|
INTRODUCTION
We are going to Minneapolis this week - via: Omaha NE, Sioux Falls SD, Ortonville MN, then to
MPLS. Hit a couple of rest stops. I am always in a hurry, for everyone I passed I will have to
pass again. Usually don’t get into conservations. Don’t see much visiting between
strangers at Rest Stops anyway.
Jesus takes a trip from Judea to Galilee via Samaria. And stops at a rest stop in Samaria and
amazing things take place. Starts out as a conversation with a woman and ends up being an
evangelistic crusade in her town. TEXT.
Back in the Gospel of John: THEME. Is there anyone here...
TITLE...?
1. The Road Trip 4:1-4
- The Pharisees were beginning to get uneasy with Jesus’ popularity, and inciting
rivalry between His disciples & John’s. So to avoid problems in Jerusalem,
Jesus heads back to His home region of Galilee - north Israel.
- It would be a couple of days trip from near Jerusalem to Cana.
- v. 4 “He had to pass through Samaria.” He didn’t have to
geographically rather could go east of the Jordon and travel through Peria and
Decapolis, or west along the coast, each a little out of the way.
- Like going from Missouri to MN and avoiding Iowa.
- Plus if a good Jew he shouldn’t - many Jews despised Samaritans and avoided
them. They were half breeds: part Jews and part Gentile; had their own temple and
twisted religion on Mt Gerizim. They were outcasts, the scum of the earth. “The
people on the other side of the tracks.”
- But this is Jesus and there must have been a divine necessity. So Jesus takes the
straight shot through pagan territory.
- We know Jesus to be compassionate. Samaritans are people too who need the good news,
who need message of love and grace. Jesus is not bound by prejudice. Yet, picture a
band of about 13 Jewish men, walking together up the road in Samaria - they were out
of place, and maybe some of them were very uncomfortable.
- Like you might be walking in a rough part of an inner city: Chicago, Minneapolis,
Atlanta. Jesus HAD to take this road trip THROUGH Samaria.
2. The Rest Stop 4:5-8
- It is the 6th hour - High noon. After a long journey of the morning, time
for a rest. Jesus sends the disciples into town to find some food, and he stays behind
at Jacob’s well just outside of town. Wells were great places for rest stops -
plenty of water, but no McDonalds. Shows the humanity of Jesus, he needed to rest,
needed water to refresh himself.
- This was the famous Jacob’s well, dug by the great Jewish patriarch, now in
pagan territory. It is about a half mile south of town of Sychar.
- The road makes a fork: to the east takes you to Cana and Caperneum in Galilee along
the Sea of Galilee, to the west takes you to country side up to Nazareth. Yogi Bera:
“When you come to a fork in the road - take it.”
- Along comes a woman to get water at noon time. Not the usual time for fetching water,
most people are home - it is midday.
- Jesus takes the initiative and asks for a drink of water. Asking a simple favor is a
great way to start a conservation. This request was filled with cultural taboos.
Jewish men don’t talk to Samaritan men unless they want something like food, a
Jewish man doesn’t talk to a women he doesn’t know, and for a Jewish man
to speak to a woman Samaritan was unheard of. Plus a good Jew would know that drinking
water from a cup of a Samaritan would make them unclean. A good Rabbi like Jesus would
know all this, yet allows His disciples to go into a Samaritan town to get food, and
then he starts a conversation with a Samaritan woman. That is especially a gutsy/risky
move by Jesus. What is He thinking??? This was to be just a rest stop. Nothing
significant had to happen. Just rest.
- Have been a few times we saw friends at Rest Stops and were gladly delayed while we
talked - last was Don and Julie Anders Clear Lake 4 years. They were divine
appointments. Usually don’t wait. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t talk
to anyone. AND Don’t ask for directions. Do what you need to do and get going.
NOT JESUS. Then of all the people to talk you - this woman!
3. The Risqué Woman 4:9
- This woman understands what is so unusual here. And there is a little bit of sarcasm,
a bite to her response. She points out the normally unsaid obvious. Tenny: “We
Samaritans are to you the scum of the earth, but we will serve well enough when you
are thirsty?” She felt inferior, and responds with a bit of bitter ridicule. She
gives what he wants, but makes fun of the request and the arrogance the Jews were
known for.
- Writer John makes the point politely - this conservation isn’t normal.
- And Jesus understands who this woman really is, to make matters worse. Women normally
got the water, but not at noon, more toward evening. She came at an unusual time -
John tells us later who she really is. And we guess that she probably came at noon to
avoid the crowds and the ridicule she would experience for being who she was - a moral
outcast in her own society - several marriages and living with a man not husband.
- Risqué is appropriate description = impure, racy, immoral, boisterous.
- Of all the people to show up at the well - couldn’t someone respectable, a man
or an honorable woman. Why a type like Paris Hilton???
- But this is Jesus, and this is a divine appointment. Jesus is not choosy with whom He
is seen in public with. Sometimes we are. Don’t want to be in same room. Walk on
other side of street. We forget God makes divine appointments often in very unusual
places with unusual people. Ever have any? In a farm field, on a school bus, on a
phone, at a ball game. Watch for who God leads into your path this week....
- A God thing is happening here, and this chapter unfolds tremendous truth, and the good
news of Christ changes this woman and her town. We see why Jesus HAD to go THROUGH
Samaria! Was there anything you HAD to do this past week in which God worked through
you?
- I Had to make some evening visits. Had to take some very interesting phone calls. Had
to go to the Camp. How about you????
CONCLUSION/APPLICATION
The very first two interviews John records in his gospel that Jesus has in chapter 3 and 4 are
two of the most contrasting interviews possible. They are strategically set. Shows the
diversity of Jesus’ appeal to people, and His scope of His message of salvation.
|
Chapter 3
|
Chapter 4
|
|
Nicodemus, a man
|
Samaritan,, a woman
|
|
A leading respectable Jew
|
An outcast woman from a despised nation
|
|
Nic was learned
|
She was ignorant
|
|
He was wealthy
|
She was poor
|
|
Righteous character
|
Sinful character and lifestyle
|
|
Nic was morally upright
|
She was grossly immoral
|
|
He knew Jesus’ merits
|
She had no idea who Jesus is
|
|
He was serious, dignified
|
She was flippant and ridiculing
|
|
Nic initiated the conversation
|
Jesus initiated the conversation
|
The Samaritan woman was all the bad that good Nicodemus was not. We cannot imagine two greater
Biblical contrasts, Yet Jesus spoke willingly and compassionately to both. Jesus is equal
opportunity Savior (saying we have on the church sign).
Who do you most identify with? Both were spiritually needy. Both needed the saving grace of
Jesus. It doesn’t matter who you are, or where you are in life, Jesus is your answer too.
The ground is level at the foot of the cross. The best and worst come to Jesus the same exact
way: repentance of sin, believing Jesus as their Savior. Any one here in either role who needs
Jesus?
Secondly, can you watch who God brings into your path this week? You can be a work, at home,
downtown, traveling, anywhere with anybody can be a divine appointment set up by God for you
to shed some light and grace into someone’s life. Watch, then trust God to lead your
words.
If you need life and love from Christ Jesus today. There is room at the cross for you. Why
don’t you come and talk with us.
|
