Day 6 – (March 12, 2019)

Read

John 4:5-15

5 So Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 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.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Reflect

 We all have regrets – words we have uttered that we would love to take back; opportunities we missed or ones we should never have embraced; relationships we let go and ones that were wrong to have begun. There are so many things in life for which redemption seems impossible. Arthur Miller, the playwright, put it this way, ‘Maybe all one can do, is hope to end up with the right regrets.’

A woman Jesus encountered at a well in Samaria would have agreed. Like most of us, this woman longed for happiness, but it had eluded her. Thinking that love and marriage would give her life meaning and happiness, she had married five times. But each time she found that she had made the same mistake. Her life was a mess: she felt insecure, lonely, and dissatisfied.

Jesus had taken a detour and was traveling back north to Galilee through Samaria. There he showed he was not bothered by social custom or social taboos, for he, a Jewish man started a conversation with a Samaritan woman in public. He spoke then, as he speaks to you and me today, with equal concern and equal respect. Asking for some water, he shifted gears to introduce another level in the conversation – about living water. It gave him the opportunity to touch on the regrets in the woman’s life.

Through this conversation we begin to see that Jesus offers us water of such vitality that it satisfies our deep inner spiritual thirst. He was saying that he is the answer to the regrets and emptiness that gnaw our souls. Most of us aren’t willing to admit such a reality–and the woman that day was no exception. We pretend everything is all right, but if the truth is told, we all live a lot closer to despair than we like to think. So we activate all kinds of defense mechanisms against anything that threatens to expose our inward spiritual poverty. Deep down we all have a real spiritual longing. But, if we are going to find Jesus’ answer to our regrets, we have to be willing to acknowledge our need.

Prayer

Almighty God, grant that we, who justly deserve to be punished for our sinful deeds, may in your mercy and kindness be pardoned and restored; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (1662 BCP, Lent 4)

Daily Reading Plan

Read John 4:1-15

Day 5 – (March 11, 2019)

Read

John 3:16-21
16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

Reflect

The words of John 3:16 go to the heart of God’s good news for the world. They tell us that God so loved the world that he gave… The love of God is the fundamental truth upon which Christianity is built. If God is not love, there would be no good news. We see here that God’s love is active: God so loved that he gave. He didn’t send his Son to condemn the world, but to rescue it. It needed rescuing because we have chosen to ignore God, something that God in his justice could not overlook. But God’s love has found a way to restore us and give us the opportunity of eternal life. And notice, this proactive love of God was for the benefit of the world.

It was an extraordinary and costly action – not just for the Son, but also for God the Father. The climax and consummation of God’s love is the cross of Christ. Often we think of God the Father as the stern and forbidding judge of a sinful world, while God the Son is our rescuer. John is telling us that God, in his amazing love for us, initiated our rescue and was just as much involved in the cost of our redemption as God the Son. God gave himself absolutely. In 1 John 4:10 we read: In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

These statements are ‘heavenly things’. We only know them by revelation and we only appropriate them by faith. And as we saw in yesterday’s reading, to have the faith we need God’s help. We need to ask him to awaken us to the reality of his love.

Prayer

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing that you have made, and you forgive the sins of all who are penitent: create and make in us new and contrite hearts, so that we, truly lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain from you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (1662 BCP, Ash Wednesday)

Daily Reading Plan

Read John 3:16-36

SUNDAY – (March 10, 2019)

The Song of Zechariah at the Naming of John the Baptist

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel: for he has come to his people and set them free. He has raised up for us a mighty Savior: born of the house of his servant David. Through his holy prophets he promised of old: that he would save us from our enemies, from the hands of all who hate us.

He promised to show mercy to our fathers: and to remember his holy covenant. This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to set us free from the hands of our enemies, free to worship him without fear: holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life.

And you my child shall be called the prophet of the Most High: for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of all their sins.

In the tender compassion of our God: the dawn from on high shall break upon us; To shine upon all those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death: and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Glory to God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; as in the beginning so now: and forever. Amen. (An Australian Prayer Book (AAPB): 1978)

Day 4 – (March 9, 2019)

Read

John 3:1-10

1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

Reflect

Jesus’ rise to stardom happened very quickly. His popularity was enormous. He said amazing things and backed them up with extraordinary deeds—and as we read yesterday, he even turned water into wine. Nicodemus, one of the Jewish religious leaders, was among the thousands impressed by Jesus’ words and actions. He wanted to meet Jesus to find out more but, because of his position as a Jewish leader, it seems that for Nicodemus such a meeting was best under the cover of night. John may have included this detail to highlight something else—the nocturnal shroud hinting that Nicodemus was spiritually in the dark. What Nicodemus wanted Jesus to answer was how he could find God, a question we all ask at some time in our lives.

Nicodemus, as one of the religious elite, may have expected that Jesus would give him a ringing commendation on what a fine job he was doing with his life. Something like, ‘Keep calm and carry on and there’ll be a day when you will find God.’ Instead, Jesus made this breathtaking response: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” No amount of education, social re-organization or self-discipline can eliminate the fundamental moral distortion of our human heart.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once commented: ‘If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?’

We need a new beginning, a fresh start, and this can only occur outside of ourselves. Such rebirth can only come from God through the breath of his Spirit.

Prayer

Almighty God, who taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending them the light of your Holy Spirit: enable us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things and always to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. (BCP, Whit Sunday – adapted)

Daily Reading Plan

Read John 2:23-3:15