The Road to Calvary: Samaria
The road to Calvary • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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We Are approaching Easter, and I wanted to follow Jesus on his way to Jerusalem as we prepare for easter this year
When the right people find Jesus, they lead others to him, and sometime the right people are
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.
Prior to this is Jesus’s ministry in Galilee, the bulk of his ministry takes place around the sea of Galiee, but then he turns his face towards Jerusalem, towards his arrest, Crucifixon, Death and Ressurection.
Everything after this verse happens as Jesus travels to Jerusalem, and so we will follow his path, (which is a lot just withing the book of Luke), but my goal is to just focus on the places he went and the people he encountered there, as he was walking towards his death.
THe first place Jesus goes after leaving Galilee is Samaria
Now Samaria is a region, between Galilee and Judea, it was named after what used to be the capital city of the Northern Kingdom of ISrael
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village.
Jews and Samaritans do not get along!!!
JEws returned from captivity in Babylon with a newfound fervor for God
Samaritans were half-breeds/people left behind during the captivity in babylon, a mixture of idol worship and worshiping God.
THe Samaritians built their own temple, while the Jews rebuilt the one in Jerusalem
The Jews destroyed that temple
the samaritians sided against the jews in multiple conflicts.
So jesus is traveling through samaria, athe samaritains learn that he is going to Jerusalem, and they immediately think of how the Jews said their worship wasn’t good enough.
They reject Jesus, because his followers acted like they were better than them.
James and John react with wanting to call down fire from heaven
THe last time we saw God call down fire from heaven, it was against Sodom and Gomorrah,
James and John are equating this town with the worst cities to ever exist - where not even 10 righteous people were found
These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay. Acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals or a staff, for the laborer deserves his food. And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart. As you enter the house, greet it. And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.
When they had been sent out before they were to shake the dust off their feet, and the God would handle the judgement,
Now they are wanting God to keep his end of the bargain
Jesus does not allow them to cast judgement, and he rebukes them for doing so,
Judgement is God’s perogative, even when people reject Christ, just move on, he will deal with them.
On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
Leaprosy is not seen as a sickness in the Bible, but as a curse, you aren’t cured of leaprosy, you are cleansed.
For most people around, leprosy was a sign of God’s judgement on you
It was also contagious, so people would try and avoid you anyways
So the lepers come to Jesus for cleansing, as he had done for others,
He tells them to go see the priests, who are supposed to check if lepers had been cleansed
The are healed on the way,
The Only one who came back to thank Jesus was a Samaritan, Jesus was willing to heal all of them regaurdless of who they were, but only the Samaritan thanked him for it.
The others were probably jews, and they new that they had to offer sacrifices upon being cleansed of leprosy, according to the law,
which is what Jesus told them to do, but they never showed gratitude to the one who healed them.
Do not get to caught up trying to follow God that you forget to worship God.
Sometimes the people who need jesus the most, and the people who will worship Jesus the most are the ones that we least expect.
So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 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.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the town and were coming to him.
Jesus breaks all the social norms, jew and samaritian, man and woman alone. And He breaks down the barriers, he knows her past. She has been with 5 husbands, and now is living with someone unmarried. despite her past, Jesus tells her that he is the Christ, something that he avoids telling most people, and he tells her that people can worship anywhere.
Remeber most Jews think that God can only be properly worshiped in Jerusalem,
TO this day the samaritians still make animal sacrifices on top of the mountain near this well.
Jesus says the place does not matter, those who worship God must worship him in Spirit and truth
There is nothing in your past that suprises Jesus, and if you are willing to worship him in Spirit and truth, he welcomes you.
Sometimes the people who need to know the Messiah most, are the ones who we least expect,
Jesus usually avoided revealing himself as the messiah among the Jews, but he straight up tells this woman, a samaritan, and an adulteress, that he is the MEssiah.
Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”
When the right people find Jesus, they lead others to him, and sometime the right people are the ones we would think are the least likely.
We started out reading about how the samaritians rejected Jesus, but now, after the right person had found that Jesus was the messiah, they welcome him with open arms, and see for themselves who Jesus is
So church, what have we learned from the people in Samaria?
Sometime people reject christ, and while that is sad, we are not to cast judgement on them, God will handle the judgement we are to move on.
Sometime the reason why people reject Christ is because we, his followers, are too quick to judge, or we act like we are better than them.
JEsus alone can cleanse us of our sin.
when he does we need to be sure to thank him, and worship him,
There is nothing in our past that can keep us from the forgiveness Christ offers,
He has the living water, that enables people to worship him anywhere,
Church Do you need his forgivness?
Do you need his living water?
Do you need to know the Messiah