John 4:3-26
3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.”
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.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
Luke 19:1-10
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.
2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.
3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd.
4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”
8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.
10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.”
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.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
Luke 19:1-10
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.
2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.
3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd.
4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”
8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.
10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Reflection
What does a saviour look like?
A baby born in a manger?
A man nailed to a cross?
A stone rolled away?
What does a saviour look like?
Usually, when I am asked about Jesus Saviour, it has to do with Easter, Jesus crucified and atonement. Jesus, as the paschal lamb, who takes away the sin of the world saviour.
I’ve got to say not my favourite subject and to tell you the truth although I know the theory and the symbolism; I have trouble with the outcome. If Jesus is the sacrificial lamb and it worked, then why have there been so many sacrificial lambs – people who come after Jesus.
So, my problems aside; and you may have other problems; you may have none, I prefer to look at Jesus Saviour in terms of his life and the resurrection.
What does it mean to have your life saved? Our scripture passages today are two out of many stories in the gospels telling about Jesus changing lives or Jesus giving people the opportunity to reflect on their lives at the very least.
Think about it:
Zacchaeus, the tax collector, we heard about him a few weeks ago. Jesus calls out to him, goes to Zac’s house for supper and Zacchaeus and his family go from sinner to saved, from lost to found, from being ostracized to being included in the family of Abraham, a beloved child of Yahweh.
The Samaritan woman at the well, a divorcée of some renown in her village, having had five husbands and now living with a man, shunned by the other women- thus her solitary visit to the well - is given the puzzle
of living water by Jesus. She claims her thirst and she claims the living water offered by Jesus.
She runs back to her village and convinces them that they, too, must see and hear this prophet Messiah.
As John 4:39-40 tells us:
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.
42 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 Saviour of the world.”
Now, multiply those two stories by all the other stories we know- Jesus calling the disciples, Mary of Magdalena with her seven demons, Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus- although Jesus really did save his life, and still others: people with leprosy, people who are blind, children fading away at home while their parents seek Jesus out to ask for healing, all the people wanting Jesus’ advice and hearing it come to see their lives from a different perspective regardless of what they choose to do – because I’m sure the rich young man, although he goes sadly away, does not ever look at himself in quite the same way as he did before he met Jesus, and those Scribes and priests and Pharisees with their questions about the Sabbath and rules and rituals, at least some of them, those not so entrapped by the system they lived in, they must have reflected on those rules and rituals after Jesus showed them the same rulebook but with a loving, compassionate God.
And multiply all those stories by all the stories we don’t know that took place on the roads, and villages and in the towns and lakeshores and mountainsides that Jesus visited.
And multiply that by all the stories of the early gatherings after the resurrection and on the day of Pentecost and after that.
Then we have the story of Paul-Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee who studied under the great rabbi Gamaliel, in the Jerusalem temple, saved by a vision on the road to Damascus and thus has the opportunity to change his life.
The way I see it, Jesus Saviour is all about people.
People like you and me. I know it’s easier to see and understand the “saving” when there’s a real stigma attached but saving isn’t always about being down and out like the lepers, or being marginalized like Zacchaeus, you see Paul-Saul was just doing fine, a tent maker family of some means, and by all accounts a brilliant student, so much so that he is given permission to go and hunt down these Jesus followers and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial.
And he is saved, by Jesus, a man he has never met during Jesus’ lifetime. A Jew, crucified on a cross, like thousands of others, as an example of what happens to traitors of the Roman empire. Paul’s life changes direction and opens up in ways I am sure he never thought possible.
What would my life be like if I never met Jesus?
You know I can’t imagine it and if I try it seems
bleak and soulless.
What would my life be like if I didn’t know about a baby being born and the announcement of that baby in Luke 2:11 is: “Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”?
What would my life be like if I didn’t know about a man being crucified on a cross and crying out in his
aloneness of the moment in Matthew 27:46 “God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”?
What if I didn’t know about the stone rolled away in the morning and all the stories that come after that?
What if I didn’t recognise the teachings of Jesus as important because they are stories, long ago, far away.
And yet those stories are important in my life, they are important to me, they more than anything define who I am. They tell me who I am, who I strive to be, who I should be. Those stories saved me and continue to save me, they bring me into relationship with Jesus. Jesus is my saviour, as he has been for countless others. Jesus changes lives, if we let him. Jesus opens doors, if we open our eyes and our hearts. Jesus shines a light that we all can follow.
May it be so. Amen
What does a saviour look like?
A baby born in a manger?
A man nailed to a cross?
A stone rolled away?
What does a saviour look like?
Usually, when I am asked about Jesus Saviour, it has to do with Easter, Jesus crucified and atonement. Jesus, as the paschal lamb, who takes away the sin of the world saviour.
I’ve got to say not my favourite subject and to tell you the truth although I know the theory and the symbolism; I have trouble with the outcome. If Jesus is the sacrificial lamb and it worked, then why have there been so many sacrificial lambs – people who come after Jesus.
So, my problems aside; and you may have other problems; you may have none, I prefer to look at Jesus Saviour in terms of his life and the resurrection.
What does it mean to have your life saved? Our scripture passages today are two out of many stories in the gospels telling about Jesus changing lives or Jesus giving people the opportunity to reflect on their lives at the very least.
Think about it:
Zacchaeus, the tax collector, we heard about him a few weeks ago. Jesus calls out to him, goes to Zac’s house for supper and Zacchaeus and his family go from sinner to saved, from lost to found, from being ostracized to being included in the family of Abraham, a beloved child of Yahweh.
The Samaritan woman at the well, a divorcée of some renown in her village, having had five husbands and now living with a man, shunned by the other women- thus her solitary visit to the well - is given the puzzle
of living water by Jesus. She claims her thirst and she claims the living water offered by Jesus.
She runs back to her village and convinces them that they, too, must see and hear this prophet Messiah.
As John 4:39-40 tells us:
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.
42 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 Saviour of the world.”
Now, multiply those two stories by all the other stories we know- Jesus calling the disciples, Mary of Magdalena with her seven demons, Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus- although Jesus really did save his life, and still others: people with leprosy, people who are blind, children fading away at home while their parents seek Jesus out to ask for healing, all the people wanting Jesus’ advice and hearing it come to see their lives from a different perspective regardless of what they choose to do – because I’m sure the rich young man, although he goes sadly away, does not ever look at himself in quite the same way as he did before he met Jesus, and those Scribes and priests and Pharisees with their questions about the Sabbath and rules and rituals, at least some of them, those not so entrapped by the system they lived in, they must have reflected on those rules and rituals after Jesus showed them the same rulebook but with a loving, compassionate God.
And multiply all those stories by all the stories we don’t know that took place on the roads, and villages and in the towns and lakeshores and mountainsides that Jesus visited.
And multiply that by all the stories of the early gatherings after the resurrection and on the day of Pentecost and after that.
Then we have the story of Paul-Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee who studied under the great rabbi Gamaliel, in the Jerusalem temple, saved by a vision on the road to Damascus and thus has the opportunity to change his life.
The way I see it, Jesus Saviour is all about people.
People like you and me. I know it’s easier to see and understand the “saving” when there’s a real stigma attached but saving isn’t always about being down and out like the lepers, or being marginalized like Zacchaeus, you see Paul-Saul was just doing fine, a tent maker family of some means, and by all accounts a brilliant student, so much so that he is given permission to go and hunt down these Jesus followers and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial.
And he is saved, by Jesus, a man he has never met during Jesus’ lifetime. A Jew, crucified on a cross, like thousands of others, as an example of what happens to traitors of the Roman empire. Paul’s life changes direction and opens up in ways I am sure he never thought possible.
What would my life be like if I never met Jesus?
You know I can’t imagine it and if I try it seems
bleak and soulless.
What would my life be like if I didn’t know about a baby being born and the announcement of that baby in Luke 2:11 is: “Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”?
What would my life be like if I didn’t know about a man being crucified on a cross and crying out in his
aloneness of the moment in Matthew 27:46 “God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”?
What if I didn’t know about the stone rolled away in the morning and all the stories that come after that?
What if I didn’t recognise the teachings of Jesus as important because they are stories, long ago, far away.
And yet those stories are important in my life, they are important to me, they more than anything define who I am. They tell me who I am, who I strive to be, who I should be. Those stories saved me and continue to save me, they bring me into relationship with Jesus. Jesus is my saviour, as he has been for countless others. Jesus changes lives, if we let him. Jesus opens doors, if we open our eyes and our hearts. Jesus shines a light that we all can follow.
May it be so. Amen
