Further Up and Further In

I love The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. I have read the entire series more times than I can count. There were many nights as a child where I would read my book by the night light in my room until the wee hours in the morning and then take my book to school so I could read it whenever there was a moment. I love how each story intertwines with the previous story and the deep symbolism that is written into every tiny detail. Every time you read the series you can find new little nuggets of connection between the stories. If you only read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe but have not read the others, you have read a very incomplete story. If you have only read the first three but did not read the last four you have also not read the complete story. You must read all seven stories in the Narnia Chronicles in order to have read the complete story. And you should really reread the entire series so you can fully appreciate the epic adventure, of a creator who pursues his creation, that C.S. Lewis unfolds, layer by layer, chapter by chapter, book by book. Reading the Bible is the exact same. The Bible from Genesis to Revelation is the story of The Creator pursuing His Creation.

Growing up, I was told the Old Testament was less important than the New Testament for Christians. I was told the Old Testament is good and foretells of Jesus but Christians don’t really need to know the Old Testament like they do the New Testament. As a Sunday School Graduate, I can retell every simple Bible story from Creation to Paul and Silas and everything in between. If it was on a flannel board, I know the story inside and out. I also, could quote every over-quoted memory verse without fail. And in Sunday School there was the mindset that the Old Testament was not as important as the New Testament to a Christian, even though we learned every Bible story from both the Old and the New. I remember sometimes a nagging question about a story or lesson I learned that I would dismiss as doubt because the Sunday school teacher is supposed to know everything. (At least when you are 8, that is what you think.)

Fast forward to being an adult and reading through the Bible from start to finish more than once. Noticing not so subtle similarities between what Jesus said and what was said by a prophet or psalmist of old. And some of those nagging questions began bubbling up to the surface. I started digging deeper, going further in, seeking out what God was really saying. God was showing me that the Old Testament is just as important as the New Testament. The New Testament is a continuation of God’s story, not a new one. And the New Testament is really a part of the Old because they are woven together to tell one continuous story. When Jesus spoke, he would quote the Old Testament and then expand on it. He said he came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it. When Jesus spoke during the festivals he would tell the people how he was fulfilling what the festival represented. (The Passover lamb to name the most obvious.) The letters written by the apostles quote the Old Testament and talk about how Jesus fulfills the prophecies and the laws. And how to take the Old and live in the New, because they are very much intertwined with each other.

Recently I heard a message from one of my favorite people to listen to, because I always rethink what I already “knew” and learn that there is so much more that God wants to show me. It was a message on the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. If you did not already know, Jews did not talk to Samaritans, ever. It was a huge deal that Jesus, a Jew, would even talk to this Samaritan, who was a woman. Men did not talk to women in public. And she was of poor status, she was probably marginalized for being a woman who had been with five different husbands/men during her life, she was not one who would be sought out by any person of importance. Oh the uproar that passer-bys might have been in as they realized what was transpiring. I can just imagine the gossip that started to ensue right there at the well in the middle of the day. A Jewish man was talking to an unimportant Samaritan woman in public! As a kid, I would hear this story and be told that she was living in sin because of how many husbands she had. I think also there is this mindset that because she wasn’t a Jew, but a Samaritan, she must be a sinner. But then as a kid I would have that nagging thought in the back of my head, was she really an adulterous, harlot, sinner who did not follow the laws of the Old Testament? Jesus didn’t call her a sinner, he did not tell her to sin no more. Whenever Jesus ministered to or healed someone who was a sinner, he would call out their sin and tell them to stop sinning. He didn’t do that with her. And that is where the sermon spoke so clearly to me. This time, I was being told, it is possible that we missed the mark while reading this passage. If we dig deeper, we might find that we were wrong on the surface and what is underneath is so much better than just Jesus talking to a sinner. I won’t go into all my notes as there were many and some were written so quickly that they are now illegible, but here are a few thoughts.

Jesus talked to this woman, he initiated the conversation. It was not permissible for men to talk to women in public like that. She was of no special social status, Jesus chose to minister to those who were outcasts, marginalized, and of poor social status all the time. Jesus went through Samaria to meet this Samaritan woman. He did not need to go (he could have taken a different route), he chose to go through the place that Jews of that time would avoid at any cost. Jews of the time refused to have anything to do with the Samaritans. Jesus didn’t actually call out her sin. He agreed with her statement about not having a husband and then told her that he knew she had been with five men. (Why she had been with so any men wasn’t said. It could have been that her first husband died and then she needed a new man who then left her because she burnt his toast. Who knows. But in that time, a woman needed to be with a man for survival, she would end up a prostitute or desolate without having a man to provide for her.) Jesus gave her a word of knowledge so he could tell her what he needed to tell her. This encounter where Jesus declares to her he is the Messiah, the one everyone was waiting for, was at a well. In the Old Testament we find that Jacob met his bride Rachel at a well and that Moses met his bride Zipporah at a well. Jesus was meeting his bride (the Samaritan represents all of us) at a well! That is not the only deep significant part of the story. It is just one facet of a deeper story, one that cannot fully be known unless we know the whole story. What does the Old Testament say about what was spoken at this well? So much more than I can type in this already long post. If you read the exchange that John writes and then dig deeper into what is said in the Old Testament not just the New Testament, you find that this divine encounter was one to show that Jesus came to save everyone. Oh the love he has for us that he wants a relationship with us. He was willing to ruffle feathers and break with tradition to have encounters with everyone so that everyone could hear his message of truth, love and redemption. Yes, she was a sinner as we all are. But I am sure that was not the point of the story that John was telling.

My point is this. You cannot dismiss the absolute importance of the Old Testament if you are a Jesus follower. The Bible in its entirety is for us to read and then read again and then read again. Finding the connections and symbols between old and new. 

What does God want to show you in something you have read over and over again? Slow down and meditate on His Word, dig deeper. Ask questions and also understand the culture and time that the story was written. Don’t dismiss the Old Testament as being less significant because the New Testament is saturated with the Old Testament. And without it, you will not get the full story. The epic love story of God pursuing you and wooing you with His unconditional, unfailing, unconstrained and immeasurable love for you.