Day 279 and 280—We are in the TENTH month of Bible reading and studying the New Testament Gospels.

NOTE:  Both Sunday and Monday studies are posted on MONDAY.

    Day 279 – John 2 – 4 (a wedding, Nicodemus, Samaritan woman)

John doesn’t always put his gospel of Jesus in chronological order. Jesus had done many miracle healings until this point. John, instead, says the water-to-wine miracle was the FIRST of eight significant spiritual “signs” that pointed to Jesus as God.

John 2 begins with a wedding in Cana, and John 4 ends with His healing an official’s dying son in Cana.

John 2 starts with a new Jewish couple getting married, and John 4 is about a Samaritan woman who has been married five times.

In between, in John 3, Jesus talks to a Jewish teacher privately at night about being born again as the only way to receive eternal life. During the day, John the Baptist preaches a magnificent sermon to crowds, saying whoever believes in Jesus, God’s Son, has eternal life. (See John 3:27-36, wonderful!)

John 2.  Jesus and his disciples go to the wedding, probably a family member, since Mary seems to be a hostess. They run out of wine (thirsty guests or poor planning), and Mary tells this to her Son. His answer is confusing.  “What does this have to do with Me?  My hour has not come.“

The “hour” Jesus mentions refers to the very reason and focus of why He had come – His death and resurrection.  Prophets like Jeremiah 31:12, Hosea 14:7, and Amos 9:13-14 spoke of a time in the Messianic kingdom when wine would flow freely.  Jesus knew that the cross must first come before the blessings of the millennial age. Perhaps he was reminding his mother of this (?)

Next is Passover, and Jesus is in Jerusalem.  He is angered at how the temple is desecrated by animals, buying & selling, loud noise, and greed.  He makes a whip and drives the sellers and animals out, overturning their tables of carefully stacked coins.  “Do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” 

(This reminded me of Nehemiah who discovered merchants buying/selling in the city on the Sabbath. He also drove them all out and locked the gates!)   Of course, the religious leaders, who saw their money-making schemes go down the drain, accosted Jesus angrily.

John 3. Later that night, when Jesus was alone, Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, came to Jesus secretly. Perhaps he was going to ask Jesus about what happened at the Temple earlier, for he said,

“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher, come from God, for no one can do these signs you do unless God is with Him…”

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.“ Jesus interrupts.

(I can imagine Nico’s face. “Huh?”)  He responds to Jesus, perhaps annoyed, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter back into his mother’s womb and be born?”

Jesus responds. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” 

“But…but, how can these things be?” Nico answers.

“Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?”  Jesus explains more, then speaks that beloved verse, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Jesus explains that everyone who does NOT believe in Him is already condemned. The judgment is that Light came into the world, but people loved darkness more because their deeds were evil. They hate the Light because they know their wicked deeds will be exposed.

We don’t see or hear what Nico did with that. I know he will have lots to ponder in his heart.  I know also that by the time Jesus died, Nicodemus was a believer.

John 4. On the way back from Jerusalem to Galilee, Jesus and His men paused at Jacob’s well (Genesis 33:19 and 48:22) in Samaria, where a hard-looking woman was drawing water in the heat of the day (not morning when most women came). Jesus sent his disciples into town to buy food, leaving Himself ALONE with a woman and a Samaritan.

“Give Me a drink,” Jesus asked politely but pointedly.

“How is it that YOU, a Jew, ask for a drink from ME, a woman of Samaria? I thought you had no dealings with us.”

“If you knew who I was, you would have asked ME to give YOU a drink, and I would have given you Living Water.”

“You don’t have a bucket to draw water,” she said maybe disgusted.  “Where are you going to get that ‘Living Water?’ Are you greater than our father, Jacob?”

I’m sure Jesus looked her right in the eyes, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the Water that I will give him will NEVER thirst again.  Instead, it will become like a spring of water welling up to ETERNAL LIFE.”

“SIR, give me this water…… so I don’t have to come to this well again.”

Jesus tells her to go and bring her husband, knowing that she has had FIVE husbands and that the man she lives with now is NOT her husband. (Perhaps she was barren, and no man wanted to keep her if she couldn’t bear him offspring.)  She exclaims that He must be a prophet and starts to get sidetracked. Jesus brings her back with how true worshippers will worship the true God “in spirit and truth.

Then — amazingly so — Jesus tells this unloved woman that HE is the Messiah, the Christ.”

Just then, the disciples return with food, and she runs off. But now she has a message and will soon bring the whole town back to see and hear “the Man who knew everything about me.”

Jesus tells the disciples that THIS is the food He desires, and to look at the fields of souls. So many are ripe for harvest. The people all come and listen to them. He stays two days, then they make their way back to Cana.

There, an official comes to Jesus, begging Him to heal his deathly ill son.  Jesus tells him to go home because his son will live.  The man believes, and eventually, his whole household believes because of the miracle.   John says this is the second “sign” that Jesus did in Galilee.

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    Day 280. – Matthew 8, Mark 2 (healing ministry, confrontations with leaders)

Jesus heals many diseases and conditions.

8:1-4.  “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean,” said a leprous man kneeling before Jesus.

“I will. Be clean.”  And immediately, his leprosy was cleansed.

8:5-13.  “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home,” said a Centurion in Capernaum.

“I will come and heal him,  said the generous Jesus.

“Only say the word, and he will be healed, for I am a man in authority over others too.”

“I have not found such faith with any in Israel! Go. Let it be done for you as you believed,” said Jesus.

8:14-17. Peter’s mother-in-law was sick with a fever, but when Jesus touched her hand, the fever left, and she got up and began serving him.  Later MANY sick were brought to him – some oppressed by demons. He healed all the sick and cast out the demons.  To account for this, Matthew pointed to Isaiah 53:4-5 “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”

8:20-34.  Across the Sea of Galilee, in Gentile territory where villagers raised a great herd of swine, Jesus and his men met more demon-oppressed men living among the tombs. Immediately, the evil spirits recognized Jesus. “Have you come to torment us before the time, O Son of God?  If you cast us out, we beg You, cast us into the herd of pigs.” 

Jesus sent the unclean spirits into the unclean swine, and they promptly ran down the hill, off the cliff, and perished in the sea…thousands of them.  The villagers were scared to death and angry at Jesus. “Please leave,” they begged Him.  (Mark’s account of this incident mentions only one of the possessed men and how his life had changed. He wanted to become a disciple, but Jesus told him to go into town and witness to others what had happened to him. 

Mark 2 retells the story of the paralytic man who was let down through a roof to see Jesus because of the crowds and how the Lord healed him because of his FRIEND’s faith. Jesus also forgave him his sins, which infuriated the Pharisees who were watching.

Those Pharisees also admonished Jesus because He and his disciples were plucking heads of grain and eating them as they walked along a field. (Perfectly legal according to Mosaic law – Deut. 23:24-25.) The religious leaders’ “beef” was because it was the Sabbath, and their actions constituted “work” according to their “traditions.” (Seriously?)

Jesus reminded them of a time when David, the future king of Israel, had requested and received the Showbread loaves from the Tabernacle’s Holy Place for himself and his men to eat. The High Priest gave it to them. (1 Samuel 22:19-20)

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”