Radical Restoration and Racy Reputations

In a small town, it is easy to get a bad reputation. And this scenario isn’t any different.

This woman (we will call her Jessica) was not only known for having a bad track record, but even now she is living with a man who isn’t her husband. I guess I should clarify and say, “one of her husbands,” because there are several. All in the town have marked her as an outcast… I mean, except for the men that are looking for a “good time.” Jessica is a slut in the eyes of the civilized and uncivilized alike.

This past weekend I helped lead worship at our church’s satellite campus in Stamford, CT. The city isn’t in the pristine condition of neighboring Greenwich. As a whole, however, Stamford isn’t much different than any other urban city in America. The church meets in a movie theater right in the heart of the city. Before the theater opens and people stream in, the church sets up, meets for congregational fellowship, and tears everything down with the coming crowd being completely unaware of all that had happened earlier that day.

What struck me as strange in my commute this week was passing the building where the “Jerry Springer Show” meets. Just two blocks away from where our church meets (in a movie theater) is one of the most degrading and debasing shows ever to hit the boob tube. I passed the building a couple weeks ago, and there were people flooding the street, waiting in line, hoping to get in to see the crudeness that would soon ensue.

Jessica isn’t a woman you or I know. She is a woman whose name has been lost over time. Today many Christians know her as “the woman at the well.” When the people in her community saw her as an outcast, Jesus came and shared with her the secrets to the kingdom of heaven. When men had spent years taking advantage of her and debasing her, Jesus chose to share with her, more than any other human, the secret of who he was as the Son of God.

She was neither worthy nor deserving of even being spoken to by a Rabbi of such high esteem. She was someone who today we would see on the Springer Show.

The woman at the well wasn’t even a Jew. The Jews saw themselves as the heirs of the Promise of God. The Samaritans, to whom the woman belonged, were a group of mixed lineages who worshiped at a different Temple than the true Temple in Jerusalem. Many Jews saw them as half-breeds. And this woman was the lowest of them.

The most profound moment of the woman’s encounter with Jesus was when she asked him about the Temple where she worshiped. She was wondering what he, as a Jew, thought about these “half-breeds” worshiping at a different Temple than the one they were supposed to. This is what Jesus said: “The time is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father… but the true worshipers will worship the Father in sprit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him.”

With Christ’s statement, he opened the door! A message of hope that was once exclusively to the Jews is now being offered to everyone! Where the people of God once had to go to the Temple to experience the Presence of God, now God’s Presence is made available to all people.

God isn’t looking for people who attend the right or wrong temple or church. God is seeking those who worship him in spirit and truth. That’s why we can meet in a movie theater down the road from Jerry Springer. That’s why any person from any walk of life is welcome to worship Jesus as Lord.

Jesus seeks out those who are hurting and abused. He doesn’t care how the world might view them. Jesus brings the message of reconciliation and restoration.

Are we doing the same?

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The Day That Death Was Defeated

Imagine a Jew living during the time of the Second Temple. Nehemiah might have brought some of the Jewish people back to their Promised Land, but the Jews were still in disarray. A Temple might have been built to replace the former one, but the Israelites were no longer a nation of God – they weren’t a nation at all. The Israelite people were floating from nation to nation – Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans. They might have been “post-exilic”, but they were definitely not out of exile.

Imagine an Israelite who was alive amidst the captivity in Egypt. Their ancestors might have freely come to the land, but that isn’t the case for them now. People through whom God said he would bless the world are now captives in a foreign land. The Israelite people weren’t “people” at all – they were slaves. They might have been promised a blessing, but their children were still getting slaughtered by the hundreds.

Moses was sent by God to deliver the Israelites in Egypt from their physical bondage. God parted the Red Sea, and from Mount Sinai Moses presented to the people of God how they should live according to the Law.

They were to be God’s chosen people.

Through them the whole world was to be blessed.

But they took the Law and saw it as a way in which to separate them selves from the world they were supposed to bless – a Law they couldn’t even keep. They needed a truly Faithful Jew through which Abraham’s covenant could be fulfilled. But they were looking for a way out of their physical bondage of exile during the Second Temple Period. They lost sight of the promise that God made to them. They lost sight of their purpose as the People of God.

Jesus was sent by God to deliver all of mankind from their spiritual bondage of sin. God’s Spirit fell on Jesus during his baptism, and from there Jesus presented the Sermon on the Mount, where he showed the people what it meant to live by faith.

He was God’s Chosen One.

Through him the whole world had been blessed.

But the people crucified him. When given the chance to free this man who knew no sin, the people chose an insurrectionist instead… How fitting. They took an innocent man and gave him a death sentence expected for the worst of people. Just as Moses and his people were the first to celebrate the Passover, Jesus was presented as the final Passover Lamb the day he was crucified during that Passover week.

The Passover. The Passion.

Moses. The Messiah.

Physical Bondage. Spiritual Bondage.

God’s Deliverance.

If Christ’s story ended there, then this wouldn’t be a story worth being told. When Jesus was taken to be crucified, the disciples fled. After his death they left in shame believing that they were merely following an allusion of grandeur that he was there to set them free from Roman rule.

But Christ’s story didn’t end there. When Jesus rose from the dead, he proved his reign as King! Christ didn’t ignore death; he defeated it! And by defeating death, Christ showed how he was the Ultimate Deliverer. He isn’t just Christ – but he is Lord! He is the I Am! And though the Jewish people were expecting their Messiah to come and deliver them from their bondage from Rome, he came and delivered all people from their spiritual bondage of sin.

This is the day in which death was defeated.

We now know that there will be a day when we are resurrected.

We now know that there will be a day when all things will be reconciled to him.

We now can go to the world knowing that he has ALL authority.

We can now go bringing this news of reconciliation.

Because this is the day in which death is defeated.