Johns Gospel: Samaritans and Salvation

For the last few weeks, we’ve listed to John’s expansive and enlightening Gospel writings. We’ve listened as John expands the creation poem found in Genesis, by taking our own image of a physical creation and our own spiritual concepts of an invisible God, and revealing that the very nature of God was not just before all creation, but in all and through all. He then illustrates how Jesus’ involvement in a wedding broke apart common spiritual practices and rituals, to show us that life is a celebration and that it is all a gift - not something that we can ever earn by following a set of litigious rules and practices. John then spoke of the meeting held in the still of the night between Nicodemus and Jesus, which heralded an entirely new way people could come to God, by fracturing the way people understood the natural division between Jews and Gentiles. There is a “oneness” throughout his teachings. A “oneness” of body and spirit. A “oneness” of Jew and Gentile. A “Oneness” of the Divine and man. This teaching essentially challenged the very idea of who was in and who was out. Who was in God’s graces, and who wasn’t. And now we see the story of the encounter of the Samaritan woman meeting Jesus at Jacob’s well. Senior Assistant Pastor Geoff Leader continues working through our “John’s Gospel” series, by opening up John 4 and Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. He connects the real human need of thirst with desire, and relationship with acceptance, showing us how Jesus repeatedly broke down man-made barriers of race, creed and religion. Geoff continues unravelling John’s Gospel by revealing to us how meeting with God is possible without the constraints of location, religion or identity, by showing us how God always meets us on our own level. For his original listeners, John’s account would have been hard to hear. It was fundamentally a brand new way of living, that challenged the religious leaders and powers, that again redefined their religious and spiritual concepts of what it meant to be human. Could they trust such a subversively, radical new idea? "Could this be the Messiah?"   [bible passage="Genesis 33" heading="h3"]   [bible passage="John 4:1-42" heading="h3"]