The Feast of Weeks, otherwise known as Pentecost, was a
celebration of the goodness of God in the fulfillment of His promise to provide
abundantly for them in the Land. It came
at the end of the harvests and remembered their bitter situation in Egypt in order
to make the harvest and God’s goodness even sweeter. Over time it had also come to be a
celebration of the giving of the Law at Sinai.
Interesting that Paul will reflect on the Law as a particular kind of
slavery, pointing to the reality that sin is our master and we know that to be
true because of the Law.
Jesus maintains that truth matters, “You
worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from
the Jews.” The woman is not entitled to
her own truth and the Samaritans have it wrong.
That being said, she now has a decision to make about Jesus as the truth
and the one for whom they are looking, the prophet like Moses from Deuteronomy
18 (the Samaritans had only the first five books we know as the Old Testament
so they weren’t looking for the same kind of Messiah the Jews were). Jesus speaks though of a coming day when true
worshippers would be those who worshipped in spirit and in truth, wherever they
were, location was immaterial. In spite
of the reality that she worshipped what she did not know and that she was an
immoral woman, Jesus entrusted her with His own testimony concerning Himself in
a way we rarely see in the Gospels at this early stage in His ministry.
Peter always thought of himself as bold but the night of the
trial he learned that fear could overcome boldness and make him a coward. His boldness had limits. After the resurrection and particularly after
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Peter was a different man, a
fearless man, a truly bold man. He knew
that death wasn’t final, that Jesus was a conqueror and that if he, Peter, was
faithful, he would also triumph over the grave, he would no longer fear what
man could do to him. His life, all of
that life, would now be a celebration of Pentecost, he was a new man because
Jesus had set him free from sin and fear and death. Are you?
Immortal, invisible,
God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessèd, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious, Thy great Name we praise.
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessèd, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious, Thy great Name we praise.
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