The Gift of Living Water: Jesus Opens Another Way to Understand the Grace of God

March 31, 2021                       John 4: 10-12

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.) ⁹The 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.) ¹⁰Jesus 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.’ ¹¹The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹²Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ ¹³Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but 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.’ ¹⁵The 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.’

Jesus cuts to the reality.  Her concern is that of appearances.  His concern is that of the truth.  If she but knew the gift of God and the one who is saying to you “Give me a drink”, she would have asked for living water.  Once again, the first interpretation is literal.  Cut back to Nicodemus, getting grossly specific on how one might be ‘born again’. 

What interests me while reading this is that the metaphor of the ‘living water’, at first glance in my eyes, was more appropriate to the baptisms being conducted by Jesus’ disciples before they came to Sychar.  The idea of being dipped into the water, dipped into death, and brought up to new life, to resurrection; linking that to living water.  But this is Jesus, who knows far more than me.  The metaphor appropriate to baptism is that of spirit and water, playing off of Jesus’ own baptism.

This water comes out of a hole in the ground.  The only running water they probably saw in Sychar was during the rainy season when the valleys of the hill country flooded out. 

Notice how he overcomes the distinction between Jew and Samaritan.  Yes, ‘they have nothing to do with each other’, but they each have the same God.  So we break down and overcome the hierarchy of culture.  And this is water to drink of, not to be washed in, so this is appropriate to the well, not to the River.

It is the drink of living water, a new metaphor describing what Jesus is here to do.  Notice how he opens, identifying God, then commenting on himself-if she knew who he was asking-before moving to the idea of the living water.  He is not leading with his own identity as the Messiah precisely because that is fundamental to the faith practice centered in Jerusalem, not centered here. 

Her response is literal.  Jesus has no bucket, the well is deep, he has already had the temerity to ask her for a drink of water.  Where is this ‘living’ water supposed to come from? 

Is Jesus challenging her faith tradition?  Jacob gave them the well and it has kept them alive as their water source, those of this present generation join with Jacob’s sons and flocks who also drank of it.  This is how the Samaritans trace their connection as the children of Abraham, through his son Jacob. It is how they trace their legitimacy.  The Jews condemn Samaritans because they do not practice the faith ‘properly’, they are not centered on Jerusalem-another way of saying they are not under control of the Jewish leadership. 

This was the genius of Jesus.  It is why his parables are so powerful.  He looked to the land and life of the people around them and he connected the Plan of God to those places and events.  This is a well, thus living water.  The truth of God is by no means undercut.  If anything, the joy is broadened as we are offered another way to see what Jesus does for us.

Pastor Pete

Challenging the Presumptions and Expectations of "Proper Behavior"

March 30, 2021                       John 4: 7-9

⁶Jacob’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.) ⁹The 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.) ¹⁰Jesus 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.’ ¹¹The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹²Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ ¹³Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but 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.’ ¹⁵The 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.’

            It was about noon.  In the heat of the day, a Samaritan woman is coming out to draw water.  Why would she come out at this time of day?  Because she was not coming out when the usual ‘water drawing’ time was going on, in the early morning-before the heat of the day.  Why not?  From the details that unfold, the assumption is that she is not a “respectable woman” and is judged harshly by the rest of the female population of Sychar.

            Fetching the water, that is a chore that falls to the women of that time.  It is not like us, who can turn on a tap.  The water they want for the day, they have to get from the well and haul home.  It is a communal time and one where this woman-unnamed-is assumed to be unwelcome to join.  So what does Jesus do?  He breaks not only the protocols of ‘shaming’ that brings this woman out at this time of day, but he breaks the protocols of ‘proper behavior’

            All he did was ask for a drink of water.

            And SHE challenges him.  What are you doing, a Jew, asking me, a woman of Samaria, for a drink of water?  It is a double barrel breach of protocol, religious and gender based.  Jews and Samaritans do not mix (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans-the sidenote) and because of the misogyny of the era, unaccompanied women, especially strangers, were not addressed.  There was not a single disciple around, all dispatched into the “Samaritan” market to buy food.

            I have taken pains to set up why, in fact, Jesus should NOT be speaking to this woman, and yet he does so anyway.  One of the reasons I do this is because I think this story continues to track with the transition from the last.  Jesus was challenged for overtaking John in the ‘making believers’ category.  So what does he do?  Jesus withdraws from the ‘field of baptism’, up into Samaria, and settles in to speak to this woman (ticks me off they did not bother with her name), when, if such a conversation was witnessed by the people his disciples had just been baptizing, they would have dumped Jesus like a rock.

            This is NOT how Jewish men are supposed to behave.  Samaritans are ‘heretics’, and, as we will see, setting himself up with a woman ‘of ill repute’, in the backward attitudes of the time, would ‘taint’ Jesus as well. 

            This is the overlay of the gospel of John, comparing and contrasting the Plan of God as it is fulfilled in Jesus.  John may be decreasing so that Jesus may increase, but Jesus is NOT going to kick him to the curb.  Instead, Jesus will take the message to places that any ‘good Jew’ would not go.  She was surprised that Jesus addressed her?  The Jewish leadership back on the Jordan would have been livid at what he was doing.

Pastor Pete

Jesus in Samaria: The Background of the Radical Nature of This Place to Teach

 March 26, 2021                       John 4: 5-6

4:1 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— ³he left Judea and started back to Galilee. ⁴But he had to go through Samaria. ⁵So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob’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.) ⁹The 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.) ¹⁰Jesus 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.’ ¹¹The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹²Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ ¹³Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,

            So I did a little research to begin this post.  Jesus is at the Samaritan city of Sychar, near land given to Joseph by his father Jacob.  Unless I am missing something (and I will be the first to admit that the amount of stuff I have missed is HUGE), there is not a clear connection back to the Old Testament for this.  Genesis 33: 18-20 records for us that Jacob, on his return from gaining a wife in ‘the old country’, confronted his brother Esau, then moved on to Shechem (which is presumed in the interpretation to be what was there before Sychar), where he bought a ‘plot of land’.  If there is a record of Jacob giving it to Joseph, or his digging a well there, both of which are eminently possible, I have not found it laid out in the Old Testament.

            Why is that important?  I am not sure it is, but it caught my attention.  If you begin to explore it, you will find a whole history around “Jacob’s Well”. 

            What is Samaria?  It is a portion of what had been the Northern Kingdom in the history of the Hebrew Bible.  Basically, the twelve tribes settled after the Exodus, lived in the land from Joshua’s leadership through that of the Judges, till they desired a king.  Saul, David, and Solomon ruled over a single kingdom of the twelve tribes, but then it split north and south between Rehoboam and Jeroboam, “ten tribes” in the north, “two tribes” in the south.  Jerusalem remained the capital of the Southern Kingdom.  It would be rejected as the 'spiritual' center of Judaism by the Northern Kingdom, which begins the division.  Eventually, Assyria would invade, take over, and carry off the inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom and it would disappear as an independent political entity from the maps. 

            While the Southern Kingdom would be carried off for seventy years into the Babylonian exile, it would eventually be restored.  Jerusalem would continue as the capital of the Jewish “lands” (they were not politically independent for more than a few rebellious years after the Exile).  

            My best understanding is that there were still Jews of the lineage of the Northern Kingdom living in that territory.  But when the Kingdoms divided, they no longer looked to Jerusalem as their “cultural center” because it was in a competing nation.  So what the people of Samaria did was turn to an even earlier religious center for their worship of God, Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim.  In the book of Joshua, chapters 8-10, the establishment of the people of God in the Promised Land is recorded and sanctified at a ceremonial reading of God’s Law by Joshua while the people were divided on these two mountains.

            This is a lot of backstory, but it is the origin of the divisions of Judea and Samaria that is the background of our verses today.  These were two cultural/religious groups that were of the same background and of very similar belief and practice, but different centers of worship; so very divided, causing hatred between them.  A parallel from American history can be argued from the Civil War, where North and South fought one another.  One people, divided over the issue of slavery.  And more American dead than in any other conflict in our history/

            Jacob’s Well, as we know it today, is near the modern city of Nablus, which is located at the spot of these two mountains.  Thus Jesus, on the land that Jacob traditionally gave to his son Joseph, at the well that the Samaritans believed Jacob himself dug, he is at the very center of Samaritan worship, at their faith center, as Jerusalem was the faith center to the Jews of Judea.  If the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem knew he was in Samaria and actively teaching, at best they would ridicule him.  At worst, it would have gone into the charges they would finally try to bring against him that would lead to his death.

            So it is about noon, middle of the day, Jesus is tired from the journey up into the hill country from the Jordan Valley, and he has paused to rest.  Against the back drop of the history and animosity between Judea and Samaria, this story will then unfold.

Note: One of historic curiosity.  For Passover, there is a Samarian community of Jews that sacrifice a lamb on Mt. Gerizim each year.

 

When Jesus Chooses To Close Up Shop Rather Than Be Seen To "Compete" for Baptizees

March 25, 2021                       John 3: 35-4:4

31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. ³²He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. ³³Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. ³⁴He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. ³⁵The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. ³⁶Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.

4:1 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— ³he left Judea and started back to Galilee. ⁴But he had to go through Samaria. ⁵So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

            We get a picture now of what Jesus is capable of doing.  All things.  No small feat.  It is the development of verse 34.  Jesus is sent, speaks the words of God, is given the Spirit without measure.  Unlimited access to the Spirit, empowering the Son to receive “all things”.  But in the context of ‘all things’, there is something very specific that God has in mind for us.  That leads into verse 36, whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; to disobey the Son is not to see life, but to endure God’s wrath.

            This discussion is not occurring in a vacuum, but it is the conclusion of John the baptizer’s exposition to his followers.  He wants those who are concerned about his falling popularity, relative to Jesus, to understand that there is a compelling and appropriate reason for why this is going on.  His ministry has found its fulfillment in Jesus.  It does not mean that John the baptizer is suddenly outmoded or to be retired.  His ministry is to point the way to Jesus, a ministry that is for all Christians, to our very day.

            Now here is one reason we roll forward into the next chapter.  There are breaks in the narrative blocks of the gospel, but there is also intersection, and overlap.

            The Pharisees are around Jesus.  The debates have not yet started, but they are passing on information, potentially divisive information.  I like the way John the gospel writer frames it, “Jesus learned what the Pharisees heard…”  So these are not first-hand accounts.  And they do not fall into step with what John is preaching.  “He must increase, I must decrease.”  That was John’s conclusion.  Instead of being complimentary ministries, ‘what the Pharisees heard’ is couched in terms of competition.  “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John.”  John the baptizer’s own followers see their Rabbi being eclipsed by Jesus as a matter of competition, which John takes pains to address.  The Pharisees are picking up on the same vibe.

            But then there is a point of clarification.  Jesus is not, in fact, baptizing, his disciples are.  (BAPTIZING AND JESUS: see notes) So, the sense I take away from John’s ministry is that he was the only one baptizing.  Jesus has, if not the full cadre of twelve disciples by this point, he has between four and eight.  A lot more baptizing potential.  But again, that is a sideline.  It folds into the competitive rumor that the Pharisees seem to be sowing (yes, they are cast as the bad guys in my mind from the beginning).  Jesus is baptizing more, therefore is John irrelevant?  Might the snarky journalist ask, "So Jesus, how does it feel to be more popular than the very guy who baptized you?"

            Jesus is not recorded as engaging with the Pharisees.  He does not, in fact, he never preaches in line with John, that he, Jesus, must increase, while John must decrease.  How arrogant would that sound?  What he does instead is close up shop.  Their ministries are being framed as in competition?  John is suffering due to Jesus’ popularity?  Jesus chooses to withdraw from Judea altogether, returning to Galilee, to leave John with an open field of ministry.

            The route he picks is significant.  He is ending his baptism ministry and putting himself out of reach of the Pharisees.  Judea, from Jerusalem on south, and Galilee, between the Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean, are ‘orthodox’ Jewish areas, connected by the Jordan Valley.  They are under different Roman rulers, but they are of the same religious ‘denomination’, if I dare to use modern terminology.  According to verse 4, Jesus ‘had’ to go through Samaria. (GEOGRAPHY: see notes).  While of Jewish descent, the inhabitants of Samaria did not worship at Jerusalem and were in constant conflict with the ‘orthodox’ Jews.  We will see more of that develop as we move into chapter 4.

Notes:

Baptizing and Jesus:  Jesus was baptized, but the New Testament takes pains to indicate that Jesus, himself, did not baptize others.  The ministry of baptism he carries forward from John the baptizer, the sacrament of baptism is given to us by our Lord Jesus, but he did not engage in this practice himself.

            I have never found a clear reason in Scripture to indicate why this was.  Jesus is not identified as baptizing anyone, not even his twelve disciples.  Yet they were empowered to baptize at the behest of Jesus.

            Theologically, I find myself returning to Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus.  He spoke of the need of the water and the Spirit, which is the two-fold manner of ‘true’ baptism in the book of Acts.  Someone is baptized with water, then the Spirit also descends upon them.  This is how Jesus was baptized.  For Jesus to baptize directly when then open the opportunity for error and sin to creep in.

            What do I mean?  I mean the efficacy of the Holy Spirit in baptism would be challenged because the Son baptized.  God put ‘all things’ into his hands, so who needs the Holy Spirit?  From a human point of view, to be baptized by John is good-but he said Jesus was the One.  So, go find Jesus.  His disciples are baptizing.  Cool.  Get it again and get closer to the Messiah.  But if Jesus himself was baptizing, well, that is the triple A rating of baptism.  It is not hard for me to imagine the first arrogance occurring in the church where those who were baptized ‘by Jesus himself’ consider themselves closer to God, therefore should be in charge, over those who were not.  So Jesus did not baptize.

            This dovetails with Jesus’ choice to pack up the ministry and withdraw so that John the baptizer could continue his ministry without ‘competition’.  The presumption that could be made, that there is an inherently superior baptism that comes from Jesus’ hands, is cut off from the very beginning.

Geography:  I think I have said this before, but the reason the Jordan River was the natural connector between Galilee and Judea was several-fold.  First, it bypassed the Samaritans, another Jewish ‘denomination’ that were at odds with the Judaism of Jerusalem to the point of open hostility.  If you are of the Judaism led from Jerusalem, if you need a bad guy in a religious story, use the Samaritans.  Secondly, it was a clean run.  Samaria is all hills.  Armies got lost in it.  There is no clear route through.  The only clear routes north to south are along the Mediterranean and up the Jordan Valley.  The Mediterranean, however, contained the military centers of authority of the Romans, it was the overland route to Egypt, Rome’s breadbasket.  There was a law on the books that a Roman soldier could press ANY non-Roman to carry their stuff for a mile.  So the Romans were avoided for a lot of reasons.

            Jesus was baptizing on the Jordan, about a third of the way up between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee.  He was at Aenon, near Salim, where a tributary flowed into the Jordan from the east, so, as John records, there was plenty of water.  John the baptizer is further south.  The Pharisees have come, spreading the rumor that Jesus is trouncing John’s baptism record.  Jesus’ choice is to pull out, to end any hint of competition between himself and John the baptizer.  He pulled back from Judea, where John was centered, to Galilee.

            The obvious route is to go north along the Jordan Valley, he is already there.  But his intention is to remove his presence as a ‘competitor’ to John.  Jesus knows he is not competing, but Jesus also knows that perceptions can redefine reality.  Moving up into Samaria, going west from the Jordan into the hill country, allows him to effectively disappear.  As we move along in the text, it will only be himself and his disciples that end up at the city of Sychar.  The Pharisees and others choose not to follow him. 

            That is because of the ongoing conflict between Judean/Galilean Jew and Samaritan Jew.  ‘Orthodox’ practice was to avoid the Samaritans if you were of Judean/Galilean Judaism.  It is against that backdrop that Jesus can withdraw into relative obscurity and ‘disappear’.  It will also set the stage for Jesus’ commentary on the division between these two ‘denominations’ of Judaism.

Pastor Pete

             

When Pilate Asks, "What is Truth?", We Can Respond, According to Today's Passage, "God is True"

March 24, 2021                       John 3: 33-34

 ²⁹He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. ³⁰He must increase, but I must decrease.’

31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. ³²He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. ³³Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. ³⁴He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. ³⁵The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. ³⁶Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.

4:1 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— ³he left Judea and started back to Galilee.

            When Jesus is standing before Pontius Pilate in the 18^th chapter of this gospel, the Roman governor is going to ask, “What is truth?”  Jesus will say in the 14^th chapter, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  And those are just two references that come to my mind about truth from the gospels.  ‘Truth’, as a thing, is something for John, both gospel writer and baptizer.

            Yesterday was “one” and “he” and a throwback to Jesus talking about “we”, but as we roll into verse 33, the pronoun identification is fairly easy to discern, it is Jesus talking.  To accept the testimony of Jesus is to provide us with a profound…sorry…truth. 

            He says things in an interesting way.  To accept the testimony of Jesus, John the baptizer says, is to certify that God is true.  God is true, that is the presupposition.  To accept the testimony of Jesus is to certify it, is to believe it.  So then, to return to the other places where “truth” is used, and going with the old math formula that if a=b and b=c, than a=c, what is Pilate asking Jesus during Jesus’ trial?

            “What is God?”  (He did not know the rest of the formula).

            And Jesus is saying “I am the Way, and God, and the Life.”  Pulls us back to John 1:1, where the Word IS God.  “Truth”, in the world, is the basis for a whole lot of philosophical ink spilled and discussions laid out.  Nice to have a brief summary in hand.

            At the risk of another side quest, there is another equivalency made about God, not in the Gospel of John, but in the first Letter of John.  In that case, God IS love (1 John 4:8).  So God is true, God is love, God is Jesus.  Jesus is the Way.  Jesus is the Life. 

            We can say also that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-lots of kinds of things.  Preliminarily to that is knowing that “God is true”.  And it is good to know that God is in control, especially when we know God is love.

            John the baptizer wants his disciples, the gospel writer wants us to know how God self-identifies for our understanding and our edification.  And we know all this from the testimony of Jesus.  And how can we trust the validity of the testimony of Jesus?

            Next verse, He speaks the Word of God, He whom God has sent, He upon whom the Spirit has been given without measure.  Such is the validity of the testimony of Jesus.

            But wait! (some would cry out).  God is true because the testimony of Jesus is certified.  And the testimony of Jesus is the collective ‘words’ of God from the God who sent him.  And the words of God, his testimony, when certified, shows God is true…it is circular reasoning.  It goes in circles.  If my response were an unfeeling “So?”, the response might be “Prove it!”

            But that is the basis of John the baptizer’s testimony.  It was the basis for Jesus’ testimony to Nicodemus.  Some will accept and some will not.  It isn’t a matter of proof, because, in this age of fake news and the rise in prominence of such nonsense as ‘flat earth’, it is very clear that ‘proof’ is not the absolute discerner of ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ that we would like it to be. 

            The power behind the words of God that Jesus speaks comes from the giving of the Spirit without measure, that brings us to the Old Testament, where God poured out his Spirit on the chosen, like Moses, who then ‘spread it around’ to the others who helped him lead the people.  It was poured out on Elijah, and a ‘double measure’ was given to his successor, Elisha.  It is how the tabernacle was built to divine standards.  It is how God flows through to us in Jesus.  But it does not stand on its own.  The Spirit was not just a ‘Jesus thing’, but it will, in the course of time, be there for all of us.  Acts 2, the story of Pentecost, not written by John but by the author of Luke, will lay that out for us. 

            But Jesus has a lot more to say about what the Spirit is in the lives of believers.

Pastor Pete

On The Confusion of Pronouns in the Biblical Text But Knowing That They Really Serve a Purpose in Jesus' Teachings.

March 23, 2021                       John 3: 31-32

 ²⁷John answered, ‘No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven. ²⁸You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, “I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.” ²⁹He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. ³⁰He must increase, but I must decrease.’

31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. ³²He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. ³³Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. ³⁴He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. ³⁵The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. ³⁶Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.

4:1 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— ³he left Judea and started back to Galilee.

            “The One”… How many “one”s are there?  One above, one of the earth, one coming from heaven…  One’s One and Three…oh that is just going to be comical in its expression.  So, One Above, One of Earth, One of Heaven.  See how much fun it can be to attempt to wade through pronouns?

            We know from verse 31 that the “One Above” and the “One of Heaven” are equivalent for John the baptizer.  Each of them first, comes from either above or heaven, and each is “above all”.  It is most reasonable to understand that the “One” in this case is Jesus.  Are they simply synonymous, or is there a distinction of degree between them?  Jesus spoke in the previous piece, to Nicodemus, about being born from above as a necessity to see the Kingdom of God.  And no one has ascended or descended from heaven except the Son of Man.

            The “one” who is of the earth speaks of earthly things.  Most obviously, in light of this whole conversation, John the baptizer is referring to himself.  He is the ‘friend’ of the bridegroom.  He is the forerunner.  He is the one unworthy to tie the sandals.  He is the one who was sent ahead of ‘Him’.  This conversation is John the baptizer’s ‘swan song’.  He-John-is on the way out of the limelight. 

            Then we switch out of referring to the “one”, how is in fact “two” in the context of the sentence, and we return to the ever loving “He”…  Who is he?  According to John, he testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony.  “He” could be John the baptizer, who is once again having to explain the difference between himself and the Messiah, precisely because no one seems to be accepting that testimony. 

            BUT, if we look to things like repeated language, in Jesus’ discussion with Nicodemus, he says, in verse 11, “we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen”, but it is not believed.  John says to his disciples that no one accepts “his” testimony.  Jesus says that no one accepts “our” testimony. 

            I get hung up on the questions of the pronouns because I remember being prodded to clarify in my days in school when I used “he” too many times in a row, verbally and in my writing.  What if what matters here is NOT who the pronoun is about so much as what the referent of the pronoun is doing?  What the heaven does that mean?

            I am suggesting that when Jesus says “we”, it is not a “royal” we, a plural self-referent, but he is referring to the testimony of both himself and the one who prepared the way for him, to John the baptizer.  John is hyper-aware of distinguishing himself from Jesus, but their testimony, together, is of the same message about him.  So perhaps, in talking to Nicodemus, Jesus is referring to the combined efforts of himself and John, thus “we”, where John, to distinguish himself from Jesus, uses “he”, spends the time on using “one” three different times. 

            So you might be asking about now, how does wandering through ‘pronoun hell’ matter at all in understanding the Gospel?  John the baptizer equals earth.  Jesus equals above.  It matters because of Jesus is GOING to go in his discussions.  John takes pains to distinguish himself and Jesus, the earthly and the above/heavenly.  Jesus is going to reverse that, gathering the earthly INTO the heavenly by the power of God the Father, through Him. 

Pastor Pete 

Progress in Revelation: See how an Image Develops AND How It Can Divert In New Directions

March 22, 2021                       John 3: 29-30

25 Now a discussion about purification arose between John’s disciples and a Jew. ²⁶They came to John and said to him, ‘Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing, and all are going to him.’ ²⁷John answered, ‘No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven. ²⁸You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, “I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.” ²⁹He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. ³⁰He must increase, but I must decrease.’

31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. ³²He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. ³³Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. ³⁴He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. ³⁵The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. ³⁶Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.

4:1 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— ³he left Judea and started back to Galilee.

            John the baptizer moves into marriage metaphor..  He talks about the bridegroom (Christ) and the friend of the bridegroom (himself).  If he were writing now, John the baptizer might call himself the “best man”, one closest to the bridegroom.  The opening to our verse, "he who has the bride is the bridegroom”, that can move us forward in Biblical imagery or it can draw us backward.  What do I mean?

            To look forward, consider that John the gospel writer is also identified as the writer of the Book of Revelation.  In that final book of the Bible, there is powerful imagery of the Church being the Bride and Jesus being the Bridegroom.  To look backward, consider Jesus’ first miracle in the Gospel of John, turning water into wine. 

Remember the windup to that miracle?  The steward (who did not know what Jesus had done) drew out a sample of wine and took it to the bridegroom, and his analysis was simple, most serve the good stuff first, get the guests tipsy, and then break out the cheap stuff.  The bridegroom saved the best for last.  What is the best?  What Jesus provided.  Is this over-reading into the miracle?  Maybe, but it also ties together.  John the baptizer’s entire point is that Jesus is taking over and moving ahead in the ministry of God’s plan.  And John the baptizer is happy about this.  The best is saved for last, so with the wine, so also with the Messiah.  To come back to his words, the friend of the bridegroom ‘rejoices greatly’ to hear the voice of the bridegroom.  When the bride is identified as the church, so the meaning of the bridegroom becomes even more powerful.  The metaphor is not fully developed here, but it is progressing.  What God reveals to us in the Bible builds upon itself.

What is the result for John the baptizer?  His joy has been fulfilled.  His followers seemed to be pushing the notion of competition between John and Jesus, and I do not blame them.  The ministry of John has been superseded.  Everyone thought he was the Messiah, despite his denials.  Even his followers, to this point, seem to be trying desperately to hold onto their relevance.  It is a natural thought, “Jesus is here, what use is John?”  Even worse in light of a couple of disciples defecting to follow Jesus earlier in the Gospel.

But John the baptizer will have none of it.  “He must increase, but I must decrease.”  From here, John moves into developing his thoughts that follow Jesus’ train of thought when he met with Nicodemus.  But before we turn to that, I want to talk about one of the most interesting ‘redirections’ of the meaning of a bible verse I have ever come across.    

The principle of imagery, of the metaphor, is well founded in Scripture.  We have just walked through the language of Jesus as the Bridegroom and how it will develop in the New Testament.  But this can also spin in new and different directions.  He must increase, but I must decrease. This verse has been used in Christian-centered weight loss.  On the face of it, it sounds comically unbelievable, but if you search the verse in Amazon under books, you will find it.

To be fair, reading the blurb of the book makes it sound like this is surrendering the self to the power of God to find strength to move forward.  But that is certainly not how I interpreted the title when I pulled it up on the screen.  It looked like I was being told to ‘give my extra pounds to Jesus’.  That is not what I have ever taken away from this verse read in context.  Pull it loose, take it out of context, and that is a different story.

Note on Structure:

            I am going to lay down our verses a little differently going forward.  Instead of putting down the block of verses from one particular section, I am going to ‘scroll’ them, removing verses from the top and adding verses to the bottom.  Chapter and verse are constructs imposed on the text well after it was written.  They are conveniences, but they are not ‘inspired’.