One of the most beautiful aspects of the story of the Samaritan woman in John 4 is the way she witnesses about Jesus: “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”
Most of us aren’t likely to walk into work, church, or even our own home and say, “All my deepest secrets—the places of shame and guilt and fear—are on the table! Come meet the guy who revealed them to me!” The normal human impulse is to hide the things that we have done that are shameful. Her witness is so uniquely bold—she has lost her sense of shame over her past.
We can acknowledge, at least logically, that when one person admits his or her guilt and shame, it opens the door for others to do the same. Most of us fear that we will be rejected if we speak the truth about ourselves, yet when people courageously confess to others, they usually find that the others have also struggled and sinned, and also need to confess in return. One brave soul can open the floodgates of honesty in a friendship, a small group, or a church.
But it is still profoundly difficult to take that first step. How was this woman able to do it? The answer is simple: Jesus knew her past, and she discovered that he did not reject her for it. The fact that the Messiah actually wanted her gave her the security to venture into the terrifying territory of speaking truthfully to the people in her town. “Even if they reject me, HE doesn’t, and that is enough for me!”
Our fear of confession to one another may reveal that we still struggle to believe that Jesus actually wants us. Our insecurity with him means that too much is riding on our relationships with others. But if he is who he claims to be, and if he actually accepts us, there is nothing to fear.
Even if my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord will take me in. (Ps. 27:10)
This I know, that God is for me. In God, whose word I praise, in the Lord, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me? (Ps. 56:10-11)
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:38-39)
My prayer is simply that you know that you are accepted by the Messiah, and that this gives you freedom.
In Christ,
Steven+
Scripture Reflections
In his sermon on Sunday, Justin+ mentioned that there were a variety of threads in John 3. He wisely avoided them (I probably wouldn’t have been able to avoid all of them, which is why Justin is capable of something I am not—a sub-20-minute sermon…) and kept his sights on the goal: living in the new creation through walking in the light. But the newsletter devotion presents me with a chance to chase one of those threads!
In John 3:5-6, Jesus puts three things together in the new birth—water, blood, and the Spirit. The consensus of the historic Church is that this reference to water is a reference to baptism. A few modern theologians argue for a metaphorical understanding of water, and a few believe it refers to the “water” in the womb of a natural birth, but by and large, this is understood as Jesus saying, “Unless one is born again through baptism and my blood; that is, unless one is born of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (That the water refers to baptism is made fairly obvious by the fact that, right after this discourse with Nicodemus, Jesus and his disciples went into the countryside and started baptizing people!)
The strange thing, though, is that only a few verses later, Jesus says, “whoever believes in [me has] eternal life.” We now have four things—baptism, the blood of Jesus, the Spirit, and belief—presented as essential for new birth and new life.
Modern analysis asks the question, “Which is it? Does new birth come in baptism? When we believe? When does the Spirit apply the blood of Jesus to us? When we are baptized? When we truly believe? How do these four fit together??” Denominations have split over the answers to these questions, and much theology has been written to describe the relationships between our belief, the sacraments, the blood of Jesus, and the work of the Spirit!
But Jesus doesn’t answer these questions. He never presents the sacraments, our faith, his blood, or the work of the Spirit in opposition to one another. He doesn’t arrange them logically. For example, in John 6, he says that we must “eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood”—highly sacramental words!—and yet, in the same discourse, he says, “whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” Which is it? The sacrament? Or our belief? Which truly brings the life of Jesus Christ to us?
Throughout John, Jesus speaks of these things—his blood, the work of the Spirit in us, the sacraments given to the Church, and our individual belief—as the door into the kingdom and the place where we receive Jesus’ own never-ending life. My point in this devotion is simple: do not discount any of them. Each of us likely prioritizes one or two of these things—either believing in Jesus, receiving the sacraments, the presence of the Spirit, or being cleansed by the blood of Lamb. But each of us is likely also a bit reserved—even skeptical—about one or two of these things. Whichever it is that you tend to overlook, remember that Jesus himself speaks of all four! By his blood, through the work of the Spirit, as we believe, in the sacraments, he offers life to us.
Steven+
Wilderness
The Bible begins in a paradisial garden. It ends in a paradisial city. In between this perfect beginning and perfect end, life is lived in the desert places.
We aren’t meant to remain in the desert places—our home is the garden-city of God. Yet we are in exile in the desert places, wandering east of Eden, waiting for the heavenly city where the trees of life bring forth their fruit.
If you love to create gardens, the echoes of Eden are still beating in your heart. If you like woodwork and architecture, the remodeling of homes, city blocks, and parks, the hope of the coming city is alive in you. Art and music, good literature and cooking—our pursuits reveal that we are meant to live in the garden-city of God, where beauty, peace, and joy flourish.
Yet the path in the desert places is marked by futility, pain, and fear. The darkness of the valley of the shadow of death is far removed from the light of the garden-city. The echoes of Eden and the promise of the coming city still throb in our hearts—we see them in creation and in one another—but on many days, we feel sin’s effects, we feel our exile in the desert places, far more than we feel our ancestral homeland and pilgrim destination. We are unable to go backward or forward, no matter how hard we try by our pursuits of justice, pleasure, or technology.
And so the Son of God came to the desert places to be with us and lead us out. And in that wilderness, he confronted our ancient enemy face-to-face. We could not leave until “the strong man was bound” (Mt. 12:29); we were captives in the wilderness, captives to our sin, captives to death, captives to the devil. The victory was won when Jesus rebuked the devil and rejected his temptation in the wilderness. It was won as he “cast out” the “ruler of this world” (Jn. 12:31) by his death on the cross—a cross raised in the wilderness, outside Jerusalem, the typological city of God. And it was won when he emerged from the darkness of the tomb—the true valley of the shadow of death, the deepest wilderness—into a garden (Jn. 19:41), the garden of the resurrection that will never wither or fail.
For those who wait for the return of Christ, that is, for those who have already been brought out of the desert places by the Spirit and yet live by faith in the midst of the desert places of this world, Lent offers us a chance to remember. It is purposefully modeled after Christ’s 40 days in the wilderness, and so in Lent we remember how our victory was won—the Word descended to fight our fight in the desert places. But in Lent we also remember the true state of humanity—it is a miniature picture of human history. All around us are those wandering in the desert places, hungry for a home that cannot be recovered by their own strength.
If, during Lent, you are acutely aware of the frustrations of life, do not despair. It is actually part of the point. If you are aware of your inability, don’t fear! If you see your inadequacy, remember that the one who could achieve victory already has, and he has done it on your behalf. The garden-city will come, the Lord Jesus will return, and our wanderings will end.
Steven+