When Hope Seems Like A Four Letter Word

By: Rev. Steve Bass

Sunday, November 23, 1997

• Zacchaeus(Luke 19:1-10 NIV)
  
  {1}Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. {2} A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.
  {3} He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd.
  {4} So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
  {5} When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today."
  {6} So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
  {7} All the people saw this and began to mutter, "He has gone to be the guest of a 'sinner.'"
  {8} But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount."
  {9} Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.
  {10} For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."
  
  
• The woman at the well of Sychar(John 4:4-29 NIV)
  
  {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 the sixth hour.
  {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 flocks and herds?"
  {13} Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
  {14} 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."
  {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 fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
  {21} Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, 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 spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
  {24} God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in 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 who speak to you 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 Christ?"
  
  
• The man at the pool of Bethsehda(John 5:1-9 NIV)
  
  {1}Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews.
  {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} and they waited for the moving of the waters. From time to time an angel of Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had.
  {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
  
  
• The woman caught in adultery(John 8:1-11 NIV)
  
  {1}But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
  {2} At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.
  {3} The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group
  {4} and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.
  {5} In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?"
  {6} They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.
  {7} When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."
  {8} Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
  {9} At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.
  {10} Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
  {11} "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."