But as Jesus sees that His presence is only being made a bone of contention He quietly slips away from Judea, turning north through Samaria towards Galilee.  Then comes the great story of the visit to Sychar, with the exquisitely tactful winning of the sinful woman to a life of purity, and then using her as a messenger to her people.  Imbedded in the story is another bit of Jesus’ simple great teaching talk.[28]

Then comes a brief connecting link.  Finding no acceptance in Judea, His own country, Jesus goes to Galilee, where visitors at the Jerusalem Feast of Passover had been spreading the news of His words and deeds, and so a gracious welcome now awaits Him.[29]

And here in Galilee He wins the believing love of a roman officer of noble birth, whose son is desperately ill.  The father’s faith passes through three stages, the belief that comes to ask for help, the deeper belief that rests upon Jesus’ word to him and starts back home, and the yet deeper that gets confirmation of Jesus’ word and power in the recovery of his son from the very time Jesus spoke the assuring word.[30]

These are the three incidents in this group away from the Jerusalem district.  It is striking that this group away from Jerusalem stands in sharp contrast with that first group centering in Jerusalem. There is rejection by the nation’s leaders running from contemptuous silence to the beginning of open opposition. Here with less evidence there is acceptance by a Samaritan and a Roman; the one of no social standing; the other of the highest.

The rejection of Jesus by the leaders stands in contrast thus far with acceptance of Him by five Galileans, by a cultured scholarly aristocrat, a half-breed Samaritan, and a Roman of gentle birth.  Acceptance seems to grow with the distance from Jerusalem.  Yet everything hinged in Jerusalem. There had been the flood-light.  Jerusalem was meant to be the gateway to the world.  The irony of sin!  The blinding of greed!  The self-cheating of being self-centered!

Climbing towards the Climax.

And now, true to his controlling thought, John goes straight back to Jerusalem with his story, ignoring intervening events.  There’s another feast, not called a Passover, but commonly and probably correctly so reckoned, another crowd-gathering Passover.  An extreme chronic case of bodily infirmity draws out the pity and power of Jesus, and the healed man takes his first walk after thirty-eight years.

But the thing is done on a Sabbath day, and gives rise to bitterest and murderous persecution, first on the score of Sabbath observance, and then because Jesus claimed God as “His own Father” in a distinctive sense.  Friction fire may send out beautiful sparks.  And the opposition brings out one of the choicest bits of Jesus’ teaching to be found in John.  This incident stands by itself.[31]

And now John reaches over a whole year with only a sentence or two for connection, and comes again to a Passover.  The Passover was the pivot of the Jewish year and of Jewish national life.  This Passover is made notable by Jesus’ absence from Jerusalem, the only Passover absence of His ministry.  And the reason is the violence of the persecution by the national leaders.