John 4

Becoming God’s Dwelling

Posted on by Betsy

Many years ago I went on a pilgrimage to Israel with a group of people who wanted to experience God’s presence first hand in the land where Jesus walked. The highlight of the trip was a visit to the Temple in Jerusalem where we were able to place our hands on the remaining Western, or “Wailing” Wall to pray. The facade of the wall was filled with cracks and crevices between the large stones, and we were invited to stick rolled up pieces of paper with prayer requests there that we had carried with us from our families and our churches back home. There were people all around us praying out loud in their native languages: Hebrew, French, German, English …pilgrims from every corner of the globe had come to that sacred spot to pray. The minute my palms touched the ancient stones, something happened to me. Suddenly all the surrounding noise dulled in my ear and became a singular harmonic hum. I could feel a spiritual current of energy travel from my fingertips to my forehead and toes. The yip yip yips of the nearby women celebrating a teenager’s bat mitzvah faded into the background and all I could hear was a vibrating resonance that was other-worldly. There is an ethereal sense of God’s spirit in those stones, and I could envision the angels themselves descending to sing along with us. It was a moment of feeling connected to God that I will never forget. God dwelt among us that day.

We remember that God designed humanity with the purpose of dwelling with us in the perfection and sweetness of the Garden of Eden. But when sin happened, that fellowship was broken and God has been searching for a dwelling place ever since. In the book of Exodus we read that God instructed that a movable tabernacle be built in the wilderness of Moses’ time. Instructions were given to construct an Ark in which God would reside. When the people finally settled down in the Promised Land, the glorious temple was built in Jerusalem in Solomon’s time, and the Ark was moved there permanently. But then came the destruction of the Temple when the people rebelled and rejected God. Israel was sent into exile by the Babylonian king. Many years later, Cyrus of Persia allowed the Israelites to return to Jerusalem and later still, King Herod the Great rebuilt the Temple in Jesus’ time, but the Ark was lost.

But by then, the Temple was unnecessary. Jesus was sent to be our temple, our priest, and our sacrifice. Jesus was God’s dwelling incarnate and became the new and forever temple. His sacrifice on the cross makes all the rituals of the former priesthood obsolete. As he told the woman at the well in John 4:23-24,

“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. God is spirit and his worshipers must worship in Spirit and in truth.” (New International Version)

Paul continues this teaching in Ephesians, proclaiming that all in whom Jesus dwells are now being built into a holy temple in the Lord. God dwells in us!

Ephesians 2:21-22 (New International Version)

21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

How is your temple doing? Are your walls strong and able to withstand invading conquerors or is your faith weak and in need of some mortar and stone to shore up your foundation? Do people see the light of Christ shining through the stained glass windows of your actions and words? Are you pursuing holiness this Lent with your spiritual disciplines? Would God want to dwell in your temple?

Lent is a reminder that our temples are fragile and require daily upkeep. May God bless our building and re-building efforts as we move along toward Easter.

The Wailing Wall by Faye Gardner

A Touch of the Bubbly

Posted on by Betsy

I have a friend who is best described as “bubbly.” Her demeanor is always positive, glass-half-full, and joyful. I don’t know how she does it, as I know that she has had tragedy in her life and things haven’t always been easy. But the bubbles well up in her and escape, infusing their celebration into every encounter. She is a woman of deep faith, and I think that is why.

Today we read about woman who encountered water that was so lively, it ended up being bubbly:

John 4:1-26 (New Revised Standard Version)

1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John”— 2 although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized—3 he left Judea and started back to Galilee. 4 But he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 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.) 

10 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.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 

13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.” 15 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.”

 In fancy restaurants in Europe, the first question you are asked upon being seated is, “Still, or gas?” This startled me in Italy, as I don’t ever want gas from a meal. (!) But of course they are offering two different types of water: still, which is flat, or gas, which is bubbly and effervescent. The still water is what comes out of the tap. It is the mundane, ordinary alternative to the sparkling exuberance of gas water.

 Jesus is the latter. He is lively and brings life. Once uncorked, he explodes onto a scene and changes it for the better. Remember his first miracle at the wedding at Cana of Galilee? He transformed still, flat water into the best wine ever served. I wonder if, in keeping with his nature, it was actually a sparkling rose, or a lovely Prosecco….

Jesus is the essence of life, and he is necessary for life, but not just in the way he sustains it. Rather, he brings effervescent joy to your life. Living water is ours to indulge in whenever we open ourselves wide and take it in. He reminds us that he came to give life, and the life he gives is “abundant life.”

This is a cause for reflection if you find yourself today in a state that is joyless and lacking in that abundance that Jesus promised. Sometimes life situations can knock you off your pins and bring sadness, doubt, anxiety, depression, and ennui. When that happens, it is good to remember that there is a time for every season and every matter under the sun, as we read in Ecclesiastes 3. This reminds us that God is the master Timekeeper, and those low places are under his control just as surely as the high places are. If you are low today, know that you are not alone. Jesus has walked the lonely valley and he walks with you in your desert, too. The psalmist reminds us that joy comes in the morning, but sometimes it is a very long night.

 Your challenge today is to find a moment of pure, abundant, sparkling life, even if you are feeling a little down. Perhaps the best way to find it is to give it to someone else. So go ye therefore and sparkle up someone’s day! Be the abundant joy for someone else, and see what effervescence comes back to you.

Living Water by Michelle Robertson

Quenchable Thirst

Posted on by Betsy

Have you ever been thirsty? Like, really, really thirsty, where your mouth is sticking together for lack of hydration? If you’ve had surgery, you might remember that the first sensation upon coming out of anesthesia is thirst. Nurses are talking to you and giving you all kinds of instructions, and all you can think is “WHERE IS MY MOUNTAIN DEW, WOMAN??”

Our souls thirst in the same way. God created us with a “lack-mechanism” where we experience a pervasive feeling of lacking for something. C.S. Lewis once said that he created us with a hole in our hearts that only he can fill. God wants us to feel a need for him. This lack-mechanism prompts us to go out and find what we need to quench our soul-thirst.

Too often we try to quench it with worldly ”sody-pop.” The first bottle of empty sugar and fizz that we find is consumed in great quantities. Sometimes sody-pop comes in the form of alcohol or drugs. Sometimes it comes dressed in heels or the well-cut suit of someone we aren’t married to. Maybe it comes in the form of “retail therapy.” Often it comes through your screen as you greedily binge a full weekend away in a sugar coma of Netflix distraction. But it’s like your grandma told you…sody-pop is not good for you. It is too easy to get addicted to sugary fizz, and before you know it, months or years have passed since you had a good drink of real living water.

John 4 (The Message)

4-6 Jesus came into Sychar, a Samaritan village that bordered the field Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was still there. Jesus, worn out by the trip, sat down at the well. It was noon.

7-8 A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, “Would you give me a drink of water?” (His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.)

9 The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, “How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (Jews in those days wouldn’t be caught dead talking to Samaritans.)

10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water.”

A couple of footnotes before we go on.

1. Jesus stopped his journey in a Samaritan village, a place where Jews such as himself were not welcome. He was in the middle of going somewhere else when this beautiful exchange happened.

2. It was noon. The village ladies all drew their water together in the early morning so that they could visit and gossip. This lady came alone at noon, indicating that she lived a life of too much sody-pop.

3. Jesus asked her to draw water for him with her bucket. Her bucket was unclean for a Jew. It would be like asking a coronavirus patient to share their glass of water with you.

13-14 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.”

15 The woman said, “Sir, give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty, won’t ever have to come back to this well again!”

The water that Jesus offered her that day, and offers us as well, is the gushing artesian spring of endless life. It is the forgiveness, hope, reconciliation, and peace that comes from finally finding that thing that satisfies our lack-mechanism, and we are sated for once and for all.

The water he offers is effervescent. It bubbles. It jumps from the glass and tickles your nose. It is so filled with joy that you can’t stop drinking it until you are full enough to never want sody-pop again.

So drink. Drink again and again and again. Drink in Jesus until your thirst is quenched. His well is deep and endless, so fill up your bucket and LIVE.

Living Water by Kathy Schumacher