Savior of the World
For the Lord’s Day:  the 31^st of October 2004 

John  4: 39-42

“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.”

Introduction:   There are several things going on in this text, and we will do well to consider them carefully in turn.  The first thing that is demonstrated is the immediate effect of Christ’s word and witness upon those not only willing to listen but also to hear His voice.  The second thing that we must consider is the progression in faith of the audience to their final understanding of just who Jesus Christ really was.  And the third thing that we must take away from this text is the willingness to take every opportunity given to us to speak of the faith that is within us.

Last week, we had considered the spiritual excitement of our Lord Jesus Christ at how quickly the harvest might be gathered in – even in this pagan Samaritan corner of Palestine.  The woman had hardly left the well when the disciples returned – and off in the distance the local people could be seen coming out of their homes and businesses to see and hear what had excited her so much.

Commentator Tasker observes pointedly that “there is no four-months’ interval between the sowing by Him of ‘seed’ in the heart of the Samaritan woman and the harvest which has resulted, as there is between sowing and reaping in the ordinary course of agriculture.”  He then takes us back to the prophet Amos to demonstrate that this is not only expected but also a profound sign of the days of the Messiah to come.   “’Behold, the days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed.’” (Amos 9: 13)

Certainly, our commentator will allow the prior work of the long line of messenger prophets to have broken the ground and raised the general expectations of the Messiah to come.  Even the Samaritans had not lived in total ignorance.  In coming into Palestine – they had realized a generally pagan principle to at least acknowledge the gods of the locality into which they had been forcibly settled many generations earlier.  Of course, in the multitude of their suspicions and ignorance they missed all of the important issues even as so many of our generation do as well.

In the name of religion they had by an adaptive sacrificial system sought only to placate the ruling deity and thereby curry His favor for seasonal rains and the blessing of bountiful crops.  An empty barn and dried up garden would have considerably softened the expectations any experiential religion considerably.  And this fact is the curse of manmade religions in every place and time.  False assumptions, irredeemable secular-humanism as well as spiritual ignorance and the overriding tendency to sin – these all tend to fixate the hearts of men upon the transitory glories of human expectations and coincidental experience, both of which are frail and faulty building blocks for any belief system.

I am reminded of the most obvious impulses of the liberal system of belief.  And yes, just as Rush Limbaugh has noted – there is a religious fervor rampant in our land to realize the most basic impulses of humanity as triumphant articles of faith.  Thou shalt not condemn any personal interaction or activity as base and sinful is the principle creed.  Second, the body politic must recognize and enforce tolerance for every human desire possible except smoking and the Christian faith   don’t ask me to explain the rationality there?  Perhaps it is the idea that we might allow two future realities in the next life:  a permanent smoking section in hell and a non-smoking fate in heaven? Third, and seemingly this principle was established first – the right of every female to decide the ultimate fate of her unborn child.  Now, this is really nothing new – in Roman times, the male head of the household was allowed to make a similar decision once the babies were born.  As least now, the feminists will boast they have the power and they intend to enforce it.

Now, to get us back to the Samaritan situation, we must admit that there is really nothing new under the sun, mankind has always been more willing to believe a great lie than to face the truth.  Yet, the Samaritan woman was forced to acknowledge that she had sinned before the Lord God of heaven and earth.  And in the realization of that fact – all of the myths she had ever known became suspect in her mind.  She hurried back to the village and told it around that a prophet had told her all that she had ever done.  We don’t know the exact words of course, but if in the telling she admitted that she had sinned, very many in the village already knew that – and therefore the sudden about face from this loose woman could have brought an intense interest in just how this was accomplished?   Isn’t this just what catches the world’s attention and for a moment perhaps – piques its curiosity?  For all of those converts who have passed over to the church and stayed – there are all too many friends and families who have not the curiosity of these Samaritan villagers.  And so, the whole village comes a running to see this prophet at the well.

Development:  The second issue in our outline is the transformational aspect of the faith initially grasped and then suddenly realized by the greater number.  Jesus is realized “as the Savior of the world.”  Calvin notes that “the word ‘believe’ is used loosely here and means that they were moved by the woman’s word to acknowledge that Christ was a prophet.”  He goes on to argue that it truly is the beginning of faith when people’s minds are prepared to receive the teaching of the gospel.

And given the wording of the text in verse forty-two – the beginning of faith is equivalent to hearing the “gossip” of the Samaritan woman.  And yet there was in her “gossip” a strange note of urgency and a relationship to the general prophetic expectations – enough and more to send the whole village streaming to the well.  And the initial response is so favorable that they engage the Master to stay with them for two whole days teaching them what every sinner needs to know when confronted by the Lord of all the earth.

The text “we believe” in verse forty-two is a much stronger statement than the former “gossip” that had engaged their attention.  Calvin tells us that “this expresses better the nature of their faith, that it is conceived of the very Word of God, so that they can glory in having the Son of God as their teacher.  And indeed it is only on His authority that we can safely rely.”

One thing here that we have to understand whenever we enthusiastically share the good news of the gospel, is that unless the Holy Spirit has engaged the hearts of our audience, they will perceive our witness in only a worldly manner, and like the words of the Samaritan woman – it can all too easily be passed off as the “gossip” of the evangelicals.  But, still there is the potential that the Lord is going before us to engage the hearts of minds of His people – enough so that we should not be slow in sharing that which has been placed in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

Tasker describes the scene before us in these words:  “the villagers of Sychar … ‘come and see’ for themselves the Man, about whom the woman had told them; and their faith, and the faith of many others who met Jesus during His two-days’ stay in the village, becomes based on a first-hand experience of Jesus … as the Saviour of Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles, in fact as ‘the Saviour of the world.’”

Application:  This brings us to our final point for this morning, and that is – just as the visitations of our Lord Jesus Christ took Him to those places where people were ready to hear Him, so too are the various members of Christ’s Church taken before all manner of men where their words too can impact the future of those being called into Christ’s glorious kingdom.

The story reported here by the Apostle John reminds me of an incident during World War Two on the island of Okinawa.  After American troops had worked their way inland they chanced upon one village that was so much different from all the rest they had passed through.  Not only were the people friendly to their enemies, but their village was more prosperous, clean and the local government less corrupt in its influence and management.  A follow up unit, left to govern and contain the native elements allowed a Chaplain to investigate what had happened in one village that had not happened in all the others.  He discovered that years before a Missionary had spent an afternoon and evening in the village.  He had given his hosts an old Bible in their language and thinking that he had left two converts – moved on planning to return.

It was that all too brief visit that had begun the transforming power of the gospel in that tiny village.  The village elders were convicted by the ethics apparent in the scriptures and began a gradual transformation by ordering their society upon biblical principles.  The word was also read, received, believed and practiced.

I have often read of foreign missionaries, who having shared the word with one or two – are urged to come and visit the families of the converts – on to the next village is a common experience.  Certainly, there is much follow up work to be done and worshipping churches to be organized and a whole culture to be educated.  But, the experience of Christ at Sychar is common enough that we should all anticipate and prepare for every opportunity to share the gospel.

Yet, in our time and country we must dare to be politically incorrect.  I can remember being told by a supervisor that I should not use the word Sodomite to describe the variant behavior of a handful of people in our school.  After all, the American Board of Psychologists had just then announced that this was no longer a deviant behavior and we should all learn to accept and tolerate it.  I refused to go along with the worldly myth, and in a year where several sodomite relationships were wrecking havoc with the social stability of the whole school – I was the only one called to the hospital to visit with the sodomites who were causing all the upheaval.  Why did they want to talk to me – I was the only one that insisted that they were dead wrong, everyone else only encouraged them to be all that they could be.  My guess is that if any one else had agreed with me – these lost and pagan souls might have reconsidered their lifestyle.

One of that group called me a year or two later from San Francisco, right after the earthquake there.  He had come close to danger and wanted once more to be challenged to give up the practice of sodomy.  I even sent him bus fare to return to the mid-west and encouraged him to become part of a church.  I lost track of him for another couple of years – and he called me again, this time from New York.  This time he asked me to no longer pray for him – since he had, as he related it: finally put away all such religious superstitions about his chosen lifestyle.  That was the last I heard of him.

I tell you this to help you realize that not every village is as open as Sychar once was there in the gap between the mountains of Palestine.  And when I left public service – I paused in the parking lot with a paper towel to wipe the dust of that place off my feet and left it there on the sidewalk, even as Jesus instructed His disciples to do when making their rounds in Palestine so many centuries before.  Now, that does not mean that we should have a roll of paper towels with us at all times – but that we should be realistic in our expectations.  Sometimes, as every missionary will tell you – the gospel is in season and the harvest is ripe, but we will never know until we share the gospel of grace.  To the Jew first, then to the Samaritans and gentiles – these were the instructions of the disciples.  It just so happened on this day, as John makes his report: that it is the Samaritans who are more ready and willing to believe than the people, who styled themselves as belonging to God.

And even in our day – you can often be surprised at who is interested in the gospel of grace!  It sometimes appears that those who have no religious experience are more open than those who have been taught badly.  So, therefore – let us always be ready to share the grace that has been given to us and leave the increase to the work of our Lord and Savior.  Amen.

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PREACHING RESOURCES
Parker, T.H.L.  Calvin’s Commentaries: The Gospel According to St John.
Tasker, R.V.G.  Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: The Gospel According to St John.
The Holy Bible:  English Standard Version.

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