1. "Christianity is Christ. Take Christ from Christianity and you disembowel it. There is practically nothing left. Christ is the center of Christianity. All else is circumference."

2. "Jesus, who he is, will always be the point of Christianity. The person and work of Christ are the rock upon which the Christian religion is built. If he is not who he said he was, and if he did not do what he had said he came to do, the foundation is undermined and the whole superstructure will collapse."

3. "Did you notice that Jesus didn't just exercise control and so show his power, but that he made something better than it was? This was Jesus' wedding reception. He is the bridegroom come to take his people."

4. "Jesus is not just another friend of the bride's as John the Baptist and every Old Testament prophet had been. Jesus came as the husband of the bride, the bridegroom himself. That's who Jesus is. And so what did he come to do? He came to bring eternal life."

5. "I've always been struck by the fact that when Jesus talks to this respected religious leader, he says that he needs a new life. And when he talks to this despised Samaritan woman, He says that she needs a new life. Whether he's talking to the people who are most self satisfied or least, most respectable or least, his message is clear."

6. "The temple and the teachers miss it when the bridegroom comes. But the Samaritans and the despised Herodians, they see it and they accept him. He came unto his own and his own received him not. But to whoever believes in his name, even Samaritans and Herodians."

7. "If you mean was Jesus for the status quo, I think the answer is clearly no. The old covenant, the old hiddenness of God, the old temple, the old way of doing religious business, the old life, the old flesh birth, the old way of ethnic and political barriers, all of these are part of the status quo that Jesus opposed and in fact that he came to radically replace."

8. "Jesus is not here just to hold your hand or to teach your mind. He is here to change your heart, to give you a new life and a new birth. And that is good news. That is tremendous news. If you want to change, if you don't want to change, if you don't want to see your life rearranged at all, you won't like Jesus very much."

9. "He continues to challenge those of us who are his children, who are following him. He continues to move into new areas of our lives. But that's the only basis we have for hope."

10. "Many of them things that may be so deep that we have even given up hope of them ever changing. You're the ones Jesus is speaking to this morning. You are the very ones to whom he is offering hope. He has come as the bridegroom to give eternal life to his people."

Observation Questions

1. In John 2:11, what specific response did the disciples have to Jesus' first miracle, and what caused this response?

2. Looking at John 2:13-17, what actions did Jesus take in the temple, and what reason did He give for these actions?

3. According to John 3:3 and 3:5-6, what requirement does Jesus give for seeing/entering the kingdom of God, and how does He explain this requirement?

4. In John 3:29, how does John the Baptist describe his relationship to Jesus using wedding imagery?

5. From John 4:21-24, what change does Jesus announce regarding worship, and what two characteristics does He say true worship must have?

6. Examining John 4:50-53, what progression do we see in the royal official's faith, from his initial request to his final response?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is it significant that Jesus' first sign (changing water into wine) took place at a wedding celebration, especially given John the Baptist's later description of Jesus as the bridegroom?

2. How does Jesus' claim about destroying and raising the temple (John 2:19) relate to His authority and identity? What does this tell us about how He viewed His relationship with the Father?

3. Why do you think Jesus chose to reveal himself as Messiah to a Samaritan woman (John 4:26) when He had been more guarded about His identity with others?

4. What does Jesus' interaction with both Nicodemus (a respected religious leader) and the Samaritan woman (a social outcast) reveal about the universal nature of His message?

5. How does the royal official's response to Jesus' word (John 4:50) demonstrate a different kind of faith than those who believed because of signs (John 2:23-25)?

Application Questions

1. When was the last time you faced a situation where, like the royal official, you had to take Jesus at His word without seeing immediate evidence?

2. In what areas of your life might you be resisting Jesus' transforming work, preferring to maintain your own "status quo"?

3. Think about your own faith journey. What religious or cultural barriers did you have to overcome to follow Jesus, and what barriers might you still be holding onto?

4. When has God used you, like the Samaritan woman, to share your testimony with others? What was the result?

5. Where in your life do you most need the kind of radical transformation Jesus offers? What steps could you take this week to open yourself to His work in that area?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Ezekiel 36:25-27 - This prophecy about God giving His people a new heart and putting His Spirit within them provides important background for Jesus' teaching about being born of water and the Spirit.

2. Isaiah 54:4-8 - This passage develops the imagery of God as a husband to His people, enriching our understanding of Jesus' role as the divine bridegroom coming for His bride.

3. Exodus 33:12-23 - Moses' desire to see God's glory parallels the theme of Jesus revealing His glory through signs, while highlighting the fuller revelation that comes through Christ.

4. Acts 10:34-48 - Peter's experience with Cornelius shows how the early church lived out Jesus' breaking down of ethnic and religious barriers, demonstrating that salvation is for all who believe.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Historical Context and Political Engagement in the Church

II. The Central Question: "Was Jesus a Conservative?"

III. Who Is Jesus? (John 2:1–3:21)

IV. What Is His Agenda? (John 3:22–4:54)

V. The Radical Call to Spiritual Rebirth

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Detailed Sermon Outline

Was Jesus a conservative?

I see heads nodding both ways simply by posing the question. The very nonpartisan ministry that your present pastor has tried to cultivate seems to totter.

But maybe after two and a half years here as your pastor, it's time to lay aside this attempt of mine to avoid discussing almost all partisan policy matters. I mean, after all, it's inauguration weekend. Politics is in the air. And besides, you know, not every pastor of this church in the past has been so apolitical.

Take Green Clay Smith, for instance. Anyone remember him? I know we've had long standing members. Anybody here when he was here? No.

Charlie? Jesse? No, no, he left in 1895.

No, no. As far as I can tell, he was the only other Kentuckian ever to fill this pulpit as your pastor and the only lawyer.

Born at Richmond, Kentucky, on July 2, 1832, he graduated from Transylvania University in 1850 and then from law school in 1853. After he had worked in law and business for a few years, he was elected to the Kentucky legislature in 1860. And then in 1861, he entered the Union army as a private, was wounded and soon attained the rank of general.

Now, I wasn't saying it followed from that. In 1863, he was elected to Congress as a U.S. representative from Kentucky and served two terms. And it was then that President Johnson appointed him to be the second governor of the Territory of Montana, in which position he served for two years until he resigned in 1868, when he was my age in order to enter the ministry. He was licensed to preach and was ordained in 1869.

He served churches in Frankfort, Kentucky, the state capital, Louisville, Mount Sterling, and had a wide itinerant ministry. Well, in 1890, Green Clay Smith was called to be pastor of the young and growing Metropolitan Baptist Church here on Capitol hill in Washington, D.C. our church. He served the church for five years until his death on June 29, 1895. But he was hardly apolitical.

I wonder how many of you knew that we have had as a pastor not only another Kentuckian, a lawyer, a general, a U.S. representative and a governor of Montana, but a presidential candidate.

Yes, it's true. In 1876, Green Clay Smith ran for the presidency as the presidential candidate of the Prohibition Party, getting votes in 17 states. And Smith had come even closer to the Oval office than that 12 years earlier when, as a young representative from Kentucky, he had lost the vote at the Republican Convention in Baltimore to be Lincoln's running mate. He had lost it by only one vote to Andrew Johnson. Had that One vote gone instead to Smith.

He rather than Johnson would have succeeded to the presidency upon Lincoln's assassination.

Well, all very fascinating sidelight, but we're not here this morning because of Greenclay Smith. We're here because of Jesus Christ. And the question before us this morning is was Jesus Christ a conservative? Now, certainly there are many today who have come to associate Christianity with conservative politics. We need think no further than the fundamentalist Baptist Jerry Falwell on the one hand, and the anti Christian ACLU on the other.

There's the Christian Coalition, the minister candidate, Pat Robertson, the Moral Majority. And we could go on and on and on. We know the assumptions all of our friends have about Christianity and politics. And so this morning as part of this series in introducing Jesus, as we look through the Gospel of John and ask questions about Jesus, I pose the question, was Jesus a conservative? Well, what's a conservative?

Fundamentally, it has nothing to do with present personalities. You know who upsets you more, the first lady or the speaker of the House?

Fundamentally, it's not about any current legislative agenda, whether it's about taxes or entitlement programs or defense spending. Well, then what is a conservative? Is a conservative just a liberal in a holding pattern? Are conservatives simply people who are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past? Woodrow Wilson said a conservative is a man who just sits and thinks mostly sits.

Ambrose Bierce defined a conservative as a statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from a liberal who wishes to replace them with others.

And then on the other hand, there's the British Prime Minister Disraeli in the last century who said, a man who is not a liberal at 16 has no heart. A man who is not a conservative at 60 has no head.

While a little less politically, Abraham Lincoln, in a speech given on February 27, 1860, posed the question, what is conservatism? To which he answered, is it not adherence to the old and tried against the new and untried? As diverse a collection of people as Will and Ariel Durant, Edmund Burke, FA Hayek have suggested that conservatism is simply resistance to change and support for the current system. The sort of better the devil you know than the devil you don't know mentality? Well, was Jesus a conservative?

Inquiring minds want to know.

We'll consider two questions to understand this. First, who was Jesus? Second, what was his agenda? What did he come to do? That's how we'll try to answer that question this morning from the Gospel of John.

And to do this, we'll be looking at three chapters of John's Gospel, chapters two, three and four. So I hope you didn't make dinner plans. They're found on pages 1110-1114 of your Pew Bibles. And you will be helped if you turn to that and follow along 1110 in your Pew Bible. These three chapters are composed of six fairly well known stories.

Two or three of them actually. Among the most famous stories about Jesus. There are two stories in each chapter. In chapter two, we have Jesus changing the water into wine at the wedding of Cana, and the story of Jesus clearing out the temple. In chapter three, we have the famous encounter of Jesus with Nicodemus, from which we get that phrase born again, and in which we find the most famous verse in the New Testament, John 3:16.

For God so greatly loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. That's Jesus encounter with Nicodemus. The second half of John 3 is John the Baptist's testimony about Jesus. And in chapter four is the famous conversation of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well that we read responsibly earlier in our service. And in the last few verses, the story of the healing of the royal official son.

So there they are. They're the six stories that we're going to look at this morning. The wedding at Cana, clearing the temple, Nicodemus, John the Baptist, the Samaritan woman at the well, and the healing of the official son. And it will be in these six stories this morning that we look in order to see how well Jesus fits the conservative stereotype many people have of Christianity today. Looking at these stories, we'll try to answer those two basic questions.

Who is Jesus and what's his agenda? And I can just say, if you're here this morning, fairly new to all this, a great book that we have on the book stall over there. So after the service, when we go over there, it's called Introducing Jesus. It's only $6. We import it from England.

It's one of the best introductions to Jesus I found. It just walks through the same Gospel of John and introduces the person reading it to what Jesus is like. So if you've got more questions about Jesus after the sermon, consider looking at this book afterwards. Also, we have a series of studies in the Gospel of Mark called Christianity Explained, where we meet for six sessions to go over some basic ideas of what the Gospel is. If you're interested in doing that Sometime speak to me after the service.

And I'd love to pull together another group of people to do that as well. Well, on with our study here. So who is Jesus? Does Jesus present himself as a kind of guerrilla warfare liberation theologian urging action against tyrannous Rome? Or is he the heir apparent to a large fortune?

Is he a social reformer or a defender of the status quo? Well, first let's look at the story of the wedding at Cana. Chapter two, verse one.

On the third day, a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus mother was there. And Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus mother said to him, they have no more wine. Dear woman, why do you involve me?

Jesus replied, my time is not yet come. His mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from 20 to 30 gallons. Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water. So they filled them to the brim.

Then he told them, now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after. The guests have had too much to drink, but you have saved the pest till now.

So from that story, who would you say Jesus is? Certainly a miracle worker, a wonder worker. I mean, it's no small thing to transform instantaneously 120 to 180 gallons of water into fine wine. The Gospels are consistent in presenting this part of the picture of who Jesus is. He had.

How would we express it? He had incredible authority over. Over nature. It seemed creation seems to bend at his will. He treats it like he's its master.

From changing weather patterns to altering the biological functions in an ailing body, Jesus speaks and his environment is controlled. But there's something else going on here as well. Did you notice that Jesus didn't just exercise control and so show his power, but. But that he made something better than it was.

Weddings then, like now, were an important time. It was a time for the family to sort of put on their best for a community. Those celebrations would typically last up to a week, with the host family being responsible for providing food and drink for all the guests for a week. Now, to run out of wine, the basic drink at such a time of Celebration was a social faux pas of the highest order. I mean, if that were to happen, such a mishap could make the family the brunt of jokes for years in a small community like this.

Oh, you remember the Johnsons. You remember what happened at that wedding. So with Mary's encouragement here, Jesus, like a good guest, he contributes his gifts to the celebrations to help them avoid embarrassment. And he then exercises publicly his power and does it to make something better as he changes the water into the needed wine, and apparently pretty good wine at that. If we look at the comment in verse 10 from the Master of the banquet, and in bringing this better along.

Second, as Jesus changes water into wine, perhaps we're to see something of the better covenant which Jesus is inaugurating.

But more than that must be happening as well. Look at verse 11. He thus revealed his glory.

When you think about it, what's really the point of this miracle of changing the water into wine? Some of the commentators in the books they write say this is a luxury miracle. They put this down as one of those somewhat pointless miracles. It seems like there's no point giving, making a lot of apparently pretty good wine for a bunch which was perhaps composed of somewhat overly sated wedding guests already. Well, there's no use in it, Jesus, if you've got miraculous powers, surely you can use them for something better than this.

Why? What's going on here? But you know, John the evangelist disagrees. He thought that there was a point to this miracle, so much so that he accorded it the first miracle that he recounts in his gospel. Well, what's the point?

Think for a moment. What do you think? What's the point of this miracle? John, in the way he recounts it, doesn't put the emphasis on the replacing of the water for Jewish purification. We could do a lot with that.

I could preach a great sermon on that. Or the wonder working, changing of the water into wine, just Jesus power itself or the symbolism of the wine itself. He doesn't place the emphasis on Mary or her intercession or why she intervened, or on the reaction of the head waiter or the groom. No, John places the emphasis on Jesus.

Look at verse 11. He thus revealed his glory and his disciples put their faith in him. Jesus revealed his glory to them. That is, he began to show them that he himself was the long prophesied Messiah, the one specially chosen by God in a way no one else would ever be.

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Well, in some sense analogous to that, the glory of Jesus Must have been in the eyes of the disciples there in a way which isn't immediately obvious to people today when they read this. Perhaps it was the symbolism of the ritual water being changed. Perhaps it's the physical miracle itself. In the end, we can't know what it was.

But something in that event was used by God to reveal Jesus to the disciples present. I say revealed by God because that's the only way the disciples ever seemed to understand exactly who Jesus was. It was by that, by God revealing it to them. Jesus, who he is, will always be the point of Christianity. As John Stott has written, Christianity is Christ.

The person and work of Christ are the rock upon which the Christian religion is built. If he is not who he said he was, and if he did not do what he had said he came to do, the foundation is undermined and the whole superstructure will collapse. Take Christ from Christianity and you disembowel it. There is practically nothing left. Christ is the center of Christianity.

All else is circumference. A recognition of who he is and a longing for his presence will so mark God's people that their attitude will be like that of Moses to the Lord back in Exodus 33. If your presence does not go with us, do not send us from here. Indeed, in the very next verse. It seems in Exodus 33 that it was this very presence of God which Moses was concerned to have, which was going to distinguish them from all the other people on the face of the earth.

Moses was concerned, so concerned we read that he desired to see God's glory in Exodus 33. But if you were to turn to that and read it this afternoon, you'd find that God in Exodus 33 only partially reveals his glory to Moses. But what didn't take place at the wilderness in Sinai during the Exodus did at this wedding feast at Cana of Galilee. The point of this miracle was Jesus revelation of his glory of himself to his disciples.

So we see in verse 11. Jesus became the object of their faith. This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory and his disciples put their faith in him. Let's go on through to the next story and see what we learn about Jesus from his going to the temple.

Look at verse 13. When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts, he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cat. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.

To those who sold doves, he said, get these out of here. How dare you turn my Father's house into a market. His disciples remembered that it is written, zeal for your Father's house will consume me. Then the Jews demanded of him, what miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this? Jesus answered, destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.

The Jews replied, It has taken 46 years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days. But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said then. They believed in the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. Now, while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name.

Two things immediately to notice about who Jesus is. First, in verse 16, there do you see how he refers to the Temple as my Father's house. My Father's house. Such a personal owning of God as his individual Father was a bit unusual, to say the least. In the Old Testament, we see the fatherly aspect of God as creator.

We see the fatherly aspect of God as the Creator of His own special people even. But to refer in such an individual way to God as His Father, thus justifying his actions in His Father's house, the Temple. This was unusual, maybe even unique. But even this was nothing compared to what was evidently Jesus teaching about the Temple. In the short, if you're looking at verse 19 to 2021, it's clear that he was teaching he was the new Temple.

That is, he was the new and the superior meeting place for God and man. Even as the Temple had been that meeting place, now Jesus was saying he Himself would be that meeting place. In that sense, Jesus was teaching the most radical change in God's relationship with his people since God first called Abraham as He was teaching that he was the replacement for the Temple. But now let's move on to Jesus. Conversation with Nicodemus.

In chapter three, we see that when Nicodemus comes to Jesus, he addresses him as rabbi and teacher. Look at chapter three, verse one.

Now, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him. In reply, Jesus declared, I tell you the truth. No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. How can a man be born when he is old?

Nicodemus asked. Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and to be born. Jesus answered, I tell you the truth. No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water. And the spirit?

Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying you must be born again. The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

How can this be? Nicodemus asked. You are Israel's teacher, said Jesus, and you do not understand these things? I tell you the truth. We speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen.

But still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things, and you do not believe. How then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven, the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

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.

Well, Nicodemus clearly recognizes Jesus as someone who's come from God. He says that in verse two there. But in verses 13 and 14 and 15 and 16, we see Jesus referring to himself as a lot more than what Nicodemus called him. He's the one from heaven. There in verse 13, sort of similarly to what Nicodemus had said.

But also, look there. He refers to himself as the Son of Man. We thought about that title last week. You remember? That's not a humble title.

I'm just dust. I'll return to dust. It's the most magnificent title in the Old Testament from Daniel, chapter seven, where one who appears like a son of man receives all the authority of God and his word worshipped. And then there in verses 16 and 18, as God's only Son, as the light in verses 19 to 21. But the climax of it all, I think, is found in the testimony of John the Baptist in the second half of chapter three.

Look at verse 22.

After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into Judea, into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them and baptized. Now, John was also baptizing at Aenon, near Salem, because there Was plenty of water. That's a good Baptist text, by the way. And people were constantly coming to be baptized. This was before John was put in prison.

An argument developed between some of John's disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. They came to John and said to him, rabbi, the man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan, the one you testified about, well, he is baptizing and everyone is going to him. To this John replied, a man can receive only what is given him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that. I said, I am not the Christ, but am sent ahead of him.

The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine and it is now complete.

Verse 29 is the key to understanding who Jesus is. The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy says, john is mine and it is now complete. You see who Jesus is?

Jesus is the bridegroom. Jesus is the one who has come to take his people as his own, finally to consummate their relationship. He has come with all the imagery that has from the Old Testament. One of the most common ways of depicting Yahweh the Lord in the Old Testament is as the bridegroom, the husband of his people, Israel. Again and again in the prophets, Israel is chastised for being unfaithful and idolatrous, committing spiritual adultery, going whoring after other gods, but always unfaithful.

Israel has a faithful husband in God who goes and in his mercy continues to seek her friends. This is who Jesus was. This is what Jesus came to do. He came as the bridegroom. That's what John the Baptist is confessing here.

When you see this, this whole passage begins to look differently. I mean, going back to the wedding at Cana, we can see more how there he revealed his glory. He had come as the bridegroom to take his people for himself. So, of course, he begins with the wedding celebration. Of course.

This is the way to begin a public ministry. This is Jesus wedding reception. He is the bridegroom come to take his people. This was, if you will, Jesus inaugural ball. This is it.

He's here. He's arrived, the guest of honor, the one for whom we've been waiting. Because Jesus is not just another friend of the bride's as John the Baptist and every Old Testament prophet had been, Jesus came as the husband of the bride, the bridegroom himself. That's who Jesus is. And so what did he come to do?

He came to bring eternal life. That's it. In short, that's what Jesus came to do. Listen again to that verse in chapter 3, verse 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.

And again in verse 36, at the end of chapter three, John the Baptist says, whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him. So Jesus came as the bridegroom of his people, to bring his people life. And he would go where? Right after the wedding celebration, he would go to the very center of his relationship with his people, to the temple for the great celebration. And yet, what does he find there?

That his father's house had become a market. They were not waiting to welcome him. In fact, when he came to his own, there the immediate reception was nothing other than sharp conflict. On the whole, the temple seemed to miss it. And then in chapter three, you have a great teacher of Israel.

Surely someone who's been looking for the coming of the bridegroom, who knows the Scriptures, who will recognize the Messiah when he comes. Nicodemus, too, should have clearly received Jesus as the bridegroom of his people. But instead, at least so far, Nicodemus didn't seem to get it. Jesus is a rabbi. He is a teacher.

Making strange, enigmatic claims, Nicodemus steeped in the inspired writings which spoke of the Messiah, the coming prophet. Like Moses, the coming of the Lord. Nicodemus sat and heard with his own ears the words of Jesus and was confused. He looked Jesus in the face and didn't recognize him.

Remember what John said back in chapter 1, verse 10? He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

After Herbert Hoover left the White House, his name was no longer a household word. Once he was vacationing up in a small Canadian resort when he signed the hotel register. The clerk was obviously impressed. Any relation to G Man Hoover? He asked, referring to J.

Edgar Hoover. No, hoover said. How about the Hoover that makes those vacuum cleaners again? The former president said no. Oh well, said the clerk.

No harm done. We do get a kick, though, out of entertaining relatives of real celebrities.

Now we can imagine that maybe a president past his glory, gone out of office for a while. But that's not here. That's not what this story is. What if President Clinton should turn up to the inaugural celebrations on Monday? Then no one seemed to care.

No one seemed to recognize him. Regardless of your political affiliation, whether or not you would rejoice at that or be deeply hurt, that would just be absurd, wouldn't it? The whole thing has been prepared, in a sense, for him. Ah, friends, that amount of preparation is nothing compared to what God put into his people, Israel for receiving the coming of the Messiah. And yet when he came to his own, his own, we see, received him not.

But the promise goes on in verse 12 of chapter one. But John went on to say, he came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God. So who received him as a bridegroom? Who believed in him?

Well, his disciples, we know verse 11, it says in chapter 2, he thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.

Many of the people, the sort of hoi polloi in Jerusalem apparently in chapter 2, verse 23 believed in his name, we read, but on the whole his own didn't receive him. And that's where chapter four comes into it. Chapter four is that well known story you know of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Well, in this conversation, which will not take time to read right now, Jesus converses with what many would consider a rather unlikely person to be the focus of Jesus attention. Unlikely because she was a woman.

And a good Jewish rabbi shouldn't be seen talking alone to a woman. Secondly, because he was a Samaritan, a good Jew shouldn't be seen talking to a Samaritan. And third, because this Samaritan woman was apparently not of very good repute anyway. So even a good respectable Samaritan shouldn't be seen talking to this woman alone, but in conversation with her. Jesus says in chapter four, verse 23, he says that 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.

So when she said in verse 25, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us. Then Jesus declared, I who speak to you am he.

This woman, it seems, and many through her initial testimony came to believe. We read verse 39. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me everything I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them.

And he stayed two days. And because of his words, many more became believers. They said to the woman, 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.

And then there is that little story which concludes this chapter. The story of someone else who perceives the identity of Jesus and takes him at his word. This is a brief account of a worried parent. Look at verse 46 at the end of chapter 4, verse 46.

Once more, Jesus visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lies sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death. Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, Jesus told him, you will never believe. The royal official said, sir, come down before my child dies.

Jesus replied, you may go. Your son will live. The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, the fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.

Then the Father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, your son will live. So he and all his household believed.

Now this person, this royal official, was an official in the court of the tetrarch, Herod Antipas. He's not exactly the kind of person the Jewish public liked. He was seen to be a self seeking compromiser in many ways. Probably wealthy, worldly, very gentile in his culture, and not very religious. And yet, when we look at it, what do we see here?

In verse 50, the man took Jesus at his word, departed.

And then in verse 53, so he and all his household believed. He came unto his own and his own received him not. But to whoever believes in his name, even Samaritans and Herodians. So the temple and the teachers miss it when the bridegroom comes. But the Samaritans and the despised Herodians, they see it and they accept him.

So summary. Then this passage begins and ends with a picture. And these two pictures tell us a lot about Jesus. The first picture is this wedding. It's here that Jesus began to reveal who he was.

As his wedding Feast. As he came as the bridegroom of his people and the Savior of the world. So did you notice that phrase there in chapter 2, verse 11? This the first of his miraculous signs Jesus performed in Canaan, Galilee. The second picture is the final story, the healing of the official son.

It's here that Jesus showed what he came to do. He came to bring life. And that raising of that official son is the picture of it we read throughout our passage this morning. Everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 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.

So here in the last story, in chapter four, he gives life. And if you think that's just a preacher making up a good illustration, look at verse 54 in chapter four, the last verse of the chapter. This was the second miraculous sign that Jesus performed. Having come from Judea to Galilee, John is telling us this is who Jesus was and this is what Jesus came to do. So was Jesus a conservative?

Well, it depends on what you mean. If you mean what Jesus meant Republican, I leave that to your animated lunchtime conversations.

But if you mean with Jesus for the status quo, I think the answer is clearly no. The old covenant, the old hiddenness of God, the old temple, the old way of doing religious business, the old life, the old flesh birth, the old way of ethnic and political barriers, all of these are part of the status quo that Jesus opposed and in fact that he came to radically replace.

Now, none of us this morning have exactly the same status quo that Jesus came to replace. The old temple of Jerusalem was destroyed just a few years after this account. But we have our own ethnic divisions, we have our own parallels to the Jews and the Samaritans. Jesus opposes those most of all. We all need the same new life that Jesus came to bring and of which he spoke about to Nicodemus.

I've always been struck by the fact that when Jesus talks to this respected religious leader, he says that he needs a new life. And when he talks to this despised Samaritan woman, He says that she needs a new life. Whether he's talking to the people who are most self satisfied or least, most respectable or least, his message is clear and it echoes to every single one of us who would virtuously sit in church on Sunday morning. You have not lived a life that is worthy of God's pleasure.

We need a Savior. We need the new birth that Jesus has come to give.

Jesus came to bring us a fresh start. You know, at Presidential inaugurations every four years. It's common to use the language of rebirth to talk about some kind of national or cultural rebirth or renewal. And I'm sure some of you have been members of this church 60 and 70 years, have seen rebirth after rebirth after rebirth after rebirth, after rebirth after rebirth. And they can all probably begin to look pretty similar.

But Jesus is talking about something different. Jesus is talking about a renewal and a rebirth which is far more radical and fundamental in the change it brings than any elected official ever can. Jesus is talking about a change that's at the very root and the very core of us, a rebirth which is real and which has already been experienced by many of us who are here this morning. If this language sounds strange to you, talk to someone you came with. Talk to the person next to you.

Find me afterwards. It's the beginning of a new life through faith in him, in which Jesus forgives our sins, in which God is reconciled to us and adopts us as his children, in which he puts his spirit in us and begins to make us look more and more like Him. It's not simply a reassembling of our old selves, a kind of moral conservatism which merely says, return to what you know to be the case. Get on living like you know you should. No, it is a radical change in which God pours out his spirit, a person, making them a new person in Christ, giving us a new identity in Christ.

Jesus is not here just to hold your hand or to teach your mind. He is here to change your heart, to give you a new life and a new birth. And that is good news. That is tremendous news. If you want to change, if you don't want to change, if you don't want to see your life rearranged at all, you won't like Jesus very much.

Jesus begins with a new Christian and changing them entirely, giving them a new birth. And do you know what he does? He keeps on doing that. He continues to challenge those of us who are his children, who are following him. He continues to move into new areas of our lives.

But that's the only basis we have for hope. Maybe you're at one of those strange times in your life when you're entirely satisfied with every aspect of your life. You could be. There are good times that do roll. You may be one of those rolled people right now.

In a group this large, there may be five or ten of you.

My guess, he is. Most of us here are painfully aware of some things that we would like to see change. Many of them things that may be so deep that we have even given up hope of them ever changing.

You're the ones Jesus is speaking to this morning. You are the very ones to whom he is offering hope.

He has come as the bridegroom to give eternal life to his people. And if you believe in him, you are one of his people. He has come for you. Regardless of political affiliation or ethnic origin. Whoever believes in him has eternal life.

Let's pray together.

Father, we don't know why you should concern yourself with this small group of people gathered here on a Sunday morning.

Lord, we know there are millions and billions of other people around the world. And yet we rejoice in the fact that you give attention to us, that you care for us, that you desire us to know this great news about Jesus. We pray that you would help each one of us to understand who Jesus is for us. Lord. Do that, we pray.

Break our pride and give us hope for your name's glory. We ask it through Jesus Christ, our bridegroom and the Savior of the world. Amen.