402 How to Tell If It's A Scam

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “How to Tell If It’s A Scam”, originally shared on March 4, 2026. It was the 402^nd  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   There are lots of ways that you can get scammed these days. How can you tell when an offer is real and when it is a scam? Today, we’re going to find out.

   People say that you can’t cheat a cheater. They already know all the tricks.

   People also say that you can only cheat a cheater. Because scammers are blinded by arrogance, while honest people know that they can’t get something for nothing.

   People say that they have learned from experience. “Once bitten twice shy.” Or, “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.”

   People say lots of things.

   H. L. Menken once said, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

   People get scammed for lots of reasons, simple and complex. They are desperate. They think that they are smarter than everyone else. The possibility of good fortune blinds them to everything else.

   Or, maybe they were raised to believe that everyone is out to cheat them, so they can’t tell a grifter from a go-getter. Maybe they have had bad experiences in life that lead them to think that everyone is out to take advantage of them, so they cheat themselves out of good experiences.

   It’s not easy for anyone to tell if they are being scammed.

   So, a reasonable person couldn’t be blamed for thinking that the woman in the Gospel reading that will be shared in the vast majority of churches in the world this coming Sunday, John 4:5-42, would have thought that she was being scammed. By Jesus.

   What if someone offered to give you a kind of water that would make it so that you would never be thirsty again? Would you accept it? Would you think it was a scam? It sounds like the guy offering magic beans to Jack for the family cow, doesn’t it? How would you respond to the offer of that “living water”?

   We’ve had two significant rainstorms this season. Both brought floods to the burn areas and snow to the mountains. The melting snow brought more floods, following the pull of gravity and flowing down in streams. It cascaded into culverts, control channels, and fields and catch-basins, percolating into aquifers. And some flowed into the ocean.

   That’s what people in Bible times called “living water”.

   “Living water” means water that is moving, like rapids, like fast-moving rivers. “Living water” is found in both the Old and New testaments of the Bible as a metaphor for the Holy Spirit in places like the Bible’s book of Jeremiah, where God speaks through the prophet Jeremiah to the southern kingdom of Judah, just before it falls to the Babylonians, in Jeremiah 2:12-13,

¹² Be appalled, O heavens, at this,
    be shocked, be utterly desolate,
says the Lord,
¹³ for my people have committed two evils:
    they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
    and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns
    that can hold no water.

   Jesus speaks to the people gathered in Jerusalem for a religious festival at the Temple and we see, in John 7:37-39, Jesus’ use of “living water” as a metaphor,

³⁷ On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, ³⁸ and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” ³⁹ Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

   We can still see a little snow in the foothills, waiting to melt and become living water. “Living water” is untamed, not bound by our expectations, like the winter wind, like the melting snow.

   It’s like the third person of the Trinity, the personal presence of the one God transforming, challenging, calling, equipping, and sending us through turbulent times on the course that leads to receiving eternal life.

   When the pandemic got to the point where we were pretty much confined to our homes in 2020, Sally and I decided to produce videos of encouragement that would provide a means to reflect on what it meant to be a Christian in the LA area and beyond. We called them “Streams of Living Water”, because we were never alone in the Holy Spirit and, well, the videos were being streamed, get it? 😊 Those developed into a blog, “Words of Living Water”, and a podcast, “Living Water Radio.” Do we see the common theme there? We are doing our 402^nd episode of each this week.

   In today’s main Gospel reading, John 4:5-42, Jesus speaks to a Samaritan woman, a follower of the Samaritan religion, at a water well, about the nature of the Christian faith, and specifically about living water.                          

   Samaria was a foreign nation in the middle of Israel. It had been formed, mostly, by the Assyrian Empire when the Assyrians conquered the northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C.

   The war that is going on in the middle east right now has been going on in one form or another for several thousand years. Our war with Iran has been going on, in one form or another, for 47 years.

   Conquest and colonization have been going on for a long time everywhere, sometimes self-destructively, as with Assyria’s conquest of the Northern Kingdom of Israel more than 700 years before Christ.

   Assyria had mixed the populations from throughout its conquered territories to prevent unity and rebellion, but many were no longer Assyrian. The result in Israel was “Samaria”.

   The Samaritans had retained enough of their Judaism to look a little bit familiar to the Jews, but they were not Jews. They were Samaritans. They were a hodgepodge of religions. They were a temptation to the Jews to be something else.

   Observant Jews were not supposed to even set foot in Samaritan territory. Jews traveling from Galilee, where Jesus was based, to Jerusalem, where the Temple was, were expected to walk to the other side of the Jordan River and then walk around, the long way.

   Observant male Jews were also not supposed to speak with a woman in public, not even with their wives.

   So, what is Jesus doing in Samaria, talking to a woman who we find out later has a questionable reputation, in a public place, with no one else around?

   Let’s take a look at the beginning of the passage, in John 4:5-8,

5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)

   We know that our current rainy season, such as it is, will be followed by a dry season, and that all these green hills will soon be brown. Oops, sorry, I meant “golden”. That’s what we say in California, right? 😊

   Israel has a climate much like that of Southern California, though it didn’t have irrigation back then. People had to draw water from cisterns in which they had stored water under their homes during the rainy season and from wells during the really dry season.

   Women usually went out to the local well to draw and carry water to their homes early in the morning, while it was still cool. This was a time when they could be with other adult women and exchange information and the news of the village.

   We find later in this reading that the Samaritan woman who Jesus has been speaking with at the well has been married five times, and that the man she was with is not her husband. Now, we don’t know the circumstances behind these marriages. She may have been divorced by each of her 5 husbands or widowed 5 times. But, given that she’s out at the well by herself in the middle of the day, there may be something to say for her not being very popular among the other women in the city.

   So, this particular Samaritan woman came to the well and unexpectedly found Jesus there alone as his disciples had gone into the city to buy food. He was tired, and Jesus spoke to her and asked her for a drink of water. What was he thinking?!

   The drama continues with John 4:9-14,

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 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.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

   The woman wanted that water. I’m guessing that she did not like going to the well at noon by herself, and that she was starting to realize that Jesus was offering more to her than avoiding shame and inconvenience. Much more.

   That well, Jacob’s well, is still producing water. I drank from that well when I studied in Israel. Back then there was just a bucket and a ladle that everyone who wanted could drink from. I’m sure it’s different now, but it does give us a strong image for what’s happening with Jesus’ revelation to the Samaritan woman.

   Jesus is in Samaria to show that God’s living water, the Holy Spirit, is for everyone. Everyone. Not just the Jewish people, but for gentiles, even for Samaritans and people like us.

   In the course of their conversation, Jesus asks the woman to go and get her husband, and when the woman says that she has no husband, Jesus tells her that he already knows about her marital history.

   Was that awkward for her? Yes.

   Have you ever lived in a place where you were a religious minority. Well, I suppose that we all have if we are living today, as Christians, in an increasingly non-Christian, even hostile, world. To cope, we often seek to be blindly inclusive and accepting, even to the point of being reluctant to share the good news of the living water that gushes up to eternal life for fear of appearing “unwelcoming”. We go along to get along.

   That’s why I think that this exchange between the Samaritan woman and Jesus is so shocking to our 21^st century ears as well as to the Samaritan woman. The woman deflects attention from herself and changes the subject. She calls Jesus a prophet. She points to their religious differences  and Jesus does nothing to accommodate them.

   Jesus replies, in John 4:21-26,

   21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

   We sometimes hear from people with a vague sense that they need to be more than they are, but don’t want to change, that they are “spiritual but not religious”.

   Jesus doesn’t give us that option. In fact, Jesus doesn’t give us either option.  Christian faith is not about us.

   Gas is selling at around $5.00 a gallon here. At the same time, you can buy a gallon of diet coke for between $4.00 and $7.00. Of course, you can’t run your car on diet coke, but I’ve known people with serious diet coke needs, even addictions. 😊

   What we are willing to pay for something depends upon our needs, and on what’s going on around us. Some people think that they are poor if they don’t own what were considered luxuries a generation or two ago. Many people’s expectations for a minimally acceptable material life has grown to owning things like a cell phone, a home computer, and a big screen TV with lots of streaming services, things that people didn’t know that they needed for thousands of years.

   Others are just hustling for a dollar. They know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. They seek more things for no other purpose than to fill the emptiness within them that they cannot name. But that we can. And that Jesus paid to fill when he paid for our sins on the cross.

   The Samaritan woman had been defined by her failed relationships. Some of us are ruled by our failures. We have not been the people we want to be, both in what we have done and in what we have left undone.

   And when we have messed up the devil says, “You failed! What a hypocrite! You aren’t a Christian. Why pretend? Give up!”

   But that’s not the Word of God, that’s the word of the devil. That’s the word of the forces that defy God.

   God’s answer to us and to the Samaritan woman is that we have been given a Savior, the Messiah, Christ the Lord.

   The Good News, the Gospel, the Word of God says, “Jesus died for you. Jesus overcame temptation, sin, death, and the power of the devil, for you.”

   Some others are ruled by their fears

   Why don’t they turn to God’s perfect love that casts out fear, to the living, eternal relationship with the one true living God for which they were created? I think that the reason is “sin”, what Martin Luther called being “curved in upon ourselves.”

   Most people in this world are focused on themselves, on their pleasures, on their material security. They are worried about the economy, that our country seems to be coming apart at the seams, that we are devolving into conflicting tribes, that we can’t talk with each other anymore, that A. I. will take away their jobs and their dignity as human beings, that their health or their health insurance coverage will fail, that the zombie apocalypse is inching closer and that they are powerless against what they fear is coming. And now we are facing the possibility of another world war!

   They might remember the bumper sticker that said, “Even paranoids have real enemies.”  And they look at the world and they realize, “Yes. We have real enemies.”

   Like the Samaritan woman, we are now at a crossroads. We are in the season of Lent. Lent is a time to reconsider the necessity of the things we can’t buy.

   Instead, some of us are being ruled by false beliefs about God, like the Samaritan woman. Jesus doesn’t talk to her about inclusion here. Jesus offers her an alternative in the truth. Jesus himself. Jesus is the truth.

   Our salvation has been paid in full at the cross! There is nothing more valuable than that, and it’s free. It casts out our failures, our fears, and our false beliefs forever and puts Jesus Christ in their place. It is revealed by the Holy Spirit, the living water at work within us!

   How do we convey that message to people who walk in the darkness of false belief every day and don’t know it? Jesus is pretty direct with the Samaritan women, even offensive to our ears. Why?

   We say that Christianity is not a religion, it’s a transformational relationship. It is personal and it is particular.

   It doesn’t come to people and nations from the West, or from the East, or from the North or from the South. Christianity comes to all people from above.

   Jesus does not mince words about what truth is. It isn’t a proposition; it is a person.

   But suddenly the disciples return from their shopping trip, and their first reaction is that they are astonished that Jesus was speaking with a woman.

   The woman, an outcast among outcasts, living a separate existence within Israel, and a seemingly separate existence within Samaria, pays no attention to them and returns to her village and fearlessly shares what she has encountered in Jesus, and that he might be the Messiah.

   Jesus’ disciples seem to be concerned only with Jesus’ immediate physical needs.

   Jesus refocuses their attention toward Jesus’ mission, and that of his disciples (and ours), and what was happening right in front of them.

   The Samaritan woman is telling her community about Jesus! She is evangelizing!

   Our Gospel reading concludes in John 4:39-42,

³⁹ Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. ⁴¹ And many more believed because of his word. ⁴² They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

   I saw on the news once that 6” of moving water can knock a person over, and that 12” of moving water can sweep away a motor vehicle.

   Living water is powerful, and the streams of living water within us, that is the Holy Spirit, is powerful. It transforms lives. It endures forever.

   It’s how we know when the devil, the world, and our sinful selves are scamming us. When they tell us that we are not enough, that we need more stuff, that we should fear what, in fact, has no ultimate control over us. None.

   God has always known everything we have ever done, and yet he has died on the cross for us. The Holy Spirit opens the hearts of all who will receive the living presence of God, the living water, and makes us a new creation by the water of baptism and the Word of God.

   This Lent, seek this water, this living water, gushing up to eternal life, the power of the Holy Spirit within you that opens your heart to receive the gifts of faith and the water of baptism and tell people you know, people who trust you, about what Jesus has done for you. He is truly the Savior of the world. 

401 Making it Fresh

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Making it Fresh”, originally shared on February 25, 2026. It was the 401^st  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

    What is old and stale to the world is new and fresh to us. How can we make the gospel of Jesus Christ fresh for those in darkness? Today, we’re going to find out.

   The Milan/Cortina winter Olympics are over. They went out with a bang last Sunday, not with the closing ceremonies, which was a quasi worship service with pagan overtones, but with the men’s hockey game. What a firecracker!

   And now, we’re in Olympics withdrawal, except that we in the LA area have the World Cup to look forward to this year, the Super Bowl next year, and the LA Olympics coming the year after that, in 2028 That’s just two years from now!

   My wife Sally has many happy memories of the last time the Olympic Games were held in LA, in 1984, as she was a chaplain for the games. She still has her Olympics uniform and shoes and a variety of souvenirs. We were newlyweds then, and we remember her bringing home the box lunches they provided and sharing them together for dinner most days.

   We’ve thought of applying as a husband/wife team to be among the chaplains for LA28, because we’d be adorable, but, you know, we’re old people now, and they’ll probably be looking for a different demographic. 😊  

   This week’s reading from the Gospels that will be shared in the vast majority of churches in the world this coming Sunday, John 3:1-17, contains the Olympics, the World Cup, the Super Bowl, and more, wrapped-up into one great, exciting, world-altering, mind-boggling, life-changing ball of Good News!

   And, for many of us, it’s just one big yawn! Why? Because it’s become background noise. It’s what 16^th century Church reformer Martin Luther called, “the Gospel in miniature”. It’s the verse of the Bible that, if you only knew one by heart, that’s the one you would know.

   It’s a verse that we’ve heard for as long as we’ve been Christians, and for some even before we became Christians. It seems so common to us that we would not be faulted if we believed that everyone knew it.

   They don’t. And the numbers that do are getting smaller every day.

   It’s John 3:16,

¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 

   It’s about hope, but so many people are filled with fear. Why don’t they turn to the living relationship with the one true living God for which they were created, and for which they can be saved? I think that the reason is “sin”, what Martin Luther called being “curved in upon oneself.”

   Most people in this world are focused on themselves, on their pleasures, on their material security. They are worried about the economy, that our country seems to be coming apart at the seams, that we are devolving into conflicting tribes, that we can’t talk with each other anymore, that their health or their health insurance coverage will fail, that the zombie apocalypse is inching closer and that they are powerless against what they fear is coming.

   They might remember the bumper sticker that said, “Even paranoids have real enemies.”  And they look at the world and they realize, “Yes. We have real enemies.”

   And today’s Gospel reading is focused on the answer to all those concerns.

   Here are four ways to make the Gospel fresh again, a bed sheet, a young woman losing her faith, signs of faith all around us, and the context of John 3:16 in today’s Gospel reading.

   First, be the bridge. Be the bridge to someone you know who is struggling or indifferent spiritually. You are believable to people who trust you. You have the ability to change lives forever, as Jesus did for Nicodemus.

   Sometimes, I have put a sheet over a chair before a worship service where I am preaching and placed it someplace where it can be seen. During the sermon, I ask for a volunteer to come forward. I say that I’m looking for someone who is willing to risk public humiliation and personal injury while getting no reward at all. A volunteer comes forward. I tell them that there is a chair under the sheet. I ask them to sit down without hesitation. Eventually, they do. They do so because I am a credible witness to them.

   Second, Jesus welcomed Nicodemus. Make your church a specifically Christian community,  focused on the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ for all people, and have a plan for bring people from Zero to Christian. Be strong in faith in order to support the weak in faith.

   Maybe you are struggling with belief yourself, or you want to believe but are not sure, or you know someone like Nicodemus who is.

   Pastor Will Willimon is a Methodist pastor, who has also been a seminary professor, a  university chaplain, the Methodist equivalent of a bishop and is a fine preacher. He tells the story of a young woman who was a member of a congregation he served who made an appointment to see him during the week. She came by his office and said, “Pastor Willimon, I just wanted to say that I won’t be coming to church anymore. I’ve been struggling with my faith for a while, and I just realized that I can’t do it anymore. I appreciate everything that you and the church members have done for me, and I didn’t want to just drift away. I just came to say goodbye.”

   Pastor Willimon tried to address her struggles and encourage her to continue, but she was having none of it. And the next Sunday she was back at worship. And the Sunday after that. And the Sunday after that.

   Finally, Pastor Willimon asked if she could stop by his office again, and she agreed. Pastor Willimon said, “Aren’t you the same person who came by and said that she no longer had faith and wouldn’t be coming to worship anymore?” She smiled and said, “Yes.” “Well then, I’m happy to see you, but could you tell me what happened?” he said.

   “Well,” she answered, “It came to me that sometimes, if you can’t believe for yourself, you have to be with people who will believe for you.”

   Sometimes, we just have to lean on the community when we are feeling weak. That’s why we are here.

   Third, point to the fact that we are not alone in our culture. Point to the presence of the Gospel all around us, like the wind, like God’s faithfulness to God’s people, Israel.

   Contemporary Country artist Jelly Roll gave a powerful testimony to the grace of God in his acceptance speech at the Grammy Awards this year. Savanah Gutherie has maintained a stalwart, explicitly Christian public faith in the unimaginable horror of her mother’s unexplained abduction.

   In-N-Out burger president Linsi Snyder has maintained the presence of Bible verses on 11 of their products, in spite of calls to make her products and packaging  more broadly community friendly. I once did a mid-week Lenten series on them. Turn over a soda cup, for example, and guess what’s printed on the inside rim? John 3:16.

   Finally, make the Gospel a lived reality. You can’t give away what you don’t have. Jesus marveled that Nicodemus, a teacher of Israel, didn’t understand what it meant to be born again from the heart and to live the transformed life by God’s grace.

   Suppose you heard that Jesus was hanging out at a home in your neighborhood, and you went there, and they let you in? Suppose you got to see Jesus face-to-face, and you could ask him anything you wanted? What would you ask Him?

   We waited for the clouds to lift this week, and then they did. And we had a spectacular view of the snow up in the mountains. It was like being in Switzerland!

   There are times in life, too, when the clouds lift, and we see things as they are.

   Nicodemus had that experience because he asked questions.

   Nicodemus was “a Pharisee” and “a leader of the Jews,” a member of the ruling Sanhedrin. He appears two more times in the Gospel of John, once to appeal for due process for Jesus, and again to help prepare Jesus’ body for burial.

   He was a man who had earned the respect of his people. Jesus, on the other hand, was unknown to most of them, a poor itinerant teacher, a miracle worker who some were saying was the One, the Messiah, the deliverer for whom the Jews had been waiting for 1,000 years.

   Nicodemus was drawn to Jesus, but he had a reputation to protect, after all.

   So, he came to talk with Jesus at night. Yes, Nic at night! 😊

   The reading begins with verses 1 and 2,

¹Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. ²He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” ³Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

   Have you ever seen any of the “Back to the Future” movies?

   O’Reilly Auto Parts sells, well, auto parts. If you go to their website (oreillyauto.com) and search for “121g” you’ll be taken to a page with a picture of a flux capacitor, some product information, and then this:

 

Detailed Description

• Time Travel at your own RISK!
• Plutonium is required to properly operate the flux capacitor
• Plutonium is used by the onboard nuclear reactor which then powers the flux capacitor to provide the needed 1.21 gigawatts of electrical power.
• Plutonium not available at O'Reilly Auto Parts. Please contact your local plutonium supplier.
• Flux capacitor requires the stainless steel body of a 1981-1983 DeLorean DMC-12 to properly function.
• Once the time machine travels at 88 mph (142 km/h), light coming from the flux capacitor pulses until it becomes a steady stream of light at which point time travel begins!

   Oh, the page also says, at the top, “This item is not available for purchase.”

   It’s kind of funny because we know it’s not real.

   That’s what Nicodemus wanted to know about Jesus. Is Jesus the Messiah or some kind of joke? Is he real, is he the One?

   He recognizes Jesus as “a teacher who comes from God” because of the signs he has done, which require the power of God.

   Jesus’ miracles are often referred to as “signs” in the gospel of John. Do you know what a sign is? It’s something that points to something else. Miracles in the Bible are signs that point backward, to the way God intended the world to be in Creation, and forward to the way things will be in the new heaven and the new earth that is to come.

   In this situation, Nicodemus thinks, they point to God in some way. But Nicodemus bases his respect for Jesus on what Jesus has done, not on who He is.

   Jesus rejects that explanation and takes the conversation in a totally different direction.

   He tells Nicodemus that no one can “see” the circumstances in which God reigns without being “born from above” or, in some translations, “born again,” or “born anew”. What is he talking about?

   The questions and replies continue in verses 4-8,

 ⁴Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. ⁶What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ ⁸The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

   Nicodemus responds with an image that I think must be a horror show to any mother (“Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”)

   Jesus describes the necessity of birth, but in terms of the transformational relationship with the one true living God that comes from the gift of faith, the new birth.

   Being born from above, or again, or anew is being born of the Spirit.

   It is the new birth that comes from God alone.

   Both the Greek language, in which the New Testament was written, and the Hebrew language, in which the Old Testament was written, have one word with the same three meanings.

   “Pneuma” in Greek (from which we get the words pneumonia and pneumatic) and “Ruach” in Hebrew can each mean “wind”, or “breath”, or “spirit”.

   The Spirit is like the wind. You can’t see it, but you can see its effect on things. You don’t see wind, you feel it when it hits you, you see the trees move and the dust in the air. When speaking of God, it’s important not to confuse one with the other, the effect with the essence.

   That’s what the Pharisees, like Nicodemus, had done. They had confused the letter of the religious law with the spirit of it. The Law had become an end in itself and not a means to an end. It had become something to be accomplished, not the belief, or “faith” that makes us a new creation in a new birth, born from above, that then produces what we do in life.

   The Christian faith is not achieved, it is received.

   Confused? So was Nicodemus. We see Nicodemus’ confusion and Jesus’ response in verses 9-15,

 ⁹Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? ¹¹“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. ¹²If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

   Here comes the main point. The people of Israel wandering in the wilderness after their liberation from Egypt had been experiencing a plague of poisonous snakes and were being bitten and many died as a consequence of their rebellion against God and then they repented. God told Moses to make a serpent out of bronze and fasten it to the top of a poll. The serpent was lifted up on the poll and everyone who looked at it was healed. It’s described in Numbers 21:4-9.

   In the same way, Jesus said, he, the Son of Man, must be lifted up. Healing hadn’t come to the children of Israel because they had been good. Healing came because the people had repented and trusted and been obedient to God, and God was merciful to his rebellious people.

   Jesus would be lifted up in the same way, on the cross, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. A symbol of death became a symbol of healing.

   Why?

   Nicodemus gets his answer in verses 16 and 17,

 ¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ¹⁷“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

   John 3:16 is the one verse, if someone knows only one verse from the Bible by heart, that they know.

   It is what Martin Luther called the Gospel in miniature.

   But I think that the next verse, John 3:17 is almost as illuminating.

   God didn’t send Jesus into the world to condemn it, but so that the world might be saved through him.

   God’s desire is that the world might be saved.

   We make the Gospel fresh by its lived reality in us.

   So, don’t be afraid that someone might ask you uncomfortable or even hostile questions, or that you’d be embarrassed if you didn’t know the answers. You’re ready. The Holy Spirit has made you ready.

   And don’t be afraid to ask your own.

   If we can’t answer the technical questions, we carry all of the world’s knowledge right in our pockets on our phones, or we know someone we trust who we can ask.

   For the most important questions, God the Father lives within us. Jesus is present with us at worship. The Holy Spirit opens our eyes and ears to understanding.

   Look at the questions Nicodemus asks and the responses that come from Jesus.

   Jesus’ answer is about God’s character: love. It is the kind of love that is selfless. It is oriented to the world. It may sound kind of flakey, but that kind of love is the answer, it is the hope of the world in the sacrifice of Jesus. Jesus is the answer to all our fears, and Jesus is trustworthy.

   One of the most important lessons that I learned in college was to be fearless in asking questions. God is real and, if you are honest, the answers to your questions will always take you back to God.

   Lent is a season to prepare for the impact of Easter, to anticipate what is coming while walking in the wilderness, to ask, to grow and to experience the love of God made plain to us on the cross. Don’t be afraid. Be like Nicodemus. Ask and listen. Even if you come to Jesus in your life’s dark places to do so, light overcomes darkness, and Jesus is the light of the world.

400 Anything But

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Anything But”, originally shared on February 20, 2026. It was the 400^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   The playwright Oscar Wilde once said, “I can resist anything but temptation.” Today, we’re going to see why that is the foundation of the Good News.

    The American humorist and satirist of all things Lutheran, Garrison Keillor, once said that, for Lutherans, every Sunday is in Lent. I hope that he meant that every Sunday points to the love and grace of God in full exhibition and accomplishment on the cross, and not to our storied reserve.

   We marked Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent, last Wednesday.

   Somebody actually asked me once what day Ash Wednesday was going to be that year. I think that they meant “date”. At least I hope so, anyway. 😊

   The Christmas Cycle has finished. Now we’re in the Easter Cycle (Lent to reflect and prepare, Holy Week and Easter Sunday for the event, and the Easter season after Easter Sunday to learn and to apply).

   We will mark the first Sunday in Lent this Sunday with a reflection on temptation.

   Jesus, the promised Messiah, the Anointed One, the deliverer, has arrived and is about to begin his work after1,000 years of waiting by God’s people.

   Jesus was being tempted in the wilderness to give up what he hasn’t even started yet, his public ministry, his death and his resurrection.

   We will see in Matthew 4:1-11, that Jesus was led up into the wilderness to be tempted. The context is set in the first two verses, Matthew 4:1-2,

¹Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. ²He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.

   I just want to point out something that, I think, we sometimes forget.

   Jesus wasn’t on a retreat to prepare for his public ministry. He wasn’t in the wilderness to learn what he was supposed to do. And Jesus wasn’t sent there by the devil.

   Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Why?

   I think that it has something to do with us. I think that Jesus is there to demonstrate who he is, that there is not some cosmic struggle going on between good and evil. God is in control. Jesus knows that we are sinners, that we need a Savior. Jesus knows where he is going and is ready to go. But it wasn’t going to be easy.

   I saw a meme a while ago that showed a woman wearing a headscarf reading a note. The caption said, “It sure wasn’t easy being the mother of Jesus…” The note read, “Dear Mom, Gone into the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted by Satan. Don’t worry! xo J.”

   I’m very sure that it was difficult being the mother of Jesus.

   Forty is a significant number in the history of Salvation. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights while Noah and his family and the animals floated in the Ark, Moses was on the mountain with God for 40 days, the liberated nation of Israel wandered in the desert for 40 years before they could enter the promised land, the prophet Elijah fasted for 40 days in the wilderness, Saul, David, and Solomon ruled over Israel for 40 years, Jesus fasted for 40 days and nights before his Temptation, there are 40 days in Lent (excluding Sundays) and there were 40 days between Jesus’ Resurrection and his Ascension,

   The devil comes to Jesus in the wilderness in what would be Jesus’ very physically weakened state and right off the bat hits him at his point of greatest vulnerability, in verses 3-4,

 ³The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” ⁴But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

   The devil questions whether Jesus is who he is, sowing seeds of doubt, i.e., “If [note: bold added] you are the Son of God,” and challenging him to prove it at a time when Jesus might be the most easily tempted to do so.

   I once fasted for 3 days and nights. A fast was called at my college after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. People signed-up with the food service on campus and the money saved was donated to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. By the second day, I was dreaming about food.

   Food would have been a huge temptation for Jesus. Any physical need is a huge temptation. Any perceived need is an occasion for temptation.

   We are sometimes tempted, and sometimes we fail, and when we have messed up the devil says, “What a hypocrite! You aren’t a Christian. Why pretend? Give up!”

   But, that’s not the Word of God, that’s the word of the devil. That’s the word of the forces that defy God.

   God’s answer is that we have been given a Savior, Christ the Lord. We can resist anything but temptation. The Good News, the Gospel, The Word of God says, “I died for you. I overcame temptation, sin, death, and the power of the devil, for you.”

   Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, answers the devil by quoting from scripture, in Deuteronomy 8:3,

He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

   So, the devil tries to get Jesus to prove who he is by an act of spiritual courage, in Matthew 4:5-7,

 ⁵Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, ⁶saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” ⁷Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

   The devil’s words sound plausible, and he answers Jesus’ resistance by also quoting scripture. The devil knows the Bible, and he quotes from Psalm 91:11-12,

11 For he will command his angels concerning you

to guard you in all your ways.

12 On their hands they will bear you up,

so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.

   But the devil is quoting scripture to serve his own purpose and not the purpose of God.

   Jesus responds by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16,

Do not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.

   I thought of this section during the pandemic when people said that they were not wearing masks, or getting vaccinated, or washing their hands or anything else because they trusted in God to protect them.

   It seems to me that they were putting God to the test.

   I believe that God does act in our best interests, but in what form and by what means are not always clear to us. God is God and we’re not. We cannot use God for our purposes. That is putting God to the test.

   The temptations continue with verses 8-10,

 ⁸Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; ⁹and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” ¹⁰Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”

   So now it seems to me that the devil is getting frustrated. He resorts to a flat-out lie, some plausible disinformation, offering Jesus something that isn’t his to give, something that belongs to God, something that is Jesus’ for the asking, “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor”, and the devil shows his true desire when he says, “if you will fall down and worship me.”

   Jesus responds, quoting Deuteronomy 6:13,

13The Lord your God you shall fear; him you shall serve, and by his name alone you shall swear.

   The devil has no power over us. God promises us that we will never be tempted beyond our ability to endure. All the devil has is lies.

   The Gospel reading concludes with verse 11,

 ¹¹Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

   I’ve read a fair amount online from intercepted messages sent home by Russian soldiers in Ukraine on digital media. Some conversations are with their mothers and wives and girlfriends. Many of them discuss how war has changed their behavior, particularly their values of right and wrong. What was once unthinkable becomes commonplace. Fear, peer pressure, and the sinful human heart have carried them to everyday atrocities. War can do that.

   We have come to call it “moral injury”.

   So, what are we to do when we are tempted to do what we know is wrong? Well, the short answer is to not do that. But how do we resist temptation? And how do we know the difference between what is right and what is wrong?

   We learn about that from Jesus in today’s Gospel reading.

   Jesus was fully God. But he was also fully a human being. He was tempted because the devil thought he could break Him. How did Jesus know right from wrong, and how did he act on it? What can we learn from Jesus?

   First, we learn that Jesus knew the scriptures. He knew them by heart. He knew the words and he knew the presence of God in reading them.

   The same Spirit that had led him into the wilderness to be tempted had prepared him through scriptures.

   Second, we learn right from wrong from the Law of God that is in our heart. It becomes who we are and that becomes what we do.

   This is very different from what much of our culture teaches.

   Is everything just right for one person but not for the other? Or are some things right for everybody.

   Who decides what is right from wrong. Christians and Jews and Muslims all agree and believe that morality comes from God.

   Morality, knowing right from wrong, has to come from outside us. Otherwise, morality is just what we decide it is.

   We see what happens when people forget about God in the Old Testament.

   When you see that there is no one to rule the people for God and the words (i.e. Judges 17:6), “In those days there was no king in Israel, all the people did what was right in their own eyes,” appear, you know something very bad is about to happen. It happens again and again.

   Third, we learn that the devil seeks us at a point of weakness with something that seems desirable, even good.

   The devil tempted Jesus with an easy way out of the cross, with things that anybody might want, like us.

   I once talked with a man whose vocation was in sales. He was a good salesman. His job required some travel, but he was also able to spend time with his family, which he loved.

   One day, someone from higher-up I n the company offered him a promotion at a sizably higher salary, but in a position that would require a great deal more travel, so much that he would have very little time with his family.

   The man declined, saying that he wanted to be there for his wife and children.

   “But,” the executive said, “think of all the good you could do for your family with more money.”

   That’s a temptation. That’s the way the devil works.

   Fourth, we learn that we are not alone. We have a model and helper for doing what is right, whatever the cost, in Jesus Christ. As Paul writes in Hebrews 4:14-16,

14 Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

   Fifth, we learn that resisting temptation is more than denying ourselves things. It takes us to a whole new life of devotion and purpose, and we are called to live it.

   Two little boys were eating the pancakes that their mother had made for them for breakfast one day.

   When the mother stepped out for a few minutes and came back again, she found them fighting over the last pancake. “Boy, boys”, she said. “What would Jesus do?”

   The older brother said, “She’s right, Billy. You be Jesus.”

   Everybody wants to be like Jesus, until it’s time to be like Jesus.

   The plain fact is that all human beings are a mess. We have always been a mess.

   We sin, we separate ourselves from God. We put ourselves above all else.

   We can make no claim to righteousness of our own.

   All we can do is to point to Jesus, who has given us new life and salvation through the cross, Jesus gave his life for we sinners, and then he took it back again in the Resurrection to validate the power of the cross. No one can do that for us but Jesus. He who is God has reconciled us to God. We just live the new, transformed life he has given us, from the inside, out, in a living relationship with the one true living God.

   Sixth, we learn that the devil is a liar and that God is in control. It’s why we pray.

   Martin Luther, the 16^th century Church reformer, in his Small Catechism on the basics of the Christian faith, in his explanation of the Lord’s prayer, in his explanation of the words, “And lead us not into temptation”, asks, “What does this mean?”, and he answers:

   “God tempts no one to sin, but we ask in this prayer that God would watch over us and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful self may not deceive us and draw us into false belief, despair, and other great and shameful sins. And we pray that even though we are so tempted we may still win the final victory.”

   Seventh, we learn that there is no easy fix, only the honor and challenge of right living, and growing through life transformation in a living relationship with the one true living God.  There is only one Supreme Being, and his relationship is personal.

   You may have seen people wearing clothing with the word “Supreme” in white letters on a red background. The “Supreme” brand is based on an interesting business model.

   The clothing it sells comes in limited batches from new lines that are released twice a year. That makes the street-wear merchandise seem exclusive, yet the merchandise keeps coming. So, when one of the few actual stores are open, selling a few pieces every Thursday, huge lines form and sometimes fights break out, both in the line and in the store, because many people buy goods to sell online. Clothing bought for about $150 in a store can sell for $500 online. 

   That’s a huge mark-up, and some people do make money. But other people pay the inflated prices because they think that they are getting something exclusive, even if that “exclusivity” is artificially produced to be highly prized on the street.

   That’s the thing about temptation. It only offers us something that is not real and can actually bring us harm.

   Martin Luther once said, “You cannot keep birds from flying over your head but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.” We can’t keep from having thoughts that are contrary to the will of God, but we can keep from acting on them or allowing them to change who we are.

   Lent is a time for reflection on that, for turning away from those things in our lives that grieve God, and for living in the power of the Holy Spirit, which wells up from within us, and opens our hearts and minds to the presence and power of God in the Bible, in ourselves, and everywhere around us.

   Let us grow in our sense of Christian morality during this Lenten season and seek to live more deeply in the transformational relationship empowering us to live as the people of God. Especially in the wilderness times in our lives.

   Let us make it a practice to spend time in self-examination and show our appreciation for what God has done for us in Jesus Christ on the cross, and express it through love for God and love for one another and for the world.

   And, though temptations may come to us to give up the narrow way and follow an easier path, let us be grateful that we are not alone. That we are never alone. That Jesus fights with us, and that Jesus, our light and our salvation, has overcome the world!