The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ According to John

Now a certain man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village where Mary and her sister Martha lived.^[a] (Now it was Mary who anointed the Lord with perfumed oil^[b] and wiped his feet dry with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)^[c] So the sisters sent a message^[d] to Jesus,^[e] “Lord, look, the one you love is sick.” When Jesus heard this, he said, “This sickness will not lead to death,^[f] but to God’s glory,^[g] so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”^[h] (Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.)^[i]

So when he heard that Lazarus^[j] was sick, he remained in the place where he was for two more days. Then after this, he said to his disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.”^[k] The disciples replied,^[l] “Rabbi, the Jewish leaders^[m] were just now trying^[n] to stone you to death! Are^[o] you going there again?” Jesus replied,^[p] “Are there not twelve hours in a day? If anyone walks around in the daytime, he does not stumble,^[q] because he sees the light of this world.^[r] But if anyone walks around at night,^[s] he stumbles,^[t] because the light is not in him.”

After he said this, he added,^[u] “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep.^[v] But I am going there to awaken him.” Then the disciples replied,^[w] “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” (Now Jesus had been talking about^[x] his death, but they^[y] thought he had been talking about real sleep.)^[z]

Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, and I am glad^[aa] for your sake that I was not there, so that you may believe.^[ab] But let us go to him.” So Thomas (called Didymus^[ac])^[ad] said to his fellow disciples, “Let us go too, so that we may die with him.”^[ae]

When^[af] Jesus arrived,^[ag] he found that Lazarus^[ah] had been in the tomb four days already.^[ai] (Now Bethany was less than two miles^[aj] from Jerusalem, so many of the Jewish people of the region^[ak] had come to Martha and Mary to console them^[al] over the loss of their brother.)^[am] So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary was sitting in the house.^[an] Martha^[ao] said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will grant^[ap] you.”^[aq]

Jesus replied,^[ar] “Your brother will come back to life again.”^[as] Martha said,^[at] “I know that he will come back to life again^[au] in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live^[av] even if he dies, and the one who lives and believes in me will never die.^[aw] Do you believe this?” She replied,^[ax] “Yes, Lord, I believe^[ay] that you are the Christ,^[az] the Son of God who comes into the world.”^[ba]

And when she had said this, Martha^[bb] went and called her sister Mary, saying privately,^[bc] “The Teacher is here and is asking for you.”^[bd] So when Mary^[be] heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. (Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still in the place where Martha had come out to meet him.) Then the people^[bf] who were with Mary^[bg] in the house consoling her saw her^[bh] get up quickly and go out. They followed her, because they thought she was going to the tomb to weep^[bi] there.

Now when Mary came to the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the people^[bj] who had come with her weeping, he was intensely moved^[bk] in spirit and greatly distressed.^[bl] He asked,^[bm] “Where have you laid him?”^[bn] They replied,^[bo] “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept.^[bp] Thus the people who had come to mourn^[bq] said, “Look how much he loved him!” But some of them said, “This is the man who caused the blind man to see!^[br] Couldn’t he have done something to keep Lazarus^[bs] from dying?”

Jesus, intensely moved^[bt] again, came to the tomb. (Now it was a cave, and a stone was placed across it.)^[bu] Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”^[bv] Martha, the sister of the deceased,^[bw] replied, “Lord, by this time the body will have a bad smell,^[bx] because he has been buried^[by] four days.”^[bz] Jesus responded,^[ca] “Didn’t I tell you that if you believe, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away^[cb] the stone. Jesus looked upward^[cc] and said, “Father, I thank you that you have listened to me.^[cd] I knew that you always listen to me,^[ce] but I said this^[cf] for the sake of the crowd standing around here, that they may believe that you sent me.” When^[cg] he had said this, he shouted in a loud voice,^[ch] “Lazarus, come out!” The one who had died came out, his feet and hands tied up with strips of cloth,^[ci] and a cloth wrapped around his face.^[cj] Jesus said to them, “Unwrap him^[ck] and let him go.”  (John 11:1-45)

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That is some story in the Gospel today. A man dead four days is brought back to life!  

Just imagine it. A group of men roll the large circular stone away from the opening of a cave that has been turned into a tomb. Then they stand back. Jesus calls out in a loud voice, “ Lazarus come out!” and out comes a figure, its face and hands wrapped in bandage-like cloths, and wearing the simple funeral nightgown.

Kinda scary. Kinda wonderful.

Martha and Mary are going to take Lazarus home from the tomb. He is alive, and well, and lives for some time afterward – he is mentioned again in the New Testament.

It’s bizarre, isn’t it?

Why? Why does Jesus do this?

He loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and came to help his friends. That’s what friends do, isn’t it?  They help each other.

There’s a wonderful story about two friends who served together in the First World War. One of them was wounded and left lying helpless and in pain in no-man’s land. The other, at peril to his own life, crawled out to help his friend; and when he reached him, the wounded man looked at him and said, “I knew you would come.”

Martha and Mary  knew Jesus would come.

The simple fact of human need brings Jesus to our side. 

When you need him, he is there.

It was dangerous for Jesus to go to Bethany.  The authorities were looking to kill him. His disciples warned against it.   And Jesus well knew that going there would be a first step towards the cross.

He went anyway.

But in the accounts of Jesus’ life, everything happens for a reason. We are told in Jesus’ words that God will be glorified, and so He is.

Because the great  proof of  Christianity is seeing what  God does in Jesus Christ. Words may fail to convince, but there is no argument when we see  God in action.  Simply stated,  the power of Jesus Christ has made the coward into a hero, the doubter into a person of certainty, the selfish man into a willing servant.  The power of Christ has made the bad person good throughout history.

When you think about it, that puts a tremendous responsibility on the shoulders of  today’s  Christians doesn’t it? . It’s God’s design that  every one of us should be living proof of his power. ^[1]

Glory to God whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.

Through his power, we can do much more than we can ever imagine we can do.

Through his power we are able to do things we could never even think of doing before.

Are we empowered? 

How do we know if we have been empowered?

Have you ever tested it?

We used to have wooden bird houses in the trees at the front of the house. Every year sparrows moved in. They would bring in grass, and feathers, and other mysterious stuff to build nests in there. The entrance was only a small hole and there was just a small peg for them to rest on before entering.

I have wondered how the baby birds are ever going to learn to fly. How are they going to be able to get on that little peg, and how is the mother going to show them what to do.

They will sit there, feet firmly wrapped around that peg, hanging on for dear life, equipped magnificently for flying, and yet scared to take off. The mother bird will somehow have to convince them that they can actually fly. She will have to push them off, I imagine, and when they feel themselves falling, they will flap their wings and find out that indeed they aren’t going to crash to the ground (where the cat from across the road will be waiting for them)  but indeed they  will be able to fly.

To soar heavenwards.

That’s us. We are empowered Christians. We have been given our wings. We have the spirit of God within us and we are equipped to do his work. We just have to be convinced of that.  

And try using it!

And we will be rewarded.   We will live forever.

Jesus says, “I am the one who raises the dead to life. And everyone who has faith in me will live, even though they die. And everyone who lives because of faith in me will never die.”

Live  for ever! Never die!

He doesn’t mean that we will live for ever in this world. What he does mean is that we will have new life in this world, and eternal life in the next.

And one depends on the other!

The few years we are in this world, and everyone over fifty knows that the years we are here are few indeed, are our preparation for the next world.

If we live right, then we are promised eternal life, and a life that is infinitely better than this one.    It had better be hadn’t it, if it’s to last for eternity!

If we live wrongly, then we will be judged accordingly.

If that is so, then what fools we are to live this measly three-score-years-and-ten completely for ourselves, never caring about others, or indeed about God, when it’s going to directly affect how we spend eternity.

You would have to be spiritually dead, wouldn’t you, not to care? 

Tokichi Ishii was hanged in Tokyo for murder, in 1918.

He was a man with an almost unparalleled criminal record. He was way worse than Clifford Olson. He had murdered men, women and children in the most brutal way. Anyone who stood in his way was pitilessly eliminated. Now he was in prison awaiting death.

As it happened, he was visited by two Canadian women. They were allowed to talk to him only through the bars of his cell. They tried to communicate with this monster, but  he only glowered at them like a caged and savage  animal. In the end they abandoned the attempt but they gave him a Bible, hoping that it might succeed where they had failed.

Strangely enough, he began to read it, and having started, he  could not stop. He read on until he came to the story of the Crucifixion. He came to the words, ‘ Father forgive them, for they know not what they do,’ and these words broke him.

“I stopped,” he said, “I was stabbed to the heart as if pierced by a five inch nail. Shall I call it the love of Christ? Shall I call it his compassion? I do not know what to call it. I only know that I believed and the hardness of my heart was changed.”

Later when the condemned man went to the scaffold, he was no longer the hardened, surly brute he once had been, but a smiling radiant man.

Christ had brought Tokichi Ishii to life, and life to Tokichi Ishi. And this unlikely man, formerly ‘dead,’ but now ‘alive’ – ironically just when his earthly body is to be put to death – will inherit eternal life.

We are told that when he learned about his friend Lazarus, Jesus wept.

Seeing that………… we know that God too weeps for us, his children, even for those of us who have become dead to him. Even for Tokichi Ishii.

Incidentally, the Greeks, for whom John’s  Gospel was written, were astounded to hear of a God who actually cared for people. 

Note that when Lazarus received new life, it was through Jesus’ prayer to his Father. Jesus does nothing by himself.

In everything Jesus did, he acted for his Father, was obedient to his Father, and allowed his Father to work through him.

How would it be in this world if we set God in his proper place in our lives, and instead of acting for ourselves,  we acted for God?

How would it be if we took the new life he has given to us, the empowerment with which we have been gifted, and did something wonderful for God?

……….if .. like a baby bird which has never flown before, we can step out into the world, trusting that the wings he has given us will hold us up, and do something that we have been scared to do before …………

………because if we don’t use what we have been given, we will lose it.

We can stick with the bird metaphor – I hate to change metaphors mid-stream,  and I hate clichés like the plague  – A bird when flying has to keep flying.   Oh, it may find a thermal current somewhere that it can ride for a little while, but they don’t last long. If the bird doesn’t keep flapping its wings, it will fall to the ground.

Likewise, we have to keep using the power we have been given. We have to continue to grow in Christ – otherwise, we will fall back………..fall into spiritual decline….become like everyone else……….stop coming to church….. stop caring so much….become….spiritually dead.

What a shame if that came to be, after the magnificent sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf.

What a shame to have wasted our time here.

Far better,  to be alive, and vibrant  – noisy for Christ  – if you like –  and to let the world see his triumph – in the world, and in us:

       Lord, make us pure; enrich our life

      With heavenly love for evermore;

     Give us thy strength to face the strife,

     And serve thee better than before.

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[1] The Daily Study  Bible, William Barclay, G.R.Welch Co. Ltd., Burlington, Ontario. Vol 2 1975 pp86-87

                The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to John

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.

His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes,saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”

Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.”But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?”He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.”

They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.

Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.

Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.”

Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided.So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?”

His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind;
but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.”

His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.

Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

 “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.”

He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”

Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.

We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.”

The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.

We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will.Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.

If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.”Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.”

He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.

Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”

Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?”

Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains. ,(John 9: 1-41)

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Jim Smith went to church one Sunday morning. He heard the organist miss a note  during the prelude, and he winced.  He saw a teenager talking when everybody was supposed to be bowed in silent prayer.  He felt like the usher was watching to see what he put on the offering plate and it made him boil. He caught the preacher making a slip of the tongue five times in the sermon, by actual.

count. As he slipped out through the side door during the closing hymn, he muttered to himself, “ Never again, what a bunch of clods and hypocrites.”

Ron Brown went to church one Sunday morning, He heard the organist play an arrangement of “A Mighty Fortress,” and he thrilled at the majesty of it.  He heard a young girl take a moment during the service  to speak her simple message of the difference her faith makes in her life.  He was glad to see  that this church was  sharing in a special offering for the hungry children of Nigeria. He especially appreciated the sermon that Sunday – it answered a question that had bothered him for  a long time.  He thought, as he walked out the doors of the church, “ How can a man come here and not feel the presence of God?”

Both men went to the same church, on the same Sunday morning. Each had a different view of what had transpired.

Jesus said, “I am here to give sight to the blind and to make blind everyone who can see.”

He said it to the Pharisees who were challenging him about the man being cured of his blindness, because it had taken place on a Sabbath.

A miracle like that could not have been done by a good person, they said,  because it was done on the Sabbath when you weren’t supposed to work..

They were blind to this mighty miracle because they wanted to condemn Jesus.

Just as each of those men, both of whom attended church in that story had  a different way of looking at what had happened, so did the Pharisees.

They had made up their minds about Jesus – namely that he was a trouble-maker – and they judged everything he did through that prism. They were blind to the good he was doing.

For Jesus love came first.

For the Pharisees, rules came first, and foremost. There was  no way they could  bring themselves, to see another’s point of view. 

They didn’t even want to know about another point of view.  They wanted Jesus silenced.

The right to free speech in this country came out of a belief that  everyone has a right to say what they believe, not only because that’s a desirable thing, but because those hearing opposing views can then weigh arguments both for and against,  and thus make up their minds. That’s the way that truth comes out. Not by shutting up those you don’t agree with.

The Pharisees blocked up their ears, and closed their eyes to any ideas that were alien to what they believed. And didn’t want anyone preaching different views to theirs.

They thought they saw clearly. But they were blind.

I have come across people who were a certain way – maybe grumpy, maybe stern, and reserved, maybe even obstreperous – and I might have been hurt by them, or inspired to be grumpy with them in return, but when  I have learned something about their life’s struggles, something about what it was that shaped the way they had grown up, then I understood them a bit better, and I was able to love them. 

Learning something about them was just like getting  my glasses fixed.

Jesus helps us to see beyond a person’s surface characteristics.  And to understand how they are. And to allow us to be compassionate toward them.   As he himself  was, with those who had been cast out of society.

Jesus has a love for those who suffer from physical or mental, or spiritual affliction, and we see that clearly in him, as he reaches out to them and heals and forgives them.

His love includes sinners too, even the worst sinner.

And we see this in his amazing sacrifice on the cross. He isn’t someone who gave up his life for worthy people. No, he gave his life for sinners,  gossips, murderers, terrorists, liars, thieves,  ungrateful wretches –for those who don’t care or even want to be saved – he gave his life for us all.

We may go through  life hurting others, like Mister Magoo, bouncing from here to there, and from there to here, hurting people on our way, and not even knowing it.

I have known people who actually and deliberately set out to destroy the reputations of other people, by spreading lies about them. Can you imagine it?

But I don’t believe they really understood what they were doing. They probably thought they were bringing some upstart down a peg or two; or putting someone in their place.   

I am sure if they could see how much they hurt someone they wouldn’t do it.

Jesus, by challenging us to live in a loving way, and making us aware of what real love is, enables us to see more clearly. We see the direction in which we are headed and we are able to make a sharp right turn – to repent.

The paradox is that until we meet Jesus, we are blind. When we meet him, he gives us new spiritual sight that is twenty-twenty.

Seeing clearly we can plot our path ahead in his service.

But you can see how people have  different perspectives in every day happenings, can’t you?

Like the time Father Murphy stopped in the local barber shop for a shave and a haircut, and found the barber hung over from a heavy week-end. He endured the shaking hand, but when the shave was over decided that a brief sermon was in order.

“Look at this cut on my throat,” he exclaimed, “And this one by the ear, and this other one on my upper lip, it might have cost me my nose. And all due to whiskey!”

The barber replied, “ You’re right Father, drinking does make the skin very tender.”

Little differences like that don’t matter much. You like the Raptors, he likes the Heat. She likes watching figure skating, he likes the hockey.   But when you read the newspaper, or watch the news on television, you will see that major wars, civil conflicts, great disturbances, the killing of innocents, all take place because of differences in perspective.

Because of blindness to what other people may be suffering.  

The most horrific example of this right now is in the Middle East.

Palestinians see Israel as an occupying force in their land. Israelis see Palestinians as a people which won’t let them live in peace in their land.

So one side attacks with the only weapons it has – people willing to die – and the other attacks with military might.

Each attack is in retaliation for an attack by the other side, and so on ad infinitum.

Similarly, leaders  and their followers on both sides  of other conflicts in the Middle East – Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, are  blind to the real issue – which is that thousands  of innocent people have been killed  with nothing to show for their sacrifice.

And long held prejudices, prejudgments, hatreds, misperceptions continue to cause death and injury to countless innocent people.

And there seems to be no way to demonstrate that this suffering could be remedied – healed – if leaders could only have their  “eyes” opened.

I saw a documentary which told the stories of a few Israeli boys and girls and a few Palestinian boys and girls brought to the U.S. to spend a month together.

At the end of the month they were all friends. They cried when it came time to say ‘goodbye’ and promised to keep in touch.

It was a wonderful example of what can happen when people are given the gift of sight.

These young people were able, for the first time,  to see each other for what they were – kids just like them.

But within a short time of their return – to Israel and to Palestine – when they were questioned, sadly, the old attitude, the one that said all on the other side were evil, had returned.

I think it was a mistake to bring those children to America to that youth camp. They should have brought the leaders.

It seems obvious to us, doesn’t it?   But none of us is truly clear sighted. We all suffer from blindness at some time. 

When I try to read without my glasses, I have to take a step back, to enable my eyes to focus. Maybe that’s what we all need to do  sometimes – take a step back, and get a better focus on our attitudes, and our beliefs – about ourselves, and about those with whom we come into contact. 

God forbid that we should hurt someone, that we should condemn someone, that we should hate someone, because of  our blindness.

God give us a clarity of spiritual vision, that enables us to see what needs to be put right in our own lives; what we need to do  to make us better followers of your Son Jesus; what needs to be done to help us understand our family, friends, and neighbors better, so that we can be lights in this world, illuminating the dark corners of prejudice and hatred, and bringing about the conditions for true Christian love to flourish, and to bring real peace, in our lives and in the world. We ask this in the name of the One who gave his life out of love for all people, your Son, Jesus the Christ.

Amen.

The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to John

Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” \

The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?”

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”

The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?”

Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” ( John 4:5-42 )

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.

My mother died when I was sixteen. I still remember her. She was someone with few wants. She wasn’t a great shopper. She had neither time nor money.

For the life of me I can’t remember her ever buying anything for herself. She must have, of course. But  I only remember her buying clothing, shoes, and so on for  her four children.

Sometimes, very rarely,  she would say something like, “Trev, pop to the shop, for me love, I just fancy a drink of Dandelion and Burdock.”

Her hungers and thirsts were never too deep.

But she was a true believer.  

And at peace with herself.

Some time ago, I read of a young woman who had cocaine and heroin habits. Needs. Hungers. Thirsts. For something to ease the pain of living.

This woman sold her body to raise money to try and satisfy those needs.  

The last time she was seen alive was when she got into a car with two men  who had driven by, waving fifty dollar bills.

A man was charged with her murder.

The woman who met Jesus at Jacob’s well was a woman with needs. 

She had been married five times, and was living with her sixth partner. She had a need to be loved, and  not even five husbands had been able to fill that need.

You might say she thirsted for real, unselfish, undemanding love.  She had a  thirst of the soul.

Human beings have always had such thirsts. Poets have written about them. Psalmists have sung about them.

They drive us, and sometimes we don’t even know they are doing it.

When Jesus talked about the living water, the water that quenches  that  thirst of the soul for ever, the Samaritan woman jestingly said ,  “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not thirst and so I will not have to come back here.”

Suddenly, Jesus brings her to her senses, “Go and call your husband and come back here.”
The woman stiffened as if a sudden pain  had caught her. She recoiled as if from a sudden shock. She went pale, as one who has seen a sudden apparition, and she had  – she had suddenly caught sight of herself.

She was, for perhaps the first time,  compelled to face herself and to recognise what had driven her, how her needs had driven her into a looseness of life.

That’s what happens when we meet Jesus.  He looks right into our hearts, and knows us. And we suddenly know ourselves.  Meeting Jesus makes us honest about ourselves, perhaps for the first time.

And that realisation can bring us to God, and to want to make amends.

This woman wanted to make sacrifice to God to put things right.  But she got caught up in where to make that sacrifice.  The Samaritans believed  that Mount Gerizim was the holy mountain, the Jews, Mount Zion.

Jesus told her the time was coming when people wouldn’t worry about where to worship. They would find God wherever they decided to seek him.

Her experience with Jesus  began with  being compelled to face herself and to see herself as she really was.  

The same thing happened to Peter. After the episode when Jesus guided Peter to the right place to fish,  Peter suddenly discovered something of the majesty of Jesus, and all he could say, was.  ”Depart from me for I am a sinful man, Lord.”

In the face of  such  righteousness, Peter felt the depth of his own sin.

I think we just don’t realise our need for someone to say, “You are forgiven.”

We just don’t know.

We get used to living a certain way. 

A little girl had been taken to church by her mother, to hear a famous preacher. When he had finished his sermon, the little girl whispered to her mom, “Mom, how does he know what goes on in our house?”

It isn’t just the knowing, it’s that when we meet  Jesus we see things for what they.

It’s like getting new glasses.

The next thing the Samaritan woman did was to rush away to tell her neighbors about her experience, and to bring them to meet Jesus.

She hurried off into town leaving her water jar behind.  You could be sure she was coming back.

When the people in the town heard what she had to say, they wanted to know him. 

Then when they met Jesus, they told her, ‘We don’t have faith in Jesus just because of what you told us. We have heard him ourselves and we are certain he is the Saviour of the world.’

But she had led them to him, hadn’t she?

The word of God must be transmitted person to person. God’s message will never reach those who need to hear it,  unless  someone delivers it.

                        He has no hand but our hands

                        To do His work today.

                        He has no feet but our feet

                        To lead people in his way;

                        He has no voice but our voice

                        To tell people how he died;

                        He has no help but our help

                       To lead them to his side.

All it took was that one woman to tell of her experience to save a whole town.

The woman was a Samaritan, a people rejected by the Jews; as a woman, she was also regarded as a second class citizen. Men were not supposed to speak to women out on the street. Or women to men.

In fact there were some holy men, Pharisees, who wouldn’t even look at a woman.  They were called ‘bruised, or bleeding’ Pharisees because of the way the would bump into walls when they closed their eyes every time a woman came into view. 

This woman also had another strike against her.  Having been married five times and living with a man, she was looked down upon by the other women. There was water in town, but she came to this well, a good way out of town. The other women wouldn’t have her near them .

Time and again, it seems, it isn’t the holy people who lead people to God, but the sinners, the rejects, those who have lost so much – and have found so much.

A Samaritan, a woman, and a fallen woman at that  –  in her gladness led the whole town to Jesus.

She had found the living water.

Others searched but didn’t find.

The emperor  Qin Shi Huangdi, after whom China itself was named, and by whose grave just a few years ago, a terra cotta army of 7500 soldiers was discovered,  thirsted for the water of immortality. 

He sent  repeated expeditions into the Eastern Sea to seek the elixir of life. One of  these missions involved scores of oceangoing junks and a crew of 3,000 young men and women. They never returned.

The water of immortality was unavailable.[1]

We look everywhere except the right place.

But eternal life is easy to find, if you know how. 

Just look for that person who has it all together. The person who has a sense of fulfillment in life. The person who seems to have some hidden strength that brings them through their trials.

The person who has found joy in Jesus.

They will point you to the place where that living water can be found.

They can’t help it.

It kind of bubbles up.

Some years ago, a group of prospectors set out from Bannock, Montana in search of gold. They went through many hardships, and several of them died en route. They were overtaken by Indians and robbed of their good horses, and warned to go home or they would be killed.

Defeated and discouraged, they made their way home.  On one of their many stops along the way – the lame ponies they had been left with could not go far without resting – they tethered their mounts on the side of a creek.

One of the men casually picked up a little stone, and calling for a hammer, cracked it open. “ It looks like there may be gold here,” he said.

Two of them panned for gold the rest of the afternoon and managed to realise about twelve dollars worth of gold. That was a lot of money at the time.

The entire little company panned for gold the next day and realised fifty dollars – a small fortune.  They said to one another, ‘We have struck it.’

They made their way back to Bannock and vowed not to breathe a word concerning the gold strike. They secretively set about equipping themselves with supplies for another prospecting trip, taking elaborate steps to hide what they were doing. 

But when they set out, three hundred men followed them.

Who had told on them?     No-one!   Their beaming faces betrayed their secret.

If we love Jesus, whose face we have not seen, we should be unable to conceal that treasure from anyone. Our beaming face will betray our secret.

O come  let us sing to the Lord;

Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;

Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise.

For the Lord is a great God, and a king above all gods.

Praise his wonderful name.

---

[1] P.303 Contact, by Carl Sagan,Simon and Schuster, New York,1985.

The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to John

There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”

Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?

“No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (Jn 3.1-17.)

                               ————————————————-

Imagine that you wake up in the middle of the night, and you hear a voice you can only think comes from God, and the voice tells you to get up and get your belongings together, and to set out for a distant land – you won’t know where it is until you get there.

Imagine that.

You might be inclined to say, “Lord, have you got the right person here?   Shouldn’t you be next door? They are both out of work. So they don’t have anything to sacrifice by moving,  as I do.”

But God called Abram, and he got up, and took his wife Sarai, and his servants, and all his belongings and set out.

What a test of faith.

“ Leave your country, your family, and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you.”

He went.

Paul tells the Romans in today’s epistle reading, that the reason Abram, later named Abraham, was blessed, was not because of anything good that he had done,  but simply because Abram had enough faith to obey willingly, and to venture off into the unknown – all at the call of God.

The evangelist John, in today’s Gospel, tells us the story of the Jewish leader, Nicodemus, a lawful man, a teacher, a member of the ruling council, but a man who knew that something essential, was missing from his life.

Faith like that of Abraham, was missing, wasn’t it?

Jesus tells Nicodemus that to know the fullness of life, and to be a man of faith, he must be born again.  Nicodemus asks what must be the most idiotic question ever asked, “How can a man go into his mother’s womb and be born again?”

Jesus is trying to tell Nicodemus that he must become a new man, a ‘born again” man, someone who has left his old life behind.

And Jesus tells him something else, something about his own, Jesus’  mission; he says, “ And the Son of Man must be lifted up, just as the metal snake was lifted up by Moses in the desert.”

Now if you remember some of the stories about Israel’s wondering in the desert, you will recall that at one time, the camp of the Israelites was plagued by snakes, and those bitten by a snake would become very sick and die. 

Moses, dismayed at what was happening to people, asked God what to do, and God told him to make an image of a snake, mount it on a staff, and hold it up. Those who looked upon it would be healed.

Jesus has been sent to cure the ills that people are suffering at this time.

And yes, he will heal the sick; yes he will raise the dead; but more than that he is sent to heal the sickness of sin. The pain of sin. The deadliness of sin. Sin which is more of a threat to humankind than any of the physical or mental diseases that afflict us.

He must be lifted up and people must believe in him to be saved from  deadly sin.

He will be lifted up on the cross, as we know. And those who have looked at the cross and believed, have been healed of the sickness of sin.

What is the sickness of sin?

You might ask, because there are some people who believe that sin is not nearly such a bad thing. They will tell you that a bit of larceny never hurt anyone.  

In fact some people believe it can be whitewashed.

Whitewashing sin is even a job for some people these days. It is called spin doctoring. Or public relations.

People believe that anything, even history, can be rewritten to rehabilitate someone. Even someone who has been long dead.

For example, some children in a rich family, decided to give their father a book of the family’s history as a birthday present. 

They commissioned a professional biographer to do the work, carefully warning him of the family’s ‘black sheep problem’. Which was that Uncle George had been executed in the electric chair for murder.

The biographer assured the children,  “I can handle that situation so that there will be no embarrassment. I’ll merely say that Uncle George occupied a chair of applied electronics…….. at an important government institution.     ………..He was attached to his position by the strongest of ties,………. and his death came as a real shock.”

Unfortunately, real sin is not so funny.

And you really can’t whitewash it away, can you?

Many people have tried to put behind them, things they did some time ago, only to have the memories return to haunt them in later years.

Many have acquired a veneer of respectability, a look of probity, without ever having experienced the slightest remorse for the wrong they have done.

It is all in the past,

So they think.

But the effects of  unforgiven sin last far longer, and are more pernicious, and far- reaching than you could ever imagine.

A man named Max Jukes once  lived in New York. He did not believe in Christ or in Christian training. He refused to take his children to church, even when they asked to go.

He had 1026 descendants; 300 were sent to prison for an average term of thirteen years; 190 were public prostitutes; 680 were admitted alcoholics. His family thus far, has cost the state in excess of $420,000. They have made no contribution to society. To the contrary, they have been a drain on society.

Jonathan Edwards lived in the same state, at the same time as Jukes. He loved the Lord and saw that his children went to church every Sunday, as he served the Lord to the best of his ability.

He has had 929 descendants, and of  these 430 were ministers; 86 became university professors; 13 became university presidents; 75 authored good books; 7 were elected to the United States Congress; one was vice president of his nation.

His family never cost the state one cent, but has contributed immeasurably to the life of plenty in that land today.

You see, sin has more side effects than all the drugs on the market today. 

And Christ is the only answer.

What are we to do about it? 

We come to church. We support its ministry in the world and the community. We minister in many ways in our town. We try to live our lives as God would want us to.

What more can we do?

Well, just put yourself in the sandals of one of the Israelites in the desert, three thousand years ago, when a plague of snakes has caused havoc in the camp.

Imagine that you had been bitten and become sick, and that you had heard that if you would only gaze on the image of a snake that Moses had prepared and had  lifted up, then you would be healed. And imagine that is what you did, and you were healed.

Then imagine further, that you hear groans coming from a nearby tent. You look inside, and see a whole family infected by the poisonous snake bites, and obviously close to death.

What would you do?

Would you bring them water?  Would you dress their festering wounds? Try to comfort them? Of course you would.

But wouldn’t you also tell them that you had been healed by gazing on that snake held up by Moses? And wouldn’t you try to bring them to the door of their tent, and point the way they should look, and help them to be healed completely?

Of course you would.

Well, we live in a sick world, where many people suffer the effects of sin.

The sickness of sin breaks up more families than disease or death.

The sickness of one man some years ago, resulted in the deaths of fifty-eight women, (I think that’s the number) in Spokane Washington.

Think of the effects of drunken driving, of the sale and use of narcotics, of AIDs, of murder, of robbery, of the abuse of innocents.

The old wayside pulpit  had it right when it said the wages of sin is death.

So why don’t we help out by lifting up Jesus, and pointing others to him, as the one who heals the sickness of sin?

Why don’t we tell others how we have been healed and help them find healing?

The Son of Man must be lifted up as the metal snake was lifted up by Moses in the desert, for everyone to see.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish  but have eternal life.

For God sent the Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

It’s the oldest message in the world, but is still new today.

It is the oldest remedy for a ruined life, but it is still as effective as it was when it was first prescribed  by Jesus himself.

If we have availed ourselves of it, and are healed, then shouldn’t we try to help others find healing too?

I have coffee with a friend once a week, an atheist, and I am slowly working on him. ( He thinks he is working on me!)

He has a son who is of the religious persuasion that puts people off by constantly preaching at them. Condemning them.

So my friend is put off by his son. Put off from that sort of religion.

So it is hard work.

So far I have moved him from being against all religion, to seeing that religion isn’t all that bad, but helps us to live a better life, treating others well,  and living right.

And he says that is what he does.

The next step is getting him to see that Jesus gives us the wherewithal to do that.

Wish me luck.

Amen.