Pilate's Wife

While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.” (Matthew 27:19)

Years later, when she looked back on that day, she was filled with a combination of both grief and joy. It was a strange mixture considering the appalling events of the day.

She remembered it clearly 30 years later.

Her husband had been about his business as usual. He was Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea, one of the hardest places on earth to govern. These people were maniacs. They didn’t listen to reason or accept authority in any way except their own. They went, not to the wisdom of the emperor for their advice on living, but to some old tattered scroll written gods knew how many years ago.

It was just plain silly. And Pontius had had nothing but trouble from them from the first day he came in. That first time he entered Jerusalem with all of his trappings, all of his standards and representations. He told them that this was the beginning of a new day, that he would bring them, kicking and screaming if need be, into the new order.

They could take it or he would kill a few. That would show them.

However, to our utter astonishment, the older leaders first and then after a moment all of them knelt down, bared their necks and invited him to go ahead and kill them. They said they would rather die than disobey their god’s law.

Of course, Pontius backed down. They were like rabid dogs.

And now, they had this guy who was a teacher of some kind that they hated. And they brought him to Pontius to see if he would kill him for them. He said no, of course. The man hadn’t done anything much wrong except teach. It wasn’t like he led an insurrection or anything.

But they insisted, even hinting that they would tell the emperor that he was disloyal. He didn’t need that. The reason he was here in the godforsaken country in the first place was because the senate in Rome and all were mad at him for some things he had done and were punishing him. He didn’t deserve these people, but what could he do? Either resign or go here.

And now, there was almost a full scale revolt right in front of him.

But this afternoon, I had a dream. I am not sure what it was, but it left a large fear in me, fear on behalf of this man, this Jesus.

I told Pontius not to do anything with him, that he was innocent. I said that I did not think I could stand it if you killed him. I thought he might even be an emissary of the gods.

And sure enough, Pontius washed his hands of the whole mess and told them to go do what they wanted. He wasn’t responsible for other people did, was he? They had their own minds. And they were crazy. He sure couldn’t do much there.

I was disappointed in him that he gave Jesus to the soldiers to beat and torture. They are horrible men.

So the Jews did kill him. Along with the help of the soldiers, they killed him in a horrible way. I have never liked crucifixion. It is messy and it looks so painful. You hear the guys screaming and moaning. It destroys my appetite every time there is a mass crucifixion.

But this time, I thought and thought about it. It almost destroyed my soul.

Fifty days later, I was near the temple – we don’t live far from it anyway – and a group of people began to talk about the man, about Jesus. They told what he had done and where he had come from.

He had not come from the gods, which is what I had expected. He was from The God, and he was not only from The God, he was the Son of The God.

And I believed it and gave my heart to him right there.

Of course, no one would let me go to their church, since I was Roman, so I worshipped in the governor’s palace. Soon I had several that were believers with me. We were Christ-followers.

It wasn’t long before Pilate left Judea. He was never the same. He died not long afterwards. By that time, Gentiles (which is what I found out I was to my surprise) were welcomed into the church.

We had decided to retire to our villa in Rome. After Pontius died, I helped a number of people find the Christ, the Lord.

And now, 30 years later – who can believe it – I am part of his church here in Rome. One of the apostles, Matthew, wrote about me in a letter that is circulating through the churches. That was a pleasant surprise, although it also brought up again the disappointment in preventing what happened.

But then again if it had been prevented, I would not know the Lord now.

So every time I think about that day, it is with a mixture of grief and joy. Grief that he had to die, joy that he did anyway and gave me life.

It is a long was for the daughter of a vineyard owner from Rome and the wife of a federal governor to come. Praise God that I have.

out of the desert (John 2)

ADULT BIBLE STORIES: LIFE OF JESUS
OUT OF THE DESERT
(John 2)

John was an ascetic. He lived in the desert, ate locusts and wild honey and wore rough clothing.  He never as the kind of guy who liked fun.

It wasn’t that he was stuffy or anything like that. He was a great guy. And you could truly feel the anointing of God on him, especially when he began speaking of the Kingdom of God.

It was that he was just so severe in his lifestyle. He was, after all part of the Essenes, a severe bunch of people. They were married like normal people, and even had kids. But their whole life was one of self-denial. He did a lot of fasting and praying, so he was a good bit on the lean side.

He was burned almost black from the sun. And he looked so intense. It was kind of scary when he would get going in his preaching. He was not the kind of guy that you wanted to go against.

For one thing, he was strong, like a lot of those people in the desert. Theirs was somewhat of a hardscrabble life and they worked hard at everything they did. Their kids had the strongest work ethic you ever saw kids have. They were just trained that way.

Andrew had never seen anyone like John. He knew that if John were to announce that he was the Messiah, no one would be surprised.

That was why it surprised him so much when John plain out denied it. Someone asked him as he was baptizing in the Jordan. “Are you the Messiah?”

John just replied that he was not, that the one coming after him was so much greater than he was that he wouldn’t even feel worthy to help him put his sandals on. He also said that where he baptized with water, this man coming after him would baptize with fire.

That surprised a lot of people. They really expected him to be the Messiah. Now what would they do?

Andrew and James stayed anyway. John was as close to an old-fashioned prophet as they had
ever seen. They had read about people like him in the scriptures.

Elijah came to mind immediately in almost everybody’s thoughts. He looked physically like one would imagine Elijah looking, he acted like Elijah, he preached like a prophet, for sure.

Maybe he was. The scriptures had ended with Elijah being promised, then the Lord had shut up his revelation almost 400 years ago.

Maybe so. If he was, that meant that the Messiah wasn’t far away.

It surprised him one day, as John was baptizing and he saw a man coming. John said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.”

The man didn’t look like anyone out of the ordinary. John looked a lot more like a Messiah than this guy.

On the other hand, there was something about him, some indefinable quality, a certain charisma.

He came out to John in the river along with a bunch of other people. But John stopped in front of him and looked – humble, Andrew guessed. He never had seen John defer to anyone before. But he sure did to this man.

Then he said something really strange. “I ought to be baptized by you.”

“No,” the man said, “this is what is supposed to be to fulfill the prophecies.”

John did baptize him, but looked so uncomfortable. After the baptism, something happened. It sounded like thunder, but John was dumbstruck. No one could figure out why. John had seen something no one else has seen.

After the man left, John went back to his home in a daze and just sat for a while. When his disciples asked him what had happened, he said, “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.”

What did that mean? Andrew and James and the other disciples were not sure. For one thing, they were so young. They didn’t have the grounding in stuff like John did. They just didn’t understand.

The next day, they went back to the river. Some of the disciples were baptizing. You could tell John had been severely impacted by what happened yesterday.

The man came walking by again. He nodded at John and John said, “Look! The Lamb of God!”

He looked at his disciples and told them to go. Go where, they asked? Go to him. And then he turned and walked away.

So Andrew and James went to the man. The other disciples just stood there in confusion. They really didn’t know what to do.

As they walked up, the man asked them what they wanted. Andrew said, “Rabbi, where are you staying?”

He wasn’t sure why he asked that. But he had to ask something didn’t he? Otherwise, he would have stood there like an idiot.

The man replied, “Come and see.” It was the tenth hour, late afternoon.

They went with him. And they found out his name. Joshua. Deliverer.

They spent the night at his place, talking almost all night. The man was phenomenal. They thought John knew scripture, but this man was a walking commentary, a living Talmud. Any question they had, he could answer. And he was great to listen to. He had such a style of speaking. Where John was a bit on the bombastic side, this man was a teacher.

The next morning, the first thing Andrew did was go get his brother Simon. Simon was a rough guy, a man with a strong temperament. He didn’t really want to come, but Andrew insisted.

“Come meet this man!” he said. You will never hear anyone like him.

Andrew had said that before, Simon thought. He always felt uncomfortable around John. Something about his asceticism made him to where he had trouble being around him. Simon liked his dinner and wine at night.

It wasn’t that John was bad, nor was Simon, it was just that John made Simon uncomfortable.

But he came. Simon knew that once Andrew got something into his head, all you could do was go along and hope it got over fast.

When the man saw Simon, he looked so pleased, like he had been expecting him. And the first thing he said when he saw Simon was, I think I am going to call you Cephas, Peter, Rock.

That left Peter dumbfounded. For one thing, he always felt he was the more solid of the two brothers. In fact, he always said that Andrew was the sand, he was the rock. Andrew was easily moved and impressed, but not him. No sir. He had a good head on his shoulders.

Of course, sometimes Andrew would call him a blockhead.

But when Jesus said this, he was amazed. he just sort of sat down and listened to Joshua talk. Andrew knew Simon (or Peter – he would have to get used to that) always had a good mind. It wasn’t that he was dumb. It was just that he was hard-headed. When he felt something was so, he thought it was so. No in-between or gray areas or anything else.

Rock was a good name for him, Andrew thought.

The next day, they left for Galilee.  It surprised the fire out of Andrew that Joshua was from Galilee. I mean, who comes out of Galilee? It is, for the most part, a nowhere place, back water, middle of nowhere.

But they went if John really thought this man was worth following, they would follow him. At least for a while.

He collected several more people on the way. Two of them were Philip and Nathanael.

Philip came immediately. He was drawn to Joshua and couldn’t leave where he was fast enough.

But he went first and got his friend Nathanael. Evidently Nathanael laughed. He felt about Galilee like Andrew did. But by this time, Joshua had told them he was from Nazareth. Again, a little nowhere town in a nowhere place.

When Nathanael came up, Joshua said he was a true Israelite, that he was a real person.

Nathanael asked, Do I know you? Joshua said he had seen him under the fig tree when Philip called him.

Nathanael, and the rest for that matter, was impressed. Could this man see the future? Surely he was a prophet sent from God.

Nathanael called him the son of God, King of Israel. Andrew found out later that Nathanael was like that, full of exaggeration. He was a real emotional kind of guy who was as quickly impressed as Peter wasn’t.

Joshua told him that if he liked that, if he was impressed by that little thing, that tiny prophecy – like where else would a guy like Nathanael be – that  he would see greater things than that.

Joshua said, “I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Well, Andrew had never heard anyone say anything like that before.

What was he going to do? Time would tell.

a woman finds jesus at the well - john 4

A WOMAN FINDS JESUS AT THE WELL
(John 4)

She was tired. Really tired. She had done nothing but scrabble all of her life, it seemed. She also knew she was getting near the end of her beauty, too. It was getting harder and harder to attract a man.

She needed a man, too. She couldn’t own property herself and her house was in a trust that had to be administered by a man or she was out in the cold.

The one she had now was already becoming unsatisfied with her. She knew he was probably running around on her. But, after all, they weren’t married. There was not really anything to make him stay.

Not that being married would have done any good to her. The first five husbands all left her. She really wasn’t quite sure why. She was good looking, she cooked well, she kept a good house. But she also had lousy choice in men. All of them, everyone, was the wrong person for her.

She supposed that part of it was her name. Rahab. Who would name a child after a prostitute in the Scriptures? Her mother was not always the smartest person in the world, either. You could just ask Rahab’s sisters, Delilah and Jezebel. Of all the names her mother could have chosen, those were the worst. Her mother was not the sharpest stick in the woodpile.

Of course, her sister Delilah was doing alright. She had picked a good man and had a family in nearby Sebaste. She didn’t see her sister much. They just didn’t have anything in common and, truth be told, her sister was embarrassed by her. They never had really gotten along. Her sister always wanted something better.

Jezebel had died in childbirth when she was just 16. She had gotten pregnant and the baby was breech. They had a lot in common as children. She missed Jezebel.

She had made a life of sorts here in Sychar. She had thought at times of leaving Samaria completely, maybe moving to Jerusalem or Ceasarea. But she had no idea what she would do there. All she did here was menial labor: cleaning, a little sewing, anything dirty a woman could do. She barely made ends meet. And Hosea (what a name, especially considering what kind of woman she was) didn’t do much but drink at the tavern with his friends and gamble her money away.

Except for the fact that she would be by herself, she wouldn’t really mind him being gone. He came home every evening, sometimes in time for supper, more often not, usually half drunk. He’d grab her and spend a few minutes in bed then he’d go to sleep. No real talking or visiting or anything.

Add to that the fact that the man who was put in charge of her property by her fifth husband before he died, took his fee by visiting her during the day when Hosea was gone. It was so degrading.

She was so lonely.

None of the women in town really liked her. Of course, how could they? She was a “fallen woman.” Or at least that is what some of them called her. she had been married five times, and had lived with a succession of men in between. Now she was living with Hosea. And things were not going well. One thing you could not say about her life: she was not blessed.

She began to cook and realized she hadn’t gotten the water for today. She looked at the sun and realized it was about noon. That was the time of day when she went to the well for her water. She would rather go in the morning when it was cool, but she had to endure the contemptuous comments and looks of the other women. They never were loud or anything, but she knew.

It had been that way since she was young.

Her problem was that she was so beautiful when she was young. She always had the eyes of the young men and a lot of the other women resented that. She did so well that she got married for the first time when she was just 14. Too young, really, but the young man was so insistent. She thought she had made a good catch, but, as it turned out, he got in trouble with the law and left, divorcing her before he did.

The second husband was at the age of 17, the third at 21, the fourth at 22 and the fifth died when she was 29.

For a while, it looked as if that third marriage was going to be good and long. But, like all the rest, it turned. He found someone younger and prettier.

It was a sad blessing of sorts that she had never had children.

She had lived around with men for the past several years, but here she was at 35. Her looks were going, she was getting tired, she had developed a bad foot that hurt her if she walked very far or stood very long.

She had even tried prostitution. She figured it wasn’t so different that being married all those times, but it was scary. You never knew what the men would do to you, or how they might hurt you. She had a scar on her cheek from one man who liked to hit her while they were having sex.

And, of course, she couldn’t go to the authorities about it. As far as they were concerned, she was a non-person. As long as she kept a low profile, she was okay.

Now it was time to go to the well and get the water. She looked over at the well area and saw a bunch of men, but it seemed that they were leaving. That made it easier. She could just go get the water and come home and cook.

She balanced the pot on her head and walked over to the well. It was a ways outside of town. Every time she went, she would think of Jacob working so hard for Rachel. Of course, he got tricked into marrying her sister, Leah, too. She identified with Leah, unloved and alone, used for one purpose, and then left alone the rest of the time.

She got almost there when she saw a man sitting by himself on the edge of the well. Her first impulse was to go back home, but she had to have the water. It wasn’t like anyone brought it into the house for you.

She held her head up and tried to appear normal. What would it be like just to walk through a crowd like a normal person? Hello, how are you, nice day, how are the children, yada, yada.

But she came to the well and tried to look like she was in a hurry.

As she was bringing the bucket up out of the well to pour it into her jar, the man spoke to her.

It startled her. Except for Hosea, no man had spoken to her since she gave up prostitution. And then they rarely spoke. Just grabbed and made stupid noises and left, throwing some money on her dresser.

But this man spoke. He said, May I have a drink of water?

She stopped and looked at him. He wasn’t a bad looking man, a little younger than she. And he was Jewish. She could tell by the prayer shawl he wore around his shoulders. Besides, Jewish men had a look about them. Usually she would say arrogant. But he didn’t look arrogant. Very self-confident, yes, but not proud like so many of them did.

She thought about batting her eyelashes at him and being a little coquettish, but then she stopped. There was something different about him.

He sat there waiting for her to answer. What could she do? She was lower class, sure, but she wasn’t ever impolite. As ignorant of names as her mother was, she always taught her daughters to be polite, especially to strangers.

But her curiosity got the better of her. She had to ask. Why are you, a Jewish man, talking to me, a Samaritan woman?

Men didn’t usually talk to strange women, especially Jewish men, and for sure especially not a Samaritan woman. They were so priggish.

But he talked to her and looked at her like she was just a normal person, like she had a husband and was – I don’t know, she thought – like she was real.

Then he said something so weird. 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.

Now what did that mean? She told him that it was obvious that he had nothing to draw the water with and it was pretty deep. He surely couldn’t reach in and scoop some out. So how was he going to give her some water? And living water on top of it all.

She asked him, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?

He gave her the oddest answer. Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Now, if that were possible, that would be great. She wouldn’t have to come to the well anymore and endure the looks and sniffing of the women.

So she said, Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.

He looked at her for a moment and then told her to call her husband and come back. She figured maybe he felt he had crossed some line in talking with her. In the regular life, a man could get in a lot of trouble just talking to some strange woman.

She batted her eyes this time and tried to look younger. She used to be able to do that well. She said, I have no husband. She tried really hard to look unmarried.

He shocked her. “You are right when you say you have no husband. 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.”

She was afraid. This was no ordinary man, and all of a sudden she felt undressed. Not like he was looking at her lustfully or anything like that, but like he could see every flaw she had, every thought she was thinking.

What would she do?

She knew what she would do. If there was anything these Jews loved to do, it was show people how smart they were. The guys down at the synagogue were always sitting around talking about stuff that no one else understood. They thought it made them look so intelligent.

She would ask him one of those questions that many talked about.

“Sir,” she said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

She didn’t really understand what this meant, but she knew it was a big topic of conversation at the center of town. People got to talking about this and talked for hours. If she could get him off the topic of her life and onto something else, she would be relieved.

Maybe then, too she could kind of slide away and go home.

His answer, though, hit her hard.

He said, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

In other words, who cares? His answer completely took away the question. It didn’t answer it, it just made it sound foolish. She had never heard anyone, ever, give an answer that was as good and stopped the conversation more than his did.

Not only that, it was also the answer a man of God would give. But he couldn’t be a man of God. If he were, he sure wouldn’t be talking to her. If he were a man of God, he would have gone into town and found the important people, not out at the well with someone like her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the group of men come back. They had evidently gone into Sychar to get some food. They were looking at the man and at her and looked a combination of offended, embarrassed and confused. Mostly they just milled around a little waiting for an opportunity to talk to the man.

Rahab was a little afraid. The next question she asked, surprised even her.

She said, “I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then the man declared, “I who speak to you am he.”

This is the Messiah? A man who can’t even get his own drink of water? But she knew, in her heart, down in that place where that small grain of hope still lived, that it was true. This was him, the One, the Messiah.

What could she do? She felt like running around and hollering. She caught hold of herself, thought for a moment, set the jar down and ran back to town past the little group of men. She barely noticed them.

Rahab went to Hosea first and told him what had happened. He was already a little drunk and laughed at her. The men began to take up his lead and jeer a little, but she was just too insistent. No! she said. I talked to him and he told me everything I had ever done. He read me like a book.

One man started to comment that she was an awful short book, but one of the others – Elijah, she thought his name was – said, Wait. Why don’t we go out to see for ourselves? It isn’t like we have a lot to do. She could tell that something hit them, a need to investigate.

The whole bunch went out with her kind of trailing behind them. They talked to the man – his name was Jesus, one of them said – and knew he was real. He was the Messiah, come from God. They knew it and they believed him.

The whole group talked for a couple of hours. The men with Jesus stood away just a little, just like Jews, too good to talk to normal folk. But Jesus talked, and she loved him. Maybe he would stay in town for a while and she and he could have discussions. He was, after all, the first man to talk to her like she was a real person in a long time.

But Jesus said he was going. The men begged him to stay and talk a little while longer. Spend the night, have supper with us, come downtown and talk.

But no, he was going. He had to get home to Galilee.

As they went back, she bragged a bit about the fact that she was the one who had brought them to Jesus. Finally, Elijah turned to her and said, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

That was okay with Rahab, though. She had found something that she was looking for. She had found a piece that had been missing from her heart for a long time.

Hosea seemed like he was really thinking about it, too. Maybe things would work out. Whatever, she found she wasn’t worried as much, anymore.

Whatever the rest of them said, she had found Jesus first.

Of course, she had to go back to the well to get her jar. But she found she didn’t mind as much.