(Rough draft)
The Samaritan Revival
That evening when Nalda went running back to Sychar to tell the people about her meeting with Jesus at Jacob’s Well, the twelve had just returned to camp with food and they were all hungry. When the people started showing up, the apostles wanted Jesus to send them home so they could eat dinner.
But Jesus knew that it was going to be dark soon, and he wanted to speak to the people before he sent them away. So then, Andrew tried to get Jesus to at least eat a snack first, to which Jesus said, “I have meat to eat that you do not know about.”
When the apostles heard this they were confused, and started to ask each other if anyone had brought Jesus something to eat, or if maybe the woman from Sychar had given him food as well as water. Jesus overheard them talking, and before going out to speak to the people he turned to the apostles, and said, “The food that sustains me is doing the will of the Father and accomplishing his work. We are not waiting for the harvest anymore: it’s here. Look at all of these people coming out of a Samaritan city to listen to us. The fields are already white with wheat that’s ready to harvest now. Those who harvest this wheat receive their wages in eternal life, and both those who sowed the field and those who reap the harvest will then rejoice together. It’s true that ‘One sows and another reaps.’ Now I’m sending you to reap the harvest that you haven’t sown, so you can enter into the work of another who came before you.”
Jesus was speaking, of course, about John the Baptist.
Jesus and the apostles preached in Sychar for two days before building their camp on Mount Gerizim. A lot of the people of Sychar believed the gospel and asked to be baptized, but the apostles still weren’t baptizing people at this point.
The first night that they were all back in camp on Mt. Gerizim, the apostles thought that Jesus was going to scold them for their attitude toward Nalda, the woman they found him with at the well.
But Jesus didn’t say anything about the matter.
Instead, he gave them a memorable talk on certain realities that are central to the kingdom of God. Jesus told the apostles that in any religion it’s easy for the people to start confusing what’s most important in their belief system, and letting facts take the place of the essential truths in their faith.
For example, with Christianity the “fact” of the cross became people’s focus instead of the truths they were supposed to get from the life and teachings of Jesus.
What Jesus was trying to get across to the apostles during this talk on Mt. Gerizim, was that he wants all men to see God as a Father and a friend, just like he is a brother and a friend to them, the apostles. Over and over Jesus emphasized that love is the greatest relationship in the universe, and truth is the ultimate fact observed in these divine unions.
Jesus didn’t hold back in telling the Samaritans exactly who he was because it was safe for him to do so. He also knew that he’d never again be back in the heart of Samaria to teach the gospel.
The crew spent until the end of August teaching in the cities during the day, and spending their nights in camp. They were successful in bringing many souls into the kingdom, and they prepared the way for Philip’s work in the area after the resurrection when the apostles were scattered around the world.
Teachings About Prayer and Worship
In the evenings on Mt. Gerizim, Jesus taught the apostles that true religion is the personal relationship one has with the Creator. Organized religion is when people try to socialize those people into worshiping together.
Jesus explained to them that worship, which is contemplating God, has to be alternated with service, which is actually dealing with the material world. Just like work needs to be balanced with play, religion needs to be balanced with humor and deep philosophical matters need to be relieved with poetry.
The fear that can arise from a sense of loneliness in the universe is best off-set by contemplation of the Father. Prayer, Jesus told them, doesn’t increase knowledge but it does expand insight: it’s designed to make man less thinking and more realizing. Worship is anticipating a better future ahead, and then reflecting those insights back into the life we live now.
Prayer is sustaining, where worship is divinely creative. Prayer is working on oneself; worship is forgetting one’s self. Worship is looking to the One for inspiration in how to serve the many; it’s a son’s personal communion with the Father and it qualifies the extent to which a soul is detached from the material world and secure in its embrace of spiritual realities. Worship is an effortless form of restful spiritual exertion for the human soul-spirit.
And again, the apostles only understood a little of what Jesus taught them. But many people on other worlds did grasp Jesus’s words, as will later generations on Earth.
Alright everyone. That’s it for chapter 22.3 Going Through Samaria. Next is Chapter 23, At Gilboa and in the Decapolis.
Defend liberty.
Protect your kids.
Serve man for God.
Bob
Glad to see that you are restating the Teachings.