INTRODUCTION
We’re in a series looking at the Gospel of John – last week Jesus & Nicodemus – This week Jesus with the Samaritan woman.
Last week I visited The Tate art gallery in St Ives – There was an Exhibition showing work by Barbara Hepworth (20’s to 60’s) Remember her?
Art is often a way of expressing life in in varing ways. It can often take the objective and make it subjective, it can present a different perspective on things we think we know well.
Today’s passage is reasonably well known by Christians so I thought this mornings sermon would be a little different. I thought rather than a conventional sermon we would look at a collection of pictures – we would enter a virtual art gallery together. Is that alright?
When we got to the Tate last week I refused to go in because I discovered we had to pay – I thought it was free! – Even though I wanted to go in – I had to be dragged in screaming and paying – because it was different to my expectations.
ENTER VIRTUAL GALLERY
So let’s enter the gallery together, have you got your imaginations with you? Where going to walk into 3 rooms, each portraying different aspects of Water. As we enter each room let’s take a look at some of the pictures.
ROOM 1 - WATER – AN IMAGE OF GOD
This first room is entitled Water – An image of God. This is the largest of the rooms we’ll be going in today.
In this room we see many images of God’s blessing and provision being portray by artists as symbolised by water.
We start by looking at a picture by the prophet Ezekiel, in 47, where he paints a picture of God’s house and coming out of it is water flowing, flowing. First it’s ankle deep, then knee deep, then waist deep, then it’s flowing so high and so fast that man cannot cross it. (9) Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. (12) Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river…. Every month they will bear fruit because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.
Water representing the unrestricted flow of God’s blessings upon his people. The water flows bridging across from God to man. It sustains the living things & heals them.
Next we have a couple of sketches by Jeremiah. They are two of my favourite pieces. I call them the two 13’s. Firstly we have 2:13 “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.
And then we have a similar sketch by Jeremiah, his 17:13 O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water.
Look how he paints the contrast between those who turn away from God, who will be written in the dust, and the righteousness of God as the spring of living water. Funny how we can feel dusty & dry when we turn away from God isn’t it.
So we see that the two prophets portray God the Father as the source of living water.
Next to those portraits we see the promising N.T artist, John displaying his water works, or should I say works of water – symbolising the presence of the Holy Spirit and belief in the Son of God :-
Firstly, observe the Gospel writer John in his words of 7:37 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. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.
He we see the same streams of living water that Jeremiah used, and John is showing them flowing from the Son. Or rather it is through the son that we receive the Holy Spirit.
And of course through the picture we have heard read to us today we see a glimpse of that… the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
Finally, another couple of sketches from John’s Revelation collection, 22:1 (note the similarity to Ezekiel’s picture we looked at earlier) Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
And, 7:17 For the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
There are many more works around this room displaying God – Father, Son & Holy Spirit, as symbolised by water. Rushing, clear, pure water. But it is time for us to move on.
ROOM 2 - THIRST
Now let us enter Room No. 2 entitled Thirst.
Our first picture is not from scripture….
In 1996, a young marine corporal named Joey Mora was standing on a platform of an aircraft carrier patrolling the Iranian Sea. Incredibly, he fell overboard. His absence was not known for 36 hours. A search and rescue mission began, but was given up after another 24 hours. No one could survive in the sea without even a lifejacket after 60 hours. His parents were notified that he was "missing and presumed dead."
The rest of the story is one of those "truth is stranger than fiction" events. Scriptwriters would pass it up as "not believable." Four Pakistani fishermen found Joey Mora about 72 hours after he had fallen from the aircraft carrier. He was treading water in his sleep, clinging to a makeshift floatation device made from his trousers -- a skill learned in most military survival training. He was delirious when they pulled him into their fishing boat. His tongue was dry and cracked and his throat parched.
Two years later, as he recalled the event with Stone Philips of NBC, he recounted an unbelievable story of will to live and survival. He said it was God who kept him struggling to survive. His discovery by the fishermen makes searching for a needle in a haystack a piece of cake. The most excruciating thing of all? Joey said that the one thought that took over his body and pounded in his brain was "Water!" [NBC Date Line: Nov. 1998]
I wonder how many of us have ever been REALLY thirsty? I don’t mean the average thirst, where a drink of water sounds good after a long walk or after working in the garden on a hot summer day. I mean really -- really thirsty…where your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth and you have to peel your lips off of your teeth and all you can think about is water.
Even David Blaine, on his current mad pursuit, is allowing himself water.
The Bible also portrays pictures of thirst…
The whole of Isaiah 55 is an invitation to those that are thirsty. Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters… Here all the needs are met, for those who are thirsty, as he lists the promises of those we seek God – who seek to quench their thirst.
I love the title of that picture – Invitation to the Thirsty.
And of course, we look once again to today’s painting in John…
Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
Here we have these great interplay of words, it’s almost as if there are two levels of brush strokes on the canvas. We see the Samaritan women talking about physical water and we see Jesus meeting her at her level, but yet surpassing it and offering her a new spiritual dimension – a drink that will satisfy all thirst forever.
She talks about drinking the water – Jesus talks about drinking THE water.
I wonder, – what is real thirst? Are there any of us here today that are really thirsty for springs of living water? Perhaps some among us feel like we are wandering around in a desert. We haven’t drunk from these springs for ages. [PAUSE]
And finally, let us observe one of the most famous pictures of Biblical thirst (John 19:28) …
knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I am thirsty." A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
It is so easy to be like the Samaritan woman and look at the physical. Jesus was thirsty – he needs a drink. But I wonder if Jesus was really saying I am THIRSTY, in the spiritual way he had talked about thirst during his life. Remember he had fulfilled his mission, he had the sins of the world upon him – yours & mine – Was this not a time when those springs of living water had evaporated? When God had turned his back on His Son, because of sin – when Jesus was truly alone – truly THIRSTY.
I wonder if Jesus had Isaiah’s Invitation to the Thirsty on this mind, if he had the Samaritan woman at the well on his mind, and if he had you and me on his mind, as he died on that cross with his arms stretched wide open – in thirst. WHAT LOVE – WHAT A PICTURE! [PAUSE]
ROOM 3 – CLEANSING LEAPING WATER
Let’s move into our third & final room, entitled Cleansing Leaping Water.
Little Betsy had faithfully attended baptism classes. Her mother, wanting to be sure her daughter understood its significance, asked, "Honey, what does baptism mean?"
"Well, it isn’t the water that makes you clean ..." she began. Smiling, Mother thought, Yes, she understands, [PAUSE]
"... it’s the soap."
Water is also portrayed in the Bible as the cleansing or washing away with soap – sorry sins!
Priests were washed at their consecration, Levites too were sprinkled with water. There were many cleansing rites initiated with water. Indeed, we see at the end of John 3 an argument between some of John’s disciples and certain Jews concerning ceremonial washing. This was a hot topic!
We have the great pictures, given by the gospel writers of Jesus’ baptism and the Spirit of God descending upon him in the shape of a dove. Many an artist has captured this scene, over the years, onto canvas.
But perhaps the greatest picture we could think of here is a simple picture of a person being baptised. I love full immersion baptism, whether by infant or adult. (We tend to sprinkle babies now, but the church used to dunk them in large fonts, fully immersed.)
The vision of someone going into a river or pool, their mind determined and resolved. And then being thrust under the water, symbolising dying to their old life and the need for being washed clean. And then being pulled back up again – as they spring out of the water. Nothing quite like it!
Whatever view you hold on Baptismal Theology,I find there’s something really powerful about being fully immersed.
There is no part of you left above the water nothing remains dry – it’s an ‘all or nothing’ moment!
In this room I’d like us to look at three pictures, one by Ezekiel and two by John. Firstly let’s look at another picture by that prophetic artist Ezekiel. In 36:25-27 he paints a wonderful cleansing picture…
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
Here we see God promising to cleanse his people with water and to put a new spirit in them (again the link between water and the spirit of God). Whilst this is a delightful picture in it’s own right, it is so much more powerful when we combine it with two other pictures by John. The first is John 7:37…
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. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.
Whoever believes and accepts Jesus for themselves will have the Holy Spirit of God living within them. But not just living in them, cleaning & flowing out of them. God will spill out of them – overflow.
Now let’s look once more at John’s picture by the well (4:13-14)…
"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
The Greek word used here for welling up is allomai means literally leaping up. Jesus is talking here about a new life that is available through the Spirit of God. This new life is not just a state of existence, but rather it is a dynamic experience. This same Greek word, allomai, was used in the Septuagint (Sept-u-gin-t) (Greek translation of O.T) when it talks about the Holy Spirit ‘leaping’ on great leaders such as Samson, Saul and David.
There’s a wonderful picture of God’s Spirit leaping on men of God!
So Jesus is offering the woman at the well the same life giving waters that had transformed the great men of God – leaping waters of the Spirit of God, that lead to vibrant eternal life.
The woman has requested the water on offer, but she doesn’t yet understand it’s leaping spiritual nature.
The living waters of the Holy Spirit are more than a ‘state’ that we are in – They are dynamic – flowing.
Before we leave this last room, I wonder what our thoughts are on the pictures we have seen. Do we feel like springs of living waters are flowing into us and leaping out of us? Can you picture us all leaping into this building on Sunday mornings, with the joy of the Lord? What a thought!
CONCLUSION – LEAVING THE GALLERY
Finally, as we leave this virtual gallery, some of you may ask yourselves ‘what was that all about?’ Call that art?! Call that a sermon.
Some of you have missed your logical structured sermon with it’s three points, linked nicely together.
But I hope that you may have got a glimpse of ‘Holy’ Water from today’s exhibition. Indeed, perhaps even challenged by the streams of living water that God draws us unto.
They say that art is in the eye of the beholder – what do you see?
Water symbolises God to us, God in us and God leaping out of us.
As individual Christians, and as a church, we experience different states or stages in our walk with God:-
There will be times in the dust and dryness of the wilderness, when we feel that the vibrant gushing waters of God are far from us. We know He still loves us, but we feel spiritually lethargic, void of energy and freshness. Possibly even dirty, if we haven’t washed in spiritual waters for awhile.
There are also times of Resting in Him. [PAUSE] Times of Receiving from Him – Allowing God to pour those wells of water into us, topping us up with His Spirit so that we may once again have springs of water leaping forth from us.
And, times of Restoration, as He sets about restoring us to what we should be. Making us the leaping people He made us to be.
I believe that God wants to move in His church from a time of Resting to a time of Receiving from Him. God wants to pour his life & vitality back into us – Reenergising His leaping people.
Do you recognise something of yourself in the pictures we have looked at today? Which room do you associate with most? If I’m honest my room is the Thirst room. I want to be REALLY thirsty, I crave for His waters flowing through me.
What effect have this mornings exhibits of WATER pictures had on you? [PAUSE]
As Christians, we need lots of water. We need to be praying, reading our Bibles and in step with the Spirit. No matter how dead we may look or feel inside. Water, from God is what we need to stay healthy.
Don’t live in a dry desert – swim in the living waters of God.
May we all allow God to pour His living water upon us – for it is what He longs to do.
AMEN
SCRIPTURAL REFERENCES FOR VIRTUAL GALLERY....
ROOM 1 - WATER – AN IMAGE OF GOD
In this room we see many images of God’s blessing & provision, being portrayed by various biblical artists, as symbolised by water.
Ezekiel 47:1–12 – The River from the Temple
Jeremiah 2:13 – The Forsaken Spring of Living Water
Jeremiah 17:13 – U Turns in the Dust
John 7:37 – Streams of Living Water
John 4:14 – Water of Eternal Life
Revelation 22:1 – The River from the throne (NB. Note similarity to Ezekiel’s picture above)
Revelation 7:17 – The Shepherd of Living Water (NB. Not to be confused with the work I am the Good Shepherd.)
ROOM 2 - THIRST
In this room we see images portraying the earnestness of Thirst.
Isaiah 55 – Invitation to the Thirsty. (NB. A great masterpiece on thirst)
John 4:13–14 – Water of Eternal Life
John 19:28 – The Abandonment of Thirst (NB. A classic Easter portrait)
ROOM 3 – CLEANSING, LEAPING, WATER
This room portrays the cleansing & ‘leaping’ nature of water..
John 3:25 – Ceremonial Washing – The argument! (NB. One of John’s lesser known works)
Ezekiel 36:25–27 – Sprinkle Cleaning! (NB. Note to be confused with Mrs. Beaton’s classic The Art of Spring Cleaning)
John 7:37 – Spirit Flows
John 4:13–14 – Water of Eternal Life – Leaping!
Don’t live in a dry desert – swim in the living waters of God.
