Focus: A Detribalized Jesus!

Text: Jh.4:4

"And he must needs go through Samaria."

In the time of Christ it was hard to travel to Galilee from Judea without passing through Samaria. What most Jews did was try their best to avoid a group of colonists who they regarded as being less than worthy members of the house of Israel. There were also Jews who determined to avoid Samaria by all means, and they did so by traveling around it. But the Lord Jesus Christ would do no such thing, for He came into the world to do the will of God, not to play any racial or ethnic card. 

Jesus Christ was a non-tribalistic person. He had no racial proclivity. He possessed no tribal tendencies in His bloodstream. So John tells us that He MUST go through Samaria. Jesus Christ was a man for everyone and for every tribe. He is every man's man - a man for all humanity. He acknowledged Himself as "the Son of Man," not the son of a man or the son of some man.

John the Baptist declares, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the WORLD" (Jh.1:29). The people of Samaria said to the woman of Samaria, "This is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the WORLD" (Jh.4:42). In John 12:47, Jesus Christ says that He came "to save the WORLD."

The beloved John says, "And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole WORLD" (1Jh.2:2). Again he says, "And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the WORLD" (1Jh.4:4). In John's Gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ introduced Himself to the people as the Bread of life, and said that "the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the WORLD," and He talked about giving His flesh "for the life of the WORLD" (Jh.6:33,51). The Lord Jesus Christ says, "I am the light of the world… As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the WORLD" (Jh.8:12; 9:5). Jesus Christ is God's man for the world. The Scripture says, "For God so loved the WORLD, that he gave his only begotten Son…" (Jh.3:16). 

God is the God of the world and He loves His world, and He would do anything to save it from utter ruin. God is never tribal, and neither is Christ Himself. The world is Christ's parish.

He came into the world to save it. The man who said, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel," ended up in saving a non-Jewish woman and her daughter (Mt.15:24).

In Christ there is neither male nor female, neither Jews nor Gentiles, and certainly, there is neither bond nor free. In Christ all believers are one. Racial or tribal discrimination in the church is sad reality. It should not be tolerated or allowed to fester. Your color, sex or race means nothing to God. 

What is of utmost essence is the image of God which we bear. Whatever is of the flesh is offensive to Christ. What you are in the flesh is not as important as what you are in Christ. It is so sad to see God's people bickering about fleshly or carnal things - things of no spiritual value! Let us break the yoke of religious and racial bigotry in the house of God, and appreciate our oneness in Christ. Amen!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter