Living Water.

14 Pentecost
John 7:37-44 

Jesus, who arrived late to the Feast of Booths, has been teaching at the temple. The people have been trying to decide whether he might really be the Messiah whom they have long awaited. The religious leaders have been preoccupied with seeking to arrest him. Now on the last day of the festival, which John calls the great day of the festival, Jesus stands up in the temple courts and addresses the crowd in a loud voice. And what he says is this:

Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture says, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.”’

It is a statement that seems to come out of the blue, which does not flow from what he has said in the preceding text, or from what the people, the priests and the Pharisees are saying and asking.

But Jesus’ words are far from lacking a clear context.

Consider what John makes a point of telling us. It was the last and great day of the Festival of Booths. This was the festival in which the people built make-shift booths and set up tents on their roof tops, in their inner courtyards, along the streets, and in the fields and open spaces in and around Jerusalem. They camped out like this for seven days, taking their meals and many also sleeping in these shelters. It was a reminder of the journey of their ancestors in the wilderness after the exodus from slavery in Egypt. And it was also a harvest festival, giving thanks for the crops that were dependent upon the rain and flowing streams.

The culmination of the festival featured public readings and speeches in and around the temple precinct. The two most prominent readings during the festival, and especially on that final day were the account of Moses striking the rock and bringing forth flowing water found in Exodus 17:1-6; and the description of the river that flowed from the temple in Ezekiel’s description of a future glorious kingdom found in Ezekiel 47:1-12.

The first reading recalled the time the people of Israel spent in tents in the wilderness, which the festival was commemorating. It recalled how God had provided them flowing, or living water, that brought them life. The second reading was a description of the awaited reign of God, associated with the coming of the Messiah, in which water would flow from the Temple itself toward the Dead Sea, bringing it to life and producing trees of life-bearing fruit all year round whose leaves would bring healing. (This passage is the foundation of the vision in Revelation 22 in which the trees bearing food and healing leaves are the tree of life, and the water begins flowing not from the temple, but from the throne of God himself and the Lamb.)

To commemorate this emphasis on life giving water and its flowing from the temple, water was brought in a great and joyous ritual procession on each day of the feast from the pool of Siloam, near the temple, into the temple and poured into a silver basin until if overflowed to the altar itself.

It is in the context of these readings and this symbolic bringing in of water to the Temple until it overflowed, that Jesus stands up, gains the crowd’s attention, and speaks the words we find in today’s text.

The words Jesus speaks will be familiar to the readers of John’s gospel. They echo his offer to the Samaritan woman at the well from chapter four who was offered living water. Jesus had said to her: ‘Everyone who drinks of the water of this well will be thirsty again, 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’ (John 4:13-14).

Similarly, when Jesus told the people during his sermon at the synagogue at Capernaum after the feeding the multitude that he was the true mana from heaven and the bread of life, he also said, ‘whoever believes in me will never thirst’ (6:35).

That is the background to Jesus’ words. But what do they mean?

Let’s take a closer look.

‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me.’

The first reading from the Hebrew scripture read at the festival was about God’s provision of living water in the past, in the wilderness. The second reading from Ezekiel was about God’s provision of living water in the future. Jesus is now declaring that he is God’s provision of living water in the present.

Here Jesus tells us that he is the source of life, the source of water. It is yet another way of telling people that he himself is the God who delivered his people from Egypt. It is God who provided water from rock in the wilderness. It is from the throne of God at the heart of the temple that the river of life flows. And it is from Jesus that living water comes..

And is this statement Jesus also extends an invitation. He extended it to the Samaritan woman at the well. Now he is offering it to everyone. Let anyone who is thirsty come. That is the call which he shouts to the crowds, gaining their attention.

‘And let the one who believes in me drink.’

The ancestors of the people to whom Jesus was speaking did not trust God. They did not believe God when they were in the wilderness. God provided for them both water and food. But God did this not because of their faith, but despite their lack of faith. Now Jesus is calling us to come to him on a different basis. He is calling us to come to him in faith. He is calling us to come and drink if we truly believe he is who he says he is.

‘As the scripture says’

Jesus introduces his next words with this phrase. But we will look in vain to find the precise words that Jesus cites in any particular Old Testament text. This is because Jesus, as was the custom of many rabbis, often cited or referred to several texts at once, giving a general summary and gist of their meaning. And that is clearly what he does here, drawing particularly on several texts from Isaiah and the Psalms having to do with God being the source of life-giving water, and the transforming impact of this water on those who drink of it.

‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’

Firstly, the word most English translations render as ‘heart’ is actually the Greek word for stomach, or bowels. In the ancient world this was symbolic of the seat of emotions and the innermost being of a person. But we don’t think of intestines in quite the same way today, so the word heart is used instead as it better conveys the meaning. But the difference is important. It is not out of the heart that this water flows, but from the middle or the side.

Many have taken this to be an allusion to the water that flows from the pierced side of Jesus, along with blood, which is mentioned only in John’s Gospel (19:34).

If God and the Lamb, as Revelation clarifies the vision of Ezekiel, is the true source of the river of life, then it is the body of Jesus given for us that is the ultimate source of life. For those familiar with John’s use of imagery and metaphor, the allusion here is likely intentional. When we read a few chapters later about water ‘flowing’ from the pierced side or middle of Jesus, John would like the reader to remember the words Jesus spoke on the last day of the Feast of Booths.

Also of note is that this living water is said to flow from the heart of those who have faith. This is reminiscent of what Jesus said to the woman at the well, that the living water he gives would well up within the one who drinks of it, becoming a spring.

Jesus likely has in mind here Isaiah 58:11 which says we will be like ‘springs of living water whose waters never fail,’ and Isaiah 44:3 and 4 which says that when God pours out his Spirit upon us we will ‘spring up like green tamarisks and like willows by flowing streams.’

The point is that the quenching of our spiritual thirst is not an end in itself. Once our thirst is relieved, we become a source (or conduit) of living water to others, pointing them to Jesus.

‘living water’ is what Jesus offers, and what flows from those who believe. It was the term used in the ancient world for flowing water. It is a rich image and another of Jesus’ many sayings with layered meanings. Flowing water is the best and cleanest water. It is the best source of plant growth and life. It implies a source that does not run out.

God’s grace to us in Christ is flowing. It does not run out. It is active and moving and life-giving.

Finally, John adds his own comment on Jesus’ words. He explains that Jesus was speaking here about the Holy Spirit.  His words remind us of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in chapter three in which water and Spirit are connected. It also draws upon Isaiah 44:3 where pouring water upon the thirsty ground is equated with the pouring out of God’s Spirit.

John is telling us that the life-giving water that Jesus offers, the water that flows into us and through us to others, is actually a description of what God gives us through his Spirit.

In the context of the texts read at the festival, and the daily performance of the ritual or drawing water and bringing it to the temple where it was poured into a basin until it overflowed, made sense to the crowds. Hence we read in the very next verse that when the people heard what Jesus had said many were saying that ‘this must be the prophet’ and others; ‘This must be the Messiah.’

But others were concerned that the Messiah must be a descendent of David and born in Bethlehem to fulfil the scripture, but Jesus was from Galilee of all places.  John was very much aware of the irony of this objection, for Jesus, unbeknownst to the crowd, actually met both of these criteria.

And others still, chiefly the Pharisees and priests, wanted to arrest him.

Jesus’ simple offer of himself as living water was not enough. The people still needed to take up his offer in faith. … We still need to respond in faith. We still need to take up the offer of this living water.

And that is still the choice that stands before us today. Do we reject Jesus as the religious leaders did? Do we quibble over words? Do we find reasons to put off taking up Jesus’ offer? Or do we take up Jesus’ offer and drink from this living water? Do we let it transform us through the power of the Spirit, welling up in us and flowing out from us to others with the good news of what Jesus has done?

Just like two thousand years ago, Jesus stands in our midst and calls us to come and drink the living water that he offers us.

‘If you are thirsty,’ Jesus says, ‘then come to me and drink.’

Amen.

Pastor Mark Worthing
Port Macquarie.