In John 4, a very unique event takes place in Jesus’ ministry.  While passing through Samaria to go to Galilee, the Apostles go into town to get food.  What follows is as powerful a story of the life, bread, water, blood, and ministry of Jesus that is recorded in the gospels. 

I remember some years ago seeing a modern-day drama depicting this woman’s encounter with Christ, and it was powerful to say the least.  The thing is, ya gotta read between the lines to get the whole story.  Beginning in verse 15, the woman bites the hook Jesus puts out there in front of her.  “Sir, give me this water (living water) so I will not be thirsty or come all the way here to draw.”

So the response by Jesus?  “go get your husband, and come here.”  What?  Has this guy been a fly on my wall or something?  There’s no telling what she might have thought.  You have to pause here… I wonder what the time span was before she answered him with, “I don’t have a husband.”  Even in the Samaritan standards, this woman had apparently lived an extremely immoral lifestyle.  She’s had 5 husbands?  I wonder how immoral she was – having disappointed 5 men enough to be divorced.  And now – the man she’s with is not her husband either.  We’re not told about it… but I would guess that this woman had not ONLY had 6 men in her life.

How did the people look at her in town?  How would she have been regarded by her peers?  When she walked up to a store window (indulge me here), and a family of 4 was there looking at the goods window-shopping, how might the family have treated her?  My mind’s eye imagines a father wrapping his arms around his children and his wife by the shoulder and quickly scurrying off so as not to be seen with such a woman.  But Jesus… offers her living water. LIVING WATER!  What in the world would that be…

This is NOT about marriage, divorce, and re-marriage.  This is about a woman at the end of her rope, in need of something she can’t get anywhere else.  Immoral?  Absolutely… but she has faith to some level.  And she declares, “I know Messiah is coming…”  Why would she just randomly bring that up?  Had this man shown her that he could be the one?  Jesus offers her enough evidence in his speech (and he plainly states that he IS) to convince her that He IS Messiah.

In verse 39, the text clearly says, “many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman…”  While we could finish the story and talk about the belief of others here, the greatest point to me is that this woman had apparently changed!  How else would “many of the Samaritans” believe because of her?  Jesus brought living water to this woman, and she changed.  How could she not?  After spending time with the Master, experiencing his boldness, kindness, his very existence – she would undoubtedly have no choice but to quit the awful life she had chosen to live.  That is what encounters with the Christ are about!  May God bless us with encounters with Christ ourselves, and give others simple reasons to believe in Him!

There’s a song that begins, “Lord make me a servant, Lord make me like you…”  Christ was the greatest servant of all.  I cannot help but wonder what kind of open heart he must have nurtured to provide a place for the Spirit to work.  Along those lines, I came across these thoughts recently about the actions of the Christian. 
The following is a bit of text from pp. 126-127 of Chuck Colson’s Loving God.

A few years ago a brother in the order came to her complaining about a superior whose rules, he felt, were interfering with his ministry.  “My vocation is to work for lepers,” he told Mother Teresa.  “I want to spend myself for the lepers.” 

She stared at him a moment, then smiled.  “Brother,” she said gently, “your vocation is not to work for lepers, your vocation is to belong to Jesus.”

Mother Teresa is not in love with a cause, noble as her cause is.  Rather, she loves God and is dedicated to living His life, not her own, This is holiness.  It is the complete surrender of self in obedience to the will and service of God.  Or as Mother Teresa sums it up, complete “acceptance of the will of God.” 

Mother Teresa’s definition may sound rather nebulous to many Christians who have from childhood associated holiness with a long string of dos and don’ts.  But seeing holiness only as a rule-keeping breeds serious problems:  first, it limits the scope of true biblical holiness, which must affect every aspect of our lives.  Second, even though the rules may be biblically based, we often end up obeying the rules rather than obeying God; concern with the letter of the law can cause us to lose its spirit.  Third, emphasis on rule-keeping deludes us into thinking we can be holy through our efforts.  But there can be no holiness apart from the work of the Holy Spirit – in quickening us through the conviction of sin and bringing us by grace to Christ, and sanctifying us – for it is grace that causes us to even want to be holy.  And finally, our pious efforts can become ego-gratifying, as if holy living were some kind of spiritual beauty contest.  Such self-centered spirituality in turn leads to self-righteousness – the very opposite of the selflessness of true holiness.  – Charles Colson.

I don’t know much about Mother Teresa, seeing as my background is from the Restoration Movement heritage of the 19th-20th centuries.  But I love what I read of her life and spirit of holiness.  Also, I love Colson’s statement, “…there can be no holiness apart from the work of the Holy Spirit…”  It behooves believers in Christ to continue reading and studying the word of God, so we provide an adequate vessel for the Spirit of God to work in this world.  God knows, He needs ambassadors; the cool thing is that He doesn’t expect perfect people to be those ambassadors!  “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  – 2 Corinthians 5:20-21

Lots of confusion abounds in the religious world today – especially between Christianity, Islam and Judaism.  All 3 of these world religions bear many, many similarities and connections from the creation through the time of Abraham.  Many years later, Moses inquired who was speaking to him in the burning bush in the wilderness – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Later, he told Moses to go to Pharaoh in Egypt as Israel was enslaved, and tell him the “I AM” says, to “let my people go.” 

Enter Jesus; 1500 years later.  Jesus of Nazareth did many good deeds, but was far more than a carpenter’s son, or a magician, or a philosopher as history might paint him.  In the gospel of John, there are 8-10 “I AM” statements of Jesus.  The reason the number is variable depends upon interpretation.  There are in fact only 8 specific metaphorical “ego eimi” (= I AM) statements; the others are things such as “I am the son of God” to his disciples or as part of another sentence.  Those statements that are very familiar to his disciples are these; I am the living bread, I am from above, I am the light of the world, I am the door, I am the good shepherd, I am the resurrection and the life, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and I am the vine.  It’s interesting that Jesus makes these statements the way he does.  There have been many attempts to explain them, but in each context, Jesus is making a point about the object based on the immediate situation; be it bread in the context of feasts, light in the festival of lights (modern Hannukkah), or the means of entering pasture – the door.

But the most powerful statement of Jesus in the context of the I AM statements is in John 8:24.  “for if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins.”  Some translations inject “he” after the I am in that sentence, implying Jesus is referring to himself as the Messiah; however, there’s a problem with that simple little pronoun!  The issue is that the Greek New Testament does not include the pronoun “he”.  The passage should correctly be read “for if you do not believe that I am…” 

These statements are often referred to as they are in the Greek text; ego eimi (eggo ay-mee); simply stated?  “I AM”.  Jesus knew what he was doing, and who he was.  What remains is what will history do with him?  Will we reduce him to a meager human who was wise, did miracles (or healings), and philosopher?  He is so much more than just a prophet.  He is the bright and morning star; Messiah!  Ultimately, that is the only question.  What will we do with Jesus?  The only appropriate response to that question, is to respond as he wanted all his disciples to respond… “Yes you are” (the Messiah, the I AM).

It’s interesting.  On TV last night was a special about Radical Islam.  The opening portion of the show was to demonstrate how most Muslims live deeply faithful lives, and are not in fact violent.  However, the sect which has grown into a vengeful, terrorist sect of the Islamic faith has gained most of the attention.  This was ultimately the focus of the show.  I don’t intend to compliment the zeal of these Radical Muslims in any way – I rather believe their stated faith in the name of Allah as a cloak for acts of hatred and Jihad are wrong in many ways.  It is terribly sad to me that this takes place and children of my kindergartner’s age are already chanting prose and poetry of hatred toward the west and the great Satan.  Many of them can already quote books and books of the Quran.  I must respect the zeal which is centered on the Quran’s teachings.  As a Christian, I certainly don’t agree doctrinally with the Quran; but the fervor of the faithful to be pleasing to Allah is certainly a type of faith worth emulating.  This is not the story with the radical Muslims who have taken license to cause terror.  It was evident on (what I believe to be) the best TV show on the air, “Criminal Minds” last week, that almost all of the terrorism taking place in the name of Jihad is retribution, revenge, and deep sealed hatred that is only justifiable by twisting their Quran scriptures.

But as adamant as I am against terrorism – and especially terrorism cloaked in faith, I would be a fool not to take a lesson from it.  How many books of the Scripture can I quote, much less my kindergarten son quote?  Oh he knows the lessons, and frankly I’d put him up against any other kindergartner in a theological debate.  He can whip out, “huh uh… that doesn’t make God happy,” or “that’s not like Jesus” as good as anybody.  But most of us Americans have no clue about the role of faith and it’s depth to the people of the East.  God’s people need to become radical.  We need an hour of prayer, or rather hours of prayer.  We who claim Christ is the only way to God must be radical practitioners of piety.  What ever happened to holiness?  Not just resisting temptation, and staying “out of” trouble, but being proactive to prune our spiritual lives into growing, blossoms of life?  Not to mention the simple things like manners, politeness, candor, and couth…

I know I need to change.  I have so far to go, and yet I need to “catch up” with my lost time of wastefulness, and become a pillar of holiness in my family.  If you’re reading this, please pray for me to do that.  I don’t plan to preach any great sermon on the Capitol steps or the Washington Mall, but I need to become radical.  God knows, we all need to, and perhaps if his people rise up and be holy, Christ would be clearly seen as the true Messiah by all; the Immanuel. 

According to many in the postmodern religious world, grace is us climbing up a ladder toward an intimate relationship with God, and getting close to the top, only to not have enough rungs on the ladder.  God reaches down and yanks us up…

According to scripture, grace is not God’s yanking us up when we can go no farther, it’s the ladder.  We sin often, and it is in our nature as humans to sin.  Not that we can’t choose to resist, and not that we’re born guilty of sin as many with Calvinistic bent would postulate.  But we’re human… and it is so much our nature in a fallen world, that Christ “emptied himself” and became like us.  In this, he experienced life as one of us – to truly be an appropriate sacrifice for us (Philippians 2).  As a human, Jesus prayed to the Father, indicating a need for that relationship.  In Galilee he wept over the casket (or tomb) of his dear friend Lazarus before raising him to God’s glory (John 11).  In the temple, he was filled with anger and drove the entrepreneurs and traders out of his Father’s house of worship with a whip.  In the garden, he begged God to let the cup of suffering pass from him on the night before his crucifixion.  He was… human.  But the New Testament tells us he was sinless.  He suffered and died so that he could learn obedience and take our place in punishment… that, is GRACE.

Unlike the understanding I acquired growing up, the first Epistle of John says, “if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His son, ‘purifies us’ from all sins.”  Some taught that there were all sorts of sins – and that I was just as guilty for sins I didn’t know about, but I had still committed.  I often lived in fear that if I did not beg for God’s forgiveness as the last thing before bed every night, I was no longer in his good graces… or more appropriately, in His Grace. 

Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Oh I can be separated from God and need to repent, for sure.  And I have been separate from God – and it was because of my own selfish sinful practices.  But when we walk in faith, we will falter, and we will fail.  When we walk in faith, we will allow ourselves to stretch out, and when we walk in faith, the Holy Spirit will guard our hearts and minds (Rom. 5).  The Spirit gives us peace, and if we allow ourselves to be empty jars of clay for God’s use, his Spirit will empower us in our daily walk.  That is grace!  That is holiness, and that is a life of faith. 

John also said in 1 John 3:6-9 that if Christ “abides” in us (or ‘remains’ in the Greek, denoting a location, or a place of presence) we cannot sin.  Knowing from many other passages in the N.T. that we cannot go without sin for long as humans, this must mean that my daily walk  is in my mindset, my habits, and my practices; not merely in my individual sinful act when I become weak.  This is JOY for a Christian.  It’s the fact that the eternal victory of Jesus is stronger than my individual failure.  Father, forgive my lack of faith and help me to be a vessel of honor, that I may walk in the Spirit and have life and peace (Rom. 5:8).