Today, we continue our study of the life that was lived by God when he was man. Even though we are well into this series, the very idea makes me pause in awe every time I say it. What a luxury it is for us to have a Creator that loves us so much that he would "come down here" to be with us, to show us how to live, and to take upon himself the consequences of our sins so that we might not have too.
So far, we've taken a look at when God was born, when God was a boy, when God was baptized, and when God was tempted. We now enter into his early ministry. What are the some of the first things the Gospel writers record that Jesus did?
This is important, because these early looks set the stage for us to discover what he is about. They define the parameters through which we can judge his agenda. These first acts, we will see, will be begin the revealing of who God is, what he is after, and what he expects from those of us who follow him.
Only because we can't cover everything in a semester, we are skipping over the scenes where Jesus starts inviting a following, where Jesus does his first miracle at a wedding he attended, his first Passover (where he cleanses the Temple the first time - did you know he did it twice?), and his first real conversation with an open-minded religious leader (Nicodemus).
There is so much to learn from these! But today, we pick up on a story that happened when he was leaving Jerusalem from that Passover and headed home to Galilee. He went through Samaria, and had a meeting with a controversial character in the eyes of the culture at large. Let's see what we can learn about God from their interaction...