36. There is no other qualifying factor (John 4:18-39)
Posted by:
SeLahGirl on
January 17, 2008 at
4:33PM EST
There is no other qualifying factor
(John 4:18-39)
28Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,
I love this image of a choice being made. She didn't forget her water
jar, she left it. She laid aside earthly things as being of lesser
importance and she was consumed with the spiritual water that Christ
had given her. The good news, Messiah is here, God is with us just like
he promised, just like he was in the garden with Adam.
There was no need to worry with the water jar to carry water back to
those she loved. Now she was the vessel and the water that Christ had
promised would be poured out from her to the people she would share it
with. As always, God keeps his promises. He does exactly what he says
he will, all things happen just the way he declares... not always in
ways that we can predict or wrap our minds around -- but always in ways
that are glaringly clear after he performs whatever he has promised.
29"Come,
see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?"
30They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
And here we see, that life-giving water, the good news that Christ has
come, being poured out. Just a taste of Truth is sampled from a voice
that they know and trust, and they begin to thirst for that water that
was Christ Jesus. It was truly life-giving. It gave life and hope to
this woman, multiplied itself from that life to the lives of others who
walked in darkness, and a flood of rebirth and renewel had begun. Isn't
it funny to think that a flood once took away life from the earth, and
here we see a flood that restores it.
31Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something."
32But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about."
33Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?"
We read about how clueless the disciples were at times, and we think we
are all that because we see what was happening... but in truth, we
would have been just as clueless if we were among them in that moment.
What Christ was doing was so new, it was merely the beginning of the
fulfillment, the disciples had no way of knowing the extent of what was
happening. They were like newborn pups whose eyes didn't open in a day,
it took a little time. But their sight and understanding came soon
enough.
It's so easy to look at someone else and to think
them a fool for not getting it. I don't mean that as harshly as it
sounds in print, but there is a tendency sometimes for people to just
want to yell, "Oh come on, enough already, can't you see it, don't you
get what's happening, it's as plain as the nose on your face?!" But
sometimes, as they say... being in the middle of the forest, allows you
to see the trees, but not the forest itself.
Christ didn't
rebuke them, nor did he belittle them. He merely dropped some clues
that I'm sure they picked up on eventually. And I'm sure that like us,
they had a good laugh at themselves as the light went on and they
remembered Christ saying this. I think they enjoyed his sense of warm
patience and clever humor as much as us.
34"My food,"
said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his
work. 35Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell
you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.
36Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop
for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad
together. 37Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. 38I
sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the
hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."
39Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did."
This passage contains so many things that are not written out for us to
read. Again, I love that God asks us to sit and consider the
Scriptures, knowing full well that there is so much (hidden, cunningly
unspoken) in every passage.
The disciples are traveling
with Christ, but at some point they part ways. Jesus ends up sitting by
the well, and the disciples are off on an errand that Christ has sent
them to do (probably to find some food). Maybe they were to find the
food and Christ was to find the water. Who knows.
But the
disciples return as he is talking with this woman and they are totally
focussed on getting something arranged to feed their physical needs...
food and water. They have missed the deeper thing that Christ is
training them to understand, he wants them to see it in ways that make
it real to them... He wants them to realize that going to get the
physical food to share must always be accompanied by the giving of
spiritual food to share.
They were supposed to be modeling
the actions and heart of their teacher, Jesus. Just as he found water
and gave water. They were supposed to be finding food and giving food.
Is that a lesson for us or what?
Let's take it a step
further. The water that Christ gave began to multiply life. And each
person that received it, became like the giver of it and began to share
it with others and to multiply it. Everyone and anyone that will do
that will become his disciple. Whether Peter or John, this Samaritan
woman or the President, a con or an abortionist, whether us or even our
worst enemies. Anyone.
Jesus had trained and sent the
disciples to walk in the truth and the mission that he had shared with
them, but here was a seemingly insignificant woman doing what they
should have been doing. She was living life and giving life. That's
what he was trying to get the disciples to see and understand and do...
so, ok, maybe there is a little bit of a rebuke. But more in a teaching kind of way than a discipline kind of way ^_^
The point is that anyone who will remember to give life as they live
the life that has been given them is qualified to be a disciple, to
minister, to preach, to teach, to share the Gospel in whatever way God
has skilled them. There is no other qualifying factor to share LIFE
other than to receive the LIFE that Christ has come to offer to every
single person on this earth.
If ever there was a selah-moment, this would be one...
