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Summary
If you have any illusions that you are in any way a condition for Unconditional Love, you cannot believe in Unconditional Love, let alone know Unconditional Love, which is in John’s words, “eternal life” (John 17:3). God is Unconditional Love. And Jesus is “the Gift of God.” And so, God arranges for each and all of us to meet Him with our own can of dust and ashes; to meet Him in our own pit, so we can watch Him turn it into a fountain. That’s true for you and for your neighbor. Ask Him, “Who’s my neighbor?”
John 4:5, “So Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there… The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?’ (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God…”
Jacob’s well was (and still is) in a field that Jacob had given to Joseph about 1,800 years earlier. Joseph’s tomb is situated only 300 meters from the well in the same field in the West bank. Jealous of Joseph, his coat, and his dreams, Joseph’s 10 older brothers threw him in a dry pit, or well, somewhere near Jacob’s field. Then, at the suggestion of Judah, they sold Joseph into slavery in Egypt.
Decades later, God used Joseph to not only save his father and his brothers but all of Egypt and much of the known world. When Joseph reveals his identity to his brothers, his dry well literally turns into a fountain of tears, and he says to his brothers, “You intended it for evil, but God intended it for Good.” At the end of Genesis, Jacob blesses all of his sons but promises a “fullness of nations” to Joseph’s youngest son, Ephraim and, weirdly, gives Joseph this field.
Over 500 years later and having returned to the Promised Land — no longer as individuals but tribes — ten northern tribes, under the leadership of Jeroboam of Ephraim, rebel against the two southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin.
The northern kingdom was called Israel, and its capital was Samaria. The southern kingdom was called Judah, and its capital remained Jerusalem. They often battled each other until Israel fell to the Assyrians in 722 B.C., and its leading citizens were taken captive and did not return (They could be you.) However, some remained, intermarried, and to this day these people are known as “the Samaritans.”
When Samaria fell, Jerusalem grew proud, until in 586 B.C., they also fell and were taken captive. And yet, 48 years later, they returned. To this day, these people are known as “the Jews.” But they are not the same as Israel; they are a part of Israel. And the promise of return is given to all of Israel, including the dry bones who lie in the bottom of the pit until they hear the word of God (Ez. 37:7-14) and Judah and Joseph become one (Ez. 37:15-28).
John 4:10, “Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob?’”
Jesus is “the Gift of God” who made the field — Jesus from Judah. But one of Jacob’s sons also appears to be greater, for God gave him a dream of his father bowing before him. That son was Joseph — the Samaritan woman’s super-great-grandpa.
When Judah is blessed by Jacob at the end of Genesis, Jacob says that the scepter will not pass from Judah — kings have scepters, and Jesus is the King of the Jews, that’s Judah. When Joseph is blessed by Jacob at the end of Genesis, Jacob says, “From there is the Shephard, the Stone of Israel.” Jesus is the Great Shepherd and the foundation stone of all creation.
It seems that, in some way, the birthright, blessing, and promise given to Abraham goes to both Judah and Joseph. This was the promise: “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth (adamah) will be blessed.”
Think it through: That can only mean that the blessing is more powerful than the cursing, and the cursing somehow reveals the Blessing. At a tree in a garden on Calvary, all the families of the adamah cursed God’s blessing, AND God’s blessing blessed all the families of the adamah, crying “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” That’s the King of the Jews, Savior of the World, and Gift of God . . . from Judah. Before Him, every knee will bow.
And yet 1,800 years before, Judah bows before Joseph, not because he has to but because he wants to, for Joseph has saved him. And now at Jacob’s well, Jesus from the house of Judah is saving the grandchildren of Joseph. Joseph saves Judah, and Judah saves Joseph, and weirdly, it’s like they are the same guy; they both embody the spirit of their father Jacob, or better, the spirit of God “our Father.”
John 10:23, “The hour is coming,” says Jesus, “and is now here (the seventh hour), when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.”
Jesus talks as if there is “one Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” I’m one father and I have four children. Each one is like a deep well. I keep a picture of all four of them sitting together on our front stoop when they were young. I keep it next to my desk in my office. It’s like a window. When I look at them, I am no longer trapped in me. I lose my psyche and find it in them. Perhaps God loses his psyche and finds it in us; perhaps he loses Jesus (the firstborn) and finds Him in us?
In my office, I keep treasures (notes, arts, and crafts), gifts that each one of my children has given to me when they were little. Like them, none of the gifts are the same, and yet each is my love returning to me through a unique earthen vessel. I didn’t create the love; the love has created me. And although they could be a real pain sometimes at that young age, their love was so pure. But there came a day when each of them became self-conscious — when each took fruit from the tree and began to hide, becoming less like a fountain and more like a well. It was the day they were each tempted to believe that they were a condition for Unconditional Love, and so they began to hide in fig leaves, shame, and fear.
I’m a very imperfect dad, but it feels as if I love them each the same amount; I love them with all I am. But strangely, I do feel love for one more than another, when one has trapped themselves in a pit of fig leaves, shame, and fear. I want to find them and sit with them in their dust and ashes. Even more strangely, those moments when they’ve met me there and offered their hearts — those moments are now my greatest treasures, for the one that was lost is found and has given me what I most desire, a communion of unconditional love: Life.
I really never knew anger until I had children, and someone appeared to ignore one of them, dishonor them, or perhaps curse them. But what would I do if they ignored, dishonored, or cursed one another?
Joseph is Judah’s brother. Esau is Jacob’s brother. Ishmael is Isaac’s brother. Shem, Japheth, and Ham (father of Canaan) are all brothers… AND Cain is Abel’s brother, and we’re all sons and daughters of Adam. And God our Father in Christ Jesus our Lord will say on that day, “Whatever you did unto the least of these MY BROTHERS, you did unto me.” We’re all in the Family.
But what would I do if I had 12 sons, and 10 of them ganged up on one, threw him into a well and sold him into slavery in Egypt? What would I do If I had eight billion sons, and they all did that to each other and to me and lied to me repeatedly in my grief?
I couldn’t do much of anything, but God can do much of everything… In fact, He’s the one that breathed Thing #1 into Thing #2, making Thing # 3. And after thing #4 is destroyed and reduced to dust, I would think He could do it again.
If I were God, and I were a dad, and I were entirely Good, and all my children tried to exalt themselves by dishonoring each other, I think I’d reduce them all to ashes and have them all watch me create them again with my Spirit and my Word planted within them, like a seed. And then, I’d have them save each other, so they’d see what I see and feel what I feel — in fact, I’d die in them, and rise with them, and save through them, until all of them loved each other as I loved them in the first place. In fact, I might even plan it all in the beginning, for that is how I’d make them all in my image and start the everlasting party called the Kingdom of God.
The prophets reveal that after Jerusalem is “herem,” turned to dust and ashes like Sodom and Samaria, she will be “restored in their midst” and receive them back as beloved sisters (Ez. 16). Joseph saves Judah, Judah saves Joseph, and Joseph will again save Judah, by revealing to Jews the wonder of Grace, Unconditional Love.
John 4:42, The Samaritans say, “We have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the World.”
I think we are those Samaritans, for we know that Jesus is indeed the Savior of the World. And sadly, most “Christians” only believe that Jesus is the King of the Jews, and by “Jews,” they mean their own particular tribe. Perhaps we could tell them. For until they want Jesus to save the world, they cannot join the party. If only we knew “the Gift of God.”
Here in dust and dirt the lilies of His love appear.
Here in dust and dirt I find my family.