Doctor of Ministry degree from Azusa Pacific University.

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## About the Publisher...

Grace Communion International is a Christian denomination with about 50,000 members, worshiping in about 900 congregations in almost 100 nations and territories. We began in 1934 and our main office is in North Carolina. In the United States, we are members of the National Association of Evangelicals and similar organizations in other nations. We welcome you to visit our website at www.gci.org.

If you want to know more about the gospel of Jesus Christ, we offer help. First, we offer weekly worship services in hundreds of congregations worldwide. Perhaps you'd like to visit us. A typical worship service includes songs of praise, a message based on the Bible, and opportunity to meet people who have found Jesus Christ to be the answer to their spiritual quest. We try to be friendly, but without putting you on the spot. We do not expect visitors to give offerings—there's no obligation. You are a guest.

To find a congregation, write to one of our offices, phone us or visit our website. If we do not have a congregation near you, we encourage you to find another Christian church that teaches the gospel of grace.

We also offer personal counsel. If you have questions about the Bible, salvation or Christian living, we are happy to talk. If you want to discuss faith, baptism or other matters, a pastor near you can discuss these on the phone or set up an appointment for a longer discussion. We are convinced that Jesus offers what people need most, and we are happy to share the good news of what he has done for all humanity. We like to help people find new life in Christ, and to grow in that life. Come and see why we believe it's the best news there could be!

Our work is funded by members of the church who donate part of their income to support the gospel. Jesus told his disciples to share the good news, and that is what we strive to do in our literature, in our worship services, and in our day-to-day lives.

If this e-book has helped you and you want to pay some expenses, all donations are gratefully welcomed, and in several nations, are tax-deductible. If you can't afford to give anything, don't worry about it. It is our gift to you. To make a donation online, go to www.gci.org/participate/donate.

Thank you for letting us share what we value most — Jesus Christ. The good news is too good to keep it to ourselves.

See our website for hundreds of articles, locations of our churches, addresses in various nations, audio and video messages, and much more.

Grace Communion International  
3129 Whitehall Park Dr.

Charlotte, NC 28273-3335

1-800-423-4444

www.gci.org

### You're Included...

We talk with leading Trinitarian theologians about the good news that God loves you, wants you, and includes you in Jesus Christ. Most programs are about 28 minutes long. Our guests have included:

Ray Anderson, Fuller Theological Seminary

Douglas A. Campbell, Duke Divinity School

Elmer Colyer, U. of Dubuque Theological Seminary

Gordon Fee, Regent College

Trevor Hart, University of St. Andrews

George Hunsinger, Princeton Theological Seminary

Jeff McSwain, Reality Ministries

Paul Louis Metzger, Multnomah University

Paul Molnar, St. John's University

Cherith Fee Nordling, Antioch Leadership Network

Andrew Root, Luther Seminary

Alan Torrance, University of St. Andrews

Robert T. Walker, Edinburgh University

N.T. Wright, University of St. Andrews

William P. Young, author of _The Shack_

Programs are available free for viewing and downloading at www.youreincluded.org.

### Speaking of Life...

Dr. Joseph Tkach, president of Grace Communion International, comments each week, giving a biblical perspective on how we live in the light of God's love. Most programs are about three minutes long – available in video, audio, and text. Go to www.speakingoflife.org.

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### Grace Communion Seminary

Ministry based on the life and love of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

Grace Communion Seminary serves the needs of people engaged in Christian service who want to grow deeper in relationship with our Triune God and to be able to more effectively serve in the church.

Why study at Grace Communion Seminary?

 Worship: to love God with all your mind.

 Service: to help others apply truth to life.

 Practical: a balanced range of useful topics for ministry.

 Trinitarian theology: a survey of theology with the merits of a Trinitarian perspective. We begin with the question, "Who is God?" Then, "Who are we in relationship to God?" In this context, "How then do we serve?"

 Part-time study: designed to help people who are already serving in local congregations. There is no need to leave your current ministry. Full-time students are also welcome.

 Flexibility: your choice of master's level continuing education courses or pursuit of a degree: Master of Pastoral Studies or Master of Theological Studies.

 Affordable, accredited study: Everything can be done online.

For more information, go to www.gcs.edu. Grace Communion Seminary is accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission, www.deac.org. The Accrediting Commission is listed by the U.S. Department of Education as a nationally recognized accrediting agency.

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## Ambassador College of Christian Ministry

Want to better understand God's Word? Want to know the Triune God more deeply? Want to share more joyously in the life of the Father, Son and Spirit? Want to be better equipped to serve others?

Among the many resources that Grace Communion International offers are the training and learning opportunities provided by ACCM. This quality, well-structured Christian Ministry curriculum has the advantage of being very practical and flexible. Students may study at their own pace, without having to leave home to undertake full-time study.

This denominationally recognized program is available for both credit and audit study. At minimum cost, this online Diploma program will help students gain important insights and training in effective ministry service. Students will also enjoy a rich resource for personal study that will enhance their understanding and relationship with the Triune God.

Diploma of Christian Ministry classes provide an excellent introductory course for new and lay pastors. Pastor General Dr. Joseph Tkach said, "We believe we have achieved the goal of designing Christian ministry training that is practical, accessible, interesting, and doctrinally and theologically mature and sound. This program provides an ideal foundation for effective Christian ministry."

For more information, go to www.ambascol.org

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