Cast of Characters

Samaritan Woman

Insignificance and authenticity

She is a Samaritan; she knows the sting of racism. She is a woman; she’s bumped her head on the ceiling of sexism. She’s been married to five men. Five. Five different marriages. Five different beds. Five different rejections. She knows the sound of slamming doors.

On this particular day, she came to the well at noon. She expected silence. She expected solitude. Instead, she found one who knew her better than she knew herself. He was interested in more than water. He was interested in her heart.

They talked. Who could remember the last time a man had spoken to her with respect? He told her about a spring of water that would quench not the thirst of the throat, but of the soul.

Suddenly the shame of the tattered romances disappeared. Suddenly the insignificance of her life was swallowed by the significance of the moment. “God is here! God has come! God cares...for me!”

Abigail

Influencing your world for good

Hang on. It’s the Wild West in the Ancient East. The road rumbles as David grumbles, “May God do his worst to me if Nabal and every cur in his misbegotten brood isn’t dead meat by morning!”

Then, all of a sudden, beauty appears. A daisy lifts her head in the desert; a swan lands at the meat packing plant; a whiff of perfume floats through the men’s locker room. Abigail, the wife of Nabal, stands on the trail. Whereas he is brutish and mean, she is “intelligent and good-looking.”

Brains and beauty. Abigail puts both to work. As David and his men descend a ravine, she takes her position, armed with “two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep dressed out and ready for cooking, a bushel of roasted grain, a hundred raisin cakes, and two hundred fig cakes, . . . all loaded on some donkeys.”

Abigail’s no fool. She knows the importance of the moment. She stands as the final barrier between her family and sure death.

Abigail teaches so much. The contagious power of kindness. The strength of a gentle heart. One Abigail can save a family.

Be the beauty amidst your beasts and see what happens.

David

Facing your fears

Your Goliath doesn’t carry sword or shield; he brandishes blades of unemployment, abandonment, sexual abuse, or depression. Your giant doesn’t parade up and down the hills of Elah; he prances through your office, your bedroom, your classroom. He brings bills you can’t pay, grades you can’t make, people you can’t please, whiskey you can’t resist, pornography you can’t refuse, a career you can’t escape, a past you can’t shake, and a future you can’t face.

You know well the roar of Goliath.

You know his voice—but is it all you hear? David saw and heard more. When the giant mocks David, the shepherd boy replies: “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.” David majors in God. He sees the giant, mind you; he just sees God more so.

Giants. We must face them. Yet we need not face them alone. Focus first, and most, on God. The times David did, giants fell. The days he didn’t, David did.

Focus on giants—you stumble.

Focus on God—your giants tumble.

Nicodemus

Being born again

Nicodemus stands on one side, Jesus on the other. Nicodemus inhabits a land of good efforts, sincere gestures, and hard work. Give God your best, his philosophy says, and God does the rest.

Jesus’ response? Your best won’t do. Your works don’t work. Your finest efforts don’t mean squat. Unless you are born again, you can’t even see what God is up to.

Nicodemus hesitates on behalf of us all. Born again? “How can a man be born when he is old?” You must be kidding. Put life in reverse? Rewind the tape? Start all over? We can’t be born again.

Jesus answers by leading him to the Hope diamond of the Bible:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

A twenty-six-word parade of hope: beginning with God, ending with life, and urging us to do the same. Brief enough to write on a napkin or memorize in a moment, yet solid enough to weather two thousand years of storms and questions. If you know nothing of the Bible, start here. If you know everything in the Bible, return here.

Woman Washing Jesus' Feet

The Luke 7:47 principle

Could two people be more different?

He is a church leader. She is a streetwalker. Ask the other residents of Capernaum to point out the more pious of the two, and they’ll pick Simon. Anyone would pick him. Anyone, that is, except Jesus. Jesus would pick the woman.

We aren’t told her name. Just her reputation—a sinner. She puts her cheek to his feet, still dusty from the path. She has no water, but she has tears. She has no towel, but she has her hair. She uses both to bathe the feet of Christ. She opens a vial of perfume, perhaps her only possession of worth, and massages it into his skin. The aroma is as inescapable as the irony.

You’d think Simon of all people would show such love. But he is harsh, distant. You’d think the woman would avoid Jesus. But she can’t resist him. Simon’s “love” is calibrated and stingy. Her love, on the other hand, is extravagant and risky.

“A person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” Could it be that the secret to loving is receiving? You give love by first receiving it. “We love, because he first loved us.”

Peter

Second chances

“But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee.”

What a line (see Mark 16). It’s as if all of heaven had watched Peter fall—and it’s as if all of heaven wanted to help him back up again. “Be sure and tell Peter that he’s not left out. Tell him that one failure doesn’t make a flop.”

The next time Peter saw Jesus, he got so excited that he barely got his britches on before he jumped into the cold water of the Sea of Galilee. It was also enough, so they say, to cause this backwoods Galilean to carry the gospel of the second chance all the way to Rome where they killed him. If you’ve ever wondered what would cause a man to be willing to be crucified upside down, maybe now you know.

It’s not every day that you find someone who will give you a second chance—much less someone who will give you a second chance every day.

But in Jesus, Peter found both.

Two Criminals

Choices and Consequences

In every age of history, on every page of Scripture, the truth is revealed: God allows us to make our own choices.

And no one delineates this more clearly than Jesus. According to him, we can choose:

a narrow gate or a wide gate
a narrow road or a wide road
the big crowd or the small crowd

We can choose to:

build on rock or sand
serve God or riches
be numbered among the sheep or the goats

God gives eternal choices, and these choices have eternal consequences.

Isn’t this the reminder of Calvary’s trio? How could two men see the same Jesus and one choose to mock him and the other choose to pray to him? I don’t know, but they did. And when one prayed, Jesus loved him enough to save him. And when the other mocked, Jesus loved him enough to let him.

He allowed him the choice.

He does the same for you.

Matthew

Not judging outward appearances

Matthew was a public tax collector. Public publicans, like Matthew, just pulled their stretch limos into the poor side of town and set up shop. As crooked as corkscrews. The guy was avoided like streptococcus A. Everybody kept his distance from Matthew.

Everyone except Jesus. “‘Come, be my disciple,’ Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him.”

Later on he meets up with Jesus at a diner and shares his problem. “It’s my buddies—you know, the guys at the office. And the fellows at the bar. I’m gonna miss those guys.”

Jesus starts to smile and shake his head. “Matthew, Matthew, you think I came to quarantine you? Following me doesn’t mean forgetting your friends. Just the opposite. I want to meet them.”

Matthew goes from double-dealer to disciple. He throws a party that makes the religious right uptight, but Christ proud. What could be better? Sinners and saints in the same room, and no one’s trying to determine who is which.

You don’t have to be weird to follow Jesus. You don’t have to stop liking your friends to follow him. Just the opposite. A few introductions would be nice.

Joseph

Forgiveness and the big picture

You’re the favored son . . . and your brothers know it.

You get a car. They don’t. You get Armani; they get K-Mart. You get educated; they get angry. And they get even. They sell you to some foreign service project, put you on a plane for Egypt, and tell your dad you got shot by a sniper.

Imaginary tale? No. It’s the story of Joseph.

Twenty-two years later revenge is within Joseph’s power. And there is power in revenge. Intoxicating power.

Haven’t we tasted it? Haven’t we been tempted to get even?

Rather than get even, he grants his family safety and provides them a place to live.

May I restate the obvious? Revenge belongs to God! If vengeance is God’s, then it is not ours. God has not asked us to settle the score or get even. Ever.

Forgiveness comes easier with a wide-angle lens. Joseph uses one to get the whole picture. He refuses to focus on the betrayal of his brothers without also seeing the loyalty of his God.

To forgive someone is to admit our limitations. We’ve been given only one piece of life’s jigsaw puzzle. Only God has the cover of the box.

Mephibosheth

Our place at the table

Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, slipped from the arms of his nurse, permanently damaging both feet. For the rest of his life he would be a cripple. When people mentioned his name, they mentioned his problem. But when king David mentioned his name, he called him “son.” David’s couriers journeyed to Mephibosheth’s door, carried him to a chariot, and escorted him to the palace. He was taken before the king, where he bowed facedown on the floor and confessed, “I am your servant.”.

And I ask you, do you see our story in his?

Children of royalty, crippled by the fall, permanently marred by sin. Living parenthetical lives in the chronicles of earth only to be remembered by the king. Driven not by our beauty but by his promise, he calls us to himself and invites us to take a permanent place at his table. Though we often limp more than we walk, we take our place next to the other sinners-made-saints and we share in God’s glory.