Praying with the enemy

Background: In the heart of Palestine, in between Nazareth and Jerusalem, in between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and somewhere in between Judaism and paganism, lay Samaria - the grape-growing hill country where few Jews would set a sandal and where grudges grew old and deep.

After the death of King Solomon, the people of God split into two kingdoms, North and South. In the Southern Kingdom, Jerusalem remained the capital, while Samaria eventually capped the Northern Kingdom.

Each of the feuding families had their own kings, too, with good and bad rulers occasionally arising on either side. First and Second Kings and First and Second Chronicles tell of such matters – and such people as the Samaritan King Ahab, who actually lived in an ivory palace with his wife Jezebel – the wicked woman who killed God’s prophets and scared Elijah so much, he ran for his life!

Many years later, the Assyrians waged a three-year war until winning over Samaria in 722 B.C. The triumphant king proceeded to send most of the defeated Samaritans to Assyria and then resettle the land with Babylonians and other pagan peoples. When lions devoured them, they tried to make sense of it by saying that no one knew how to please or appease the local god.

That report caused the King of Assyria to call for a priest to be brought back from captivity to teach people how to worship. So a priest of the LORD God came, but the transplanted peoples also kept their own practices and hung onto their favorite idols too.

By 388 B.C., the diverse Samaritans decided to rival worship in the Jerusalem Temple by building a temple on Mount Gerizim. They then appointed their own priests, began their own worship services, and allowed readings only from the first five books of the Bible (Pentateuch.)

Rivalry, bigotry, and name-calling erupted with bad behavior on both sides, but an especially unclean move occurred when the Samaritans scattered bones around the Jerusalem Temple – during Passover!

Over the centuries of family feuds, these peoples of God agreed on the need for a Savior - someone to bring them back to the glorious days of King David and Solomon. While the Jews awaited a Messiah from the Tribe of Judah to be born into the House of David, the Samaritan people looked for a Restorer to come in peace, reveal the truth, and purify the whole world.

According to John 4, the woman at the well believed she had found The Restorer in Jesus. As John the Baptist had prepared The Way for the Messiah to come among the Jews, the woman at the well ran to tell the Samaritan people, preparing them for the Good News that came in the resurrection and restoration of Jesus Christ.

Now when the Apostles heard
how the people of Samaria
had welcomed the Word of God,
they sent Peter and John from Jerusalem
to pray for them –
to pray for the Samaritans –
to pray for the Holy Spirit to descend upon them –
upon the Samaritans who had been baptized –
upon Samaritans who had accepted
the Name
of the LORD
Jesus.

And so the Apostles
(the Jewish follower of Christ, Peter;
the Jewish follower of Christ, John)
laid their hands upon them –
one by one –
touching them, one by one,
and the Samaritans believed,
and the Samaritans received
the Holy Spirit –
and the Samaritans received the Holy
Spirit.

©2013, Mary Harwell Sayler prayer-a-phrased a portion of today’s Daily Bible Reading in Acts 8:14-17.

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