Mark 3:13-19
The Appointing of the Twelve Apostles
13 Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. 14 He appointed twelve—designating them apostles—that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach 15 and to have authority to drive out demons. 16 These are the twelve he appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter 17 James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder); 18 Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot 19 and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
John 5:1-15
1 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [4] 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
11 But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
12 So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
John 4:4-30
Jesus and the Samaritan Woman
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.)
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 worshiped 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 worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers 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.”
27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
I sometimes read the four gospels and wonder how do we often overlook many of the things Jesus said and did...We sometimes gloss over those things, as if anyone else can do what He did...It is like He is this ordinary Guy, doing ordinary things...While, in fact, He is doing tremendous things, in the most significant of ways...Yet, the gospels are sometimes, if not often read, as very ordinary, and ho-hum, and oh-well, it is just Jesus doing His thing...We are missing much of the point when we do not see the impact He makes on each person He meets...But He is with such Great Divine Charisma, He can do the things and in this most ordinary of ways...And He taught and walked in the most ordinary of places...
And this is surprising, because people are looking for their own lives and things to be beyond the ordinary...I think there is a desire in life to get and go beyond the world of ordinary...We want more than the ordinary...Many see an ordinary life as a boring life...We want to do and see and be significant...We want our lives to feel purposeful and urgent...We seem to want more than ordinary...But when we look at Jesus He came and dwelt right in the ordinary world...He did things in our ordinary world, and in an ordinary way...He got to know people -ordinary people, and He wanted to help people...And those He taught and helped were going about their day in an ordinary way...He simply chose His ordinary Twelve in a most ordinary way...And the Twelve were ordinary men...They were not kings, or prime ministers, or presidents... And because He had the ability for us and others to overlook His Divinity with the way He did and does things, we can easily read over a miracle or two and forget their significance and importance...And I think we fail to grasp the importance of all He did in the gospels and in His ministry...This Man, if it fair to call Him a Man, did the most significant things ever did by a Man, and did them is such an ordinary way that we can overlook them...
Maybe we can learn from Jesus...He seems to go about His ministry and life in an ordinary way as He walks through the different villages...He seems to have ordinary conversations with those He meets...And in these ordinary conversations He turned them into lessons that would never be forgotten...
Jesus in an ordinary way heals the paralyzed man near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem...Jesus ask a paralyzed man of thirty eight years, if he wanted to get well...And then He helps the invalid by healing his legs, but just saying, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ...Jesus can heal by talking away an illness...At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked....Jesus had healed this man, and had done one of the greatest miracles of all times and yet, I think many readers do not tend to grasp the significance of that moment...And maybe it is because the Jewish leaders quickly did not like what they saw, they want to make a point out of this healing...They tell the healed one, you cannot be carrying a mat on the Sabbath...And all the while, someone who has been paralyzed and an invalid for thirty eight years has just been healed...The Jewish leaders did not get the importance of Him, His healings, nor His teachings...And Jesus is much aware of what is going on with the ordinary people of His day, as well as the Jewish leaders...
Another time, Jesus goes through Samaria and meets a Samaritan woman...She is surprised that a male Jew would even ask a female Samaritan for a drink of water, let alone drink from her cup...Her life has this feel of desperation as Jesus tells her about the Living Water that He can draw upon, so that she will never thirst again...She listens intently, knowing the water in the well that she uses is only temporary...One must return again and again to quench one's thirst over and over...He tells her about the history of her past, and this is the first time He has met this woman...She quickly sees that He is a prophet, and someone significant has came into her ordinary life...He tells her that the time has now come that we will worship in and through the Holy Spirit and in Truth...In this ordinary conversation in the usual routine of her day, she has found and talked to the answers of eternal life...
These stories seem quite ordinary, yet quite significant...And when the Disciples rejoined Jesus after He talked to the Samaritan woman, the seem almost putout that He would be talking to a female Samaritan...An unwanted paralyzed man at the Sheep Gate and an unwanted woman at a well in Samaria are now two stories that will never be forgotten, and are still being written about two thousand years later...The ordinary faces that are in the gospels, might be overlooked without Him...These people's ordinary lives were touched by someone extraordinary...
Jesus gave the Disciples, the paralyzed man and the Samaritan woman hope...They would never forget Him...In a life of quiet trouble and ordinary desperation, He gives us significant hope...This is one reason God sent His Son...To touch the ordinary lives of others and make them feel He is near...