Daily Devotion for May 22, 2024

 

Devotion:

For an audio version of this devotion, click here.

Read John 4:4-9, 27.

This week’s devotionals are focusing on Jesus crossing lines that separated people in order to welcome them into his kingdom. These verses remind us of the lines Jesus crossed to let it be known that everyone was welcomed into his kingdom.

The first line which he crossed was simply geographical. The Pharisees were disgruntled and in verse 3, we are told that Jesus leaves Judaea and starts back to Galilee. The shortest route between Judaea and Galilee is to go through Samaria. But most Jewish people of Jesus’ day would have gone west along the Mediterranean Sea or east out of Jerusalem and to catch the Jordan River and head north to the Sea of Galilee to avoid the area of Samaria.

Dr. Gail R. O’Day in The New Interpreter’s Bible writes that “the breach between the Jews and Samaritans can be traced to the Assyrian occupation of Northern Palestine from 721 B.C." So, this enmity between these two groups of people had been going on for centuries! Therefore, when a Jewish person was passing through the area, he definitely wouldn’t have spoken to a Samaritan.

So, the second line which Jesus crossed was to speak to this Samaritan. And the third line which Jesus crossed is that he was speaking to a Samaritan woman. He might have spoken to a Samaritan man, but not a Samaritan woman!

Both the Samaritan woman (in verse 9) and the disciples (in verse 27) were surprised about this! Most Biblical scholars believe that this was Jesus’ own initiative to open the eyes of the disciples to see that He had been sent not only for his own people but for all the people of the world! His message of God’s grace and forgiveness was not just for a few, but for “Jerusalem, and in all of Judaea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth,” as we read in Acts 1:8. Jesus was setting the example that all are welcomed into God’s kingdom.

Personal Worship Option:

Following in Jesus’ example, what traditions, customs, or dividing lines between people might we have to cross to welcome others into God’s kingdom?