INTRO
Ads for Gatorade… thirst is a desire waiting to be quenched. They would tell us, there’s nothing like a good thirst.
That is what Jesus speaks to this morning.
John 7:37-39
On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." 39 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.
Background / Context…
On the last and greatest day of the Feast …
It was the Feast of Tabernacles – It was a seven-day event with a Sabbath day added as the eighth day, During this feast the Israelites dwelt in little temporary booths or huts made from tree limbs. There is an entire volume in the Talmud directing how these booths were to be erected.
The purpose was to remind Israel of God’s provision in bringing them out of Egypt into the Promise Land. (It is probable that the Thanksgiving celebration by the pilgrims was patterned after this celebration.)
You may recall… that Jesus knew there were those who sought to seize him and get rid of him. Yet he came… first quietly… then publicly… but finally be CRIES out… something so vital it must cry out. Something had been building in him… burning in him.
During this feast there was a special ritual that related to God’s provision.
(Below drawn from Richard Tow)
At the break of day the worshippers leave their booths to take part in the services.
They are all dressed in festive array. Each worshipper carries a special configuration of palm branches and the crowd would divide into 3 groups. Some would remain at the temple. Another group would go in procession to Maza (which some think is the Emmaus Road) and gather willow-branches to adorn the altar with a leafy canopy.
The third group would follow a Priest in procession from the temple down the valley to the Pool of Siloam… fed by the Rogel Spring of water further up the Kedron Valley. When the procession reached the Pool of Siloam (which overflowed to another pool) the Priest would fill a golden pitcher from the waters of the Siloam. Music would be played alomg the way.
They then went back—timing their journey so that they reached the Temple just as the morning sacrifice was being laid on the Brazen Altar. A 3-fold t trumpet blast welcomed the Priest as he entered through the Watergate. As the Priest ascended ‘the rise’ of the altar he is joined by another Priest carrying wine for the drink offering.
There was such a sense of awesome pageantry of all this. The saying in the Jewish writing is, “He who has not seen the Rejoicing of the Place of Water-drawing has never in his life witnessed a real celebration.” (1)
These two priests come to two silver funnels leading down to the base of the altar.
Into the eastern funnel the wine is poured. At the same time the water is poured into the western funnel. (Both the wine and the water represent the Holy Spirit in scripture.) As the priest pours the water the people are shouting for him to raise his hand.
Immediately after the water is poured the people begin the response chant rooted in Psalms 113 to 118… which focuses on God’s faithfulness… and to remind God of His promises. (2)
The pouring of the water signified the prayer for abundant rain which was necessary for the growth of their crops.
Our text this morning opens on the seventh day. It is the last and greatest day of the Feast. Everything came to a great climax of joy on this day.
Then a silence follows. One voice rises in the crowd, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”
Jesus is not interrupting the ceremony. He is interpreting it. The celebration has come to a climax. It is a celebration of God’s goodness. It is a prayer for God’s provision.
Here is the ultimate cause of celebration. Here is the ultimate provision of God. The Messiah stands in their midst as the fulfillment of this great feast.
Imagine the impact of Jesus’ invitation in that setting. He is not sitting in a teaching position but standing to proclaim an invitation. His voice is not soft and mellow but full of emotion and intensity. Who would dare to speak up like that at such a holy moment?
The Lord of Glory speaks up because it all points to him. It is all fulfilled in him.
No wonder the people respond as they do John 7:40-41. “On hearing his words some of the people said, ‘Surely this man is the Prophet.’ Others said, ‘He is the Christ.’
They understood the claim he was making by that invitation. Only the Prophet, only the Christ could make such a claim.
….It was in this context that Jesus stood and cried out;
If anyone is thirsty
‘If anyone…’ – in the midst of a world of priests and peasants… of spiritual and secular…. comes a call ‘to ANYONE.’ So many think they don’t fit God’s mold… they are just ‘not the type’…. But the reason so many don’t think they are God’s type is based on man-made criteria… some culturally conditioned criteria.. God casts a very broad net when He calls people to Himself, “If anyone..” Are you a “anyone’? Then listen closely to His invitation.
Thirsty…
Thirst is most fundamental need…
• When we look for life on other planets… finding life is all about finding water.
• The body will begin to respond to lack.
• My dog… begins barking at us…we were not sure why… discovered it wasn’t usually food.. nor a need to go out.. it was a need for water.
Our deepest and most fundamental need is a relationship with God… the God of eternal life and love.
…As one author noted in the Psalms
“O God… my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” - Psalms 63:1
There is an inherent connection between our souls and God like fish need water, like our bodies need oxygen and blood; so our spiritual nature exists in relationship to our ultimate source… God.
The motif of thirsting has its satisfying counterpoint when the psalmist says …
“We feast on the abundant food you provide; you let us drink from the river of your goodness.” - Psalms 36:8 (TEV)
God shares His goodness… His glory. The foundation of worship is not a thing you pay your respects to out of some kind of disinterested reverence… but rather drinking from His goodness.
It might surprise us, but God sees our duty as most naturally flowing from our desires when rightly understood.
This is vital to grasp… because we have come to believe that the spiritual life is one of trying to stop our desires… to put duty as the savior of desire. I believe that duty is a critical need in life… when my desires are not lined up and flowing well… I need duty to draw me into right living. But God does not see us becoming whole people simply by becoming dutiful. Rather he sees duty and desire as two sides of the same coin. As we begin to discover delight in God… we find that duty is that which calls us to what ultimately satisfies…duty aligns us with the satisfaction of our deepest desires.
We talk about changing for God as if it is just a matter of what we have to get rid of… ‘I know I need to clean up my act.’ I want to suggest that it’s more about discovering a greater good that will change us from the inside out.
As God declared in Jeremiah…
Jeremiah 2:13 (NIV)
“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
- Notice… two wrongs.. the first is turning from God who offers life… and the second follows which is trying to find life in what cannot offer it.
- Does this not describe the ever increasing paradox of modern world? …more driven towards pleasure yet generally less content by any measure of contentment.
- THOSE DYING OF THIRST WILL DRINK ANYTHING… EVEN POISON
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- As the apostle Paul declared, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” described just prior as the process of “becoming fools and exchanging the glory of the immortal God for images” (Romans 3:23, 1:23)
- The nature of our sin, of selling God short, is selling ourselves short; setting the eyes of our heart on the things of earth. We were created for His glory and fall short when we exchange it for something unworthy… of lesser glory.
God says, “I want to be everything to you because I am everything.”
As Blasé Pascal, the early scientist & philosopher described…
“There once was in man a true happiness of which now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present. But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say only be God Himself.”
Let him come to me
He is the fulfillment of what God did in the wilderness…. the one who brings it into it’s fullness.
When the people in the wilderness got thirsty… they tried to kill the closest authority figure… and God sends Moses up to the rock where he is told to raise God’s staff – authority… and to strike the rock God says I will stand before you… present upon the rock. It foreshadows that when people get thirsty… people rebel and want to have their own authority… and God seeing the cosmic stupidity… takes the blow…and out comes the life giving water.
God has come to the cosmic stupidity… and he took the blow.
The apostle Paul will later reinforce the connection between this incident in Exodus and Jesus in his letter to the I Corinthians.
He writes:
1 Corinthians 10:3-4 (AMP)
“…they all drank the same spiritual (supernaturally given) drink. For they drank from a spiritual Rock which followed them [produced by the sole power of God Himself without natural instrumentality], and the Rock was Christ.”
Paul understands that the rock that Moses struck in the wilderness was a foreshadowing of what Jesus would do for us.
When Moses struck the rock, life-giving water came out.
In the same way, Jesus was about to be struck, and He would fulfill this text.
He would offer life-giving water.
Jesus says you think what I’ve done is exciting… I can bring you into the presence of God.. or God into you.
Streams of living water will flow from within
Verses 38-39
“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit
What Jesus declares is nothing other than personal encounter with the living God.
Is the essence of faith in Christ that of a new social order.. a new guide to moral living… it certainly unfolds into these, but the unique power is that of a direct, immediate, connection with God… the very nature of God.
2 Peter 1:4 (NIV)
“…you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”
God’s substance… spirit .. penetrating us.
Spirit of God = presence of God
In the Old Testament… many are described as anointed by God’s Spirit… and language often refers to the Lord coming upon them… how the hand of the Lord was upon them.
Spirit of God = presence of God
Psalms 51:11 (NIV)
“ Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.” - Psalms 51:11
Jesus was declaring that - The reality of what I am bringing is a whole new level of God’s manifest presence…. intersecting presence.
It is like coming into the presence in a gathering like this… we may be in each other’s presence… but not be able to say we have a personal relationship … but if we meet… face to face… then something new begins.
Jesus says you think what I’ve done is exciting… I can bring you into the presence of God.. or God into you.
When we get full of anything we overflow. The person full of resentment will overflow with bitterness. The person full of covetousness will overflow with greed. That’s why Ephessians. 5:18 tells us to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit.
Life Giving Spirit
It is the Spirit of God who breathed life into the material world… and who has now been poured out again in the new creation of life in Christ.
CONCLUSION:
There is only one place we can go to eternally satisfy the thirst of our souls.
“Let him come to ME…” not alcohol, not drugs, not pornography, not adultery, not greed, not materialism, not religion, not a bunch of legalistic rules and regulation. “Come to Me, Jesus says, and I will give you rest, I will be your peace, I will be your joy.”
We are invited to come. This is a theme that continues throughout Scripture.
The prophet Isaiah would announce:
Isaiah 55:1 (ESV)
“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters…”
Invitation… to bring your thirst… and receive His presence.
Resources: I am grateful for the great thoughts of those I may draw from. I will usually study the text and form my own shape and points. In the process I may insert various ideas and statements from others (commentaries and messages related to the same text) which are related to the points I have developed. I do not use these notes as a manuscript that is either memorized or read… but rather as a guide for the thoughts I offer. If I actually read or quote another I will refer publicly to the source. This message drew thoughts from Richard Tow, Derrick Strickland, Paul Decker, and Tim Keller.
