Meeting Jesus

James Cathcart September 10, 2026 4 0

Playlists

Add to Favourites

Save for later

Listen to this daily worship

John 3: 1-2, 16-21, 4: 4–26 (NIV-UK)

1 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.’

 

16 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. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

 

4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Will you give me a drink?’ 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?’ (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])

10 Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.’

11 ‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?’

13 Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’

15 The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.’

16 He told her, ‘Go, call your husband and come back.’

17 ‘I have no husband,’ she replied.

Jesus said to her, ‘You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.’

19 ‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.’

21 ‘Woman,’ Jesus replied, ‘believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.’

25 The woman said, ‘I know that Messiah’ (called Christ) ‘is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.’

26 Then Jesus declared, ‘I, the one speaking to you – I am he.’

The Bible is not a book…

…it’s two books. 

In fact it’s multiple books. And, as we’ve been exploring all this week, it’s not really something we read, it’s somewhere we go.

So we come now to our our first readings from the New Testament, the ‘second book'. The New Testament is primarily the story of Jesus Christ, how God so loved the world that he gave us his only son. The beginning of the New Testament contains the Gospels, biographies of Jesus that tell the story of his humility, compassion and loving sacrifice. Then the books that follow show us how the Christian movement emerged from his life, death and resurrection.

If you’re looking for somewhere to start when reading the Bible — one of the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke or John) is a good shout. Jesus leaps off the page and into our lives, a singular figure dedicated to love, selflessness, peace and grace. A storyteller who is wise, gracious, funny, warm. His positive formulation of ‘The Golden rule’, “Do unto others as they would do unto you” is completely life-changing.

In the first reading, from chapter 3, we hear Jesus explaining to Nicodemus — a high status religious insider — about how God has crossed the boundary from heaven to earth, through himself — to come face to face with humanity. In the second Jesus deliberately crosses social, cultural, and religious barriers to have a deep spiritual conversation with an isolated outsider, a marginalised woman from a rival cultural group during a routine midday chore at a well. 

In the New Testament Jesus offers continuity with the traditions of the past while also radically expanding our understanding of them for the future. Jesus has come to earth to demonstrate divine love and forgiveness face to face and this relationship is for all humanity. Jesus comes not only to meet the insiders but also the outsiders. This is especially profound for us coming to the Bible today. Often when we come to the Bible we are like the Samaritan woman — thirsty, hopeful, but unsure, on the edge — and when we do we come face to face with a man who knows us, cares about us, and wants us to find a place to belong.

Prayer:

Dear God,

We come to you

thirsty,

honest,

and questioning.

Amen.