Prayer: May we thirst and be quenched by you and your word this day Lord. Come and fill us we pray. Amen
Have you ever been really, really thirsty? So parched and dry that you can’t even get enough saliva in your mouth, your lips are cracked and throat hurts? I can’t say that I have. I find it hard to go anywhere for very long without a water bottle these days. Water is seen as vital for our health and well-being in so many ways. And here in Tasmania it is readily available – we just need to turn on a tap to access fresh running drinking water to quench even a small thirst.
Water is essential and life giving. We need it to survive. While it is readily available for us, there are some parts of the world where water can be hard to come by. Particularly desert areas.
We are blessed to have plenty of water to quench our physical thirst, but we are even more blessed if we believe in Jesus, for he will abundantly quench our spiritual thirst when we come to him in faith. He gives his spring of living water without cost and it will not run out.
In John chapter 7 Jesus stands up at the festival of tabernacles and in a loud voice offers this water to those who gathered – and he continues to offer it to us today.
‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the spirit.
Let’s look at the context of Jesus in this place. The Festival of Tabernacles was one of the ‘big three’ annual festivals (along with Passover and Pentecost) for which Jews were expected to make to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and it was generally the most joyous and popular of the three. It was a seven-day feast celebrating the ingathering of the harvest as well as remembering God’s provision for the people of Israel during their wanderings in the wilderness with Moses.
Water ceremonies were an important part of this celebration. A priest would draw water from the pool of Siloam with a golden pitcher, then carry it back to the temple and pour it into a silver bowl next to the altar, accompanied by musicians and choirs. As the priest poured out the water, he would pray to the Lord to send rain. In some rabbinic traditions, the water drawing of tabernacles is interpreted as the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus had told his brothers that he would not go to the festival. Earlier in chapter 7 we read that they wanted him to go and perform miracles. They suggested he went and showed himself in public. Jesus had been travelling around in Galilee as he knew it was dangerous for him to go to Jerusalem, for the Jewish leaders there were looking to kill him. He told his brothers that he would not go as his ‘time had not yet come’. What ‘time’ is Jesus talking about? The time when he would reveal himself as King of Israel and lead them to victory over the Romans? That is what many were hoping the coming Messiah would do.
No- Jesus was referring to the time when he would be killed and glorified on the cross to rescue his people from sin and death.
Jesus didn’t go publicly with his brothers to the festival, but he did go. In secret. The Jewish leaders were indeed looking out for him and asking where he was! Others were also whispering about him. Some saying he was a good man, others thought he deceived the people.
There would have been great crowds in Jerusalem, and it seems Jesus stayed under the radar for the first few days, but about halfway through the festival he went up to the temple courts and began to teach. The Jews were amazed and wondered where he had learnt. Jesus tells them that his teaching comes from the one who sent him…from God.
This claim created an outroar from some and they tried to seize him – but they were not able for it was not yet his time! His father was protecting him and somehow Jesus was able to allude his captors. The right time would be the next festival – the Passover.
It seems he continued to teach the people and on the last day of the festival Jesus stood up with his invitation to the thirsty crowds. “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink”.
It was on this last day of the festival the people anticipated the great river prophesied in Ezekiel 47 would flow out of Jerusalem.
Last week I referred to Ezekiel 34 where the prophet spoke against the ‘bad shepherds’ and God saying he would be the shepherd to rescue his people. Jesus fulfilled this as he claimed to be the ‘good shepherd’ come to save the lost.
In this passage it seems that Jesus is saying that he is the one providing the streams of living water as prophesied in Ezekiel 47. The prophet writes…
The man brought me back to the entrance to the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the South side of the temple South of the altar. He then brought me out through the North gate and led me around the outside the outer gate facing east and the water was trickling from the South side. Ezekiel’s vision continued with the water getting deeper until you had to swim. This water flowed down to the dead sea and made the salt water fresh; swarms of living creatures could now live in the water and fruit trees would flourish, with the fruit serving for food and leaves for healing. (Ezekiel 47: 1-12)
This prophesy was being fulfilled not in a place, but in a person, Jesus. I wonder whether Jesus was symbolically standing near the altar where the water was ritually being poured out as he made his invitation?
This was the announcement he wanted to make in public. Not showy miracles that his brothers and others wanted him to do. He certainly didn’t try to hide when he made this invitation. He stood up and called out in a loud voice. Normally rabbis would remain seated while teaching. He wanted all to hear his offer of living water.
John notes that some who heard Jesus said he was ‘surely a prophet’ while others thought he was the ‘messiah’. Some scoffed because they knew that Jesus came from Galilee, and they knew the prophets said that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem (little did they know about where Jesus was born). Again, some wanted to seize him, but no-one laid a hand on him.
The temple guards who had been sent to arrest him returned to the Chief Priests and Pharisees empty handed, because they too were in awe of Jesus teaching with authority. I wonder if they were a little spiritually thirsty also, having only been fed the dry hard teachings and commands from the teachers of the law.
What was this life-giving water that Jesus was offering?
John offers a little explanation to his readers. You’ll see in verse 39 he states;
By this he meant the spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the spirit had not been given since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
The life-giving water is the Holy Spirit that Jesus poured out on all believers after he was ‘glorified’. His glory was not being crowned as King of Israel and sitting on a throne in a palace with strong armies surrounding him, doing his will. No, his glory was when he was lifted high on a cross with a crown of thorns on his head. That was his moment of glory, taking on himself the sins of the world. Then defeating death and rising again in glory. After he appeared to his disciples he ascended into heaven and then on another special festival day, the day of Pentecost, he poured out his life-giving water -the Holy Spirit.
Jesus uses the 3 great festivals to point people to himself as the Messiah, the one sent by God. At the Festival of Tabernacles, he offers himself as the life giving water, at Passover he offers his body – broken for us, at Pentecost he sent his Holy Spirit.
This invitation to receive Jesus’ spring of living water is for us today also. As we come to him, as we believe in him, he will fill us with his Holy Spirit. We ask for the Holy Spirit to fill those who come to be baptised, but Jesus wants to continually fill us to overflowing. We just need to come, acknowledge our thirst for him and he will satisfy our deepest needs.
Following on from our passage last week, it is easy to be led astray by other voices that offer to satisfy us…the latest car, exercise machine, dietary fad, clothes, shoes, get rich quick scheme… These only give temporary pleasure.
Jesus offers to fill us with far more precious and lasting treasures. Filling us with his Spirit will bring peace, love, joy and hope for today and tomorrow and eternally. What wonderful hope we have, as we heard from Revelation 21 today – a future life without pain, mourning or death.
And as he fills us with his Spirit, he says the living water will flow from within. That life is to flow out from us to bless others. To love others, to speak to them about the peace, joy and hope Jesus offers.
This was not the first time Jesus had spoken of himself offering life-giving water. In John chapter 4 Jesus spoke to a Samaritan woman at a well. A woman who was most likely an outcast from her community, a woman who was spiritually thirsty. Jesus asks her for some water but turns around to offer her living water. He says to her…
‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’
This woman meets Jesus, hears his words, and believes. She recognizes him as the Messiah. Her life is immediately changed. This new life-giving water wells up in her so she can’t contain it and keep it to herself. She runs to her village to share the message so that others may come to believe and receive also.
Are you feeling thirsty today? Are you feeling a little dry in your spiritual life, your prayer life, are you struggling with despair and lack of hope in today’s world?
Then come to Jesus and ask him to fill you afresh with his Spirit, his love, joy, peace, and hope. Sometimes I think we only take a thimble full; Jesus wants to fill our cup to overflowing with his Spirit. Ask him and receive.
As you feel the gift of his Spirit within you, will you share it with others? Ask Jesus to help you overflow with his love for others and invite them to come to Jesus and be filled also. All we must do is believe in him and come and drink. Jesus offers a never-ending flow of water. Even here in Tasmania we will face water restrictions from time to time, or we will have burst pipes and plumbing issues, but Jesus’s supply of life-giving water will never run out.
Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, thankyou for calling us to come to you and drink so that we may never go thirsty. Thankyou for going to the cross to be glorified and then sending us the Holy Spirit so that you may live in us. When we are feeling dry and despairing in this world, may we not seek short term answers, but may we come to you. Fill us anew with your Spirit that we might bubble up with your love and joy and peace and hope that then flows out into this thirsty world that needs you more than ever. Spirit of the living God fall afresh on us. Amen.