Collect for First Sunday after Christmas

Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word: Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

“Love that jumps over barriers!"

Christmastide 2018

Human beings are creatures who desire something more.

Only in worshipping God our desires will be satisfied.

“He had to go through Samaria” “had to” or “must” = Dei speak of divine necessity.

 “You must be born again.”

 “The Son of Man must be lifted up.”

 “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

 “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

 “He must rise/he had to rise from the dead.”

Three discoveries:

1. The lengths to which God goes to make a people for Himself.
2. The nature of the relationship God goes to such lengths to establish.
3. The incredible gift God gives to His people when He goes to such lengths to seek them.

1. The lengths to which God goes to make a people for Himself.

Samaria is forbidden territory.

God in our flesh is thirsty. And then he meets a very thirsty woman.

Rather than a stare Jesus says, “Give me a drink.”

Jews and Samaritans hate each other:

“Let no man eat of the bread of the Samaritans, for he who eats of their bread is as he who eats swine’s flesh.”

A Jew asking a Samaritan woman is even more unthinkable:

“He that talks much with womankind brings evil upon himself and neglects the study of the law and at last will inherit Gehenna.”

“A woman shall not be alone with a man in an inn, not even his sister or his daughter on account of what men may think. A man shall not talk with a woman in the street, not even his own wife, and especially not with another woman, on account of what men may say.”

“O Lord, I thank Thee that Thou hast not made me a Gentile, or sinner, or tax gatherer, or a woman!”

In saying “Give Me a drink,” Jesus jumped over racial, cultural, religious, and gender walls.

In saying “Go, call your husband, and come back” Jesus jumps over the thick wall surrounding her soul.

Why did Jesus bring up the cause of her pain?

- No mask works with Jesus – He knows her, he knows you.

- To show the woman (and us) that he loves us for who we are.

2. The nature of the relationship God goes to such lengths to establish.

A man meets a woman at a well. Not very long after there is a wedding!

Genesis 24: Abraham’s servants meeting Rebekah who was been chosen to be Isaac’s wife.

Genesis 29: Jacob meeting Rachel who comes to the well to draw water for her family’s sheep.

Exodus 2: Moses meets the daughters of the priest of Median who come to draw water and ends up marrying Zipporah.

John 4: Jesus is sitting by a well and meets a Samaritan woman.

Jesus comes to establish a relationship so personal that the only image that can describe it is marriage.

The outcast Samaritan woman is His new creation, by water and the word.

Like the Samaritan woman, we are:
- his sisters and brothers
- his disciples,
- his friends,
- citizens of His Kingdom,
- most importantly, His Bride!

We are created in such a way that only this water finally quenches the deepest of human thirsts.

Do you want to have that well? Come to him and drink!