Living Water

Today we are talking about the living water that Christ gives. But before we do, I want to start a story that is about a type of living water that we will finish at the end of the sermon.

Who here has read or heard CS Lewis “The Silver Chair?”

For those who haven’t, it takes place in the magical world of Narnia that is ruled by the great Lion, Aslan, who is CS Lewis’s representation of Christ in the world of Narnia. Well in the book two children, Eustace and Jill, are called forth from our world into Narnia to help rescue a Narnian prince.

Shortly after their arrival in Narnia, Jill behaves very poorly and as a consequence Eustace is sent away without her. After crying over the seperation Jill finds she is incredibly thirsty but then finds a clear, beautiful stream of running, living water, flowing in a wood. Only despite her thirst, Jill stops short because sitting across the stream is the biggest Lion she has ever seen (which is in fact Aslan) and out of fear, despite her great thirst, she freezes on the spot…. We will leave Jill there for now but will return at the end!

If you will, Please turn in your Bibles to John chapter 7. The sermon today has been taken from today’s lectionary reading, and while Grant/George did an excellent job in reading it for us, we will revisit the text again. We will be reading verses 1-14 in order to set the context, then will jump to verses 37-39 which will be the topic of todays sermon.

Listen and honor the word of God to be preached today:

Read: John 7:1–14 “After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand. So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” For not even his brothers believed in him. Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” After saying this, he remained in Galilee. But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private. The Jews were looking for him at the feast, and saying, “Where is he?” And there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said, “He is a good man,” others said, “No, he is leading the people astray.” Yet for fear of the Jews no one spoke openly of him. About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching.”

John 7:37–39 “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

This is the Word of the Lord!

In order to understand the Christian truth that Lewis is imparting in the scene with Jill and Aslan, it is crucial to understand what Jesus is saying here at this feast.

And for that we must first understand the cultural moment that Jesus is speaking in. For it forms a backdrop to Christ’s words that make them come alive in an amazing way! We can learn from the text by itself, no doubt! But when we see the backdrop that God arranged for His son to speak in front of, it almost takes your breath away!

So here in Chapter seven we find Jesus attending one of the major feasts commanded by God that all males shall come to Jerusalem to celebrate. This is the Feast of Booths, or Feast of Tabernacles, also called Sukkoth, which was celebrated at this time every year hence why it was our lectionary reading for the day.

The feast was established by God in Leviticus 23:33-44. The purpose of the Feast was to remind Israel of their time wandering in the desert, hence why they would make booths, or tents, aka temporary dwellings, to live in during this time.

Reading from Leviticus 23:41–43 “You shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It is a statute forever throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.””

The Feast then was to help Israel remember that they where just as reliant on God as their ancestors were in the desert. True they live in stone houses now, but that reliance doesn’t end. And in this vien, a water ritual was developed and made a part of the Feast of Booths

Why?

Because the Feast of Booths comes at the end of the harvest, which in Israel was nearing the end of the dry season. So as all the cisterns are drying up and the water supply running low, a ritual was developed where in the Jews would pray to God to bring the rains they so desperately needed.

And while not explicitly commanded by God, this was an appropriate feast to develop such a ritual not only because of the seasonal timing but because of a seminal even that happened twice during the Israelites wandering in the desert. So we read in Exodus 17 and Numbers 20, that when the Israelites were dying of thirst, Moses is commanded to bring forth running water from the rock to slack the thirst of Israel. So in the same way God responded to the Israelite cry for water in the desert, the nation of Israel cries out for the water to return to their land at the end of the dry season.

But this ritual had more meaning than this. It was also a call for the Lord to bring back the Holy Spirit. For often in the Old Testament, the moving of the Holy Spirit was connected to flowing water.

Now Let that sink in for a while.

during the whole intertestamental period the Israelites where longing for the return, not the first coming, but the return of the Holy Spirit.

To be clear, for them the Holy Spirit was the voice of God that spoke through the Prophets and they recognized that the Spirit left Israel after the death of Malachi because their ceased to be any authoritative prophets.

Quoting from the Babylonian Talmud, one of their ancient sayings was “After the latter prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi had died, the Holy Spirit departed from Israel.”

Also, when Jewish historianJosephus is explaining to the Romans what books make up the Hebrew canon writes “From Artaxerxes (aka Malachi timeframe) to our own time the complete history has been written (think the apocryphal books 1 and 2 Maccabees), but has not been deemed worthy of equal credit with the earlier records, because of the failure of the exact succession of the prophets.” So Israel recognizes that the voice of God was no longer speaking directly to them, that His Spirit has left Israel. And this water ritual recognizes that!

So lets take a look then at this ritual.

On the seventh day of the seven day feast, the priest would go down to the pool at Siloam and with a pitcher he would draw water from the pool quoting from Isaiah 12:2–4 ““Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.” With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say in that day: “Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted.”

With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. This is not just a prayer for water, this verse takes the water image of a well, and turns it into a means of salvation.

Other verses would be quoted during this time that further emphasis these theme, such as Zechariah 13:1 ““On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.” When we link the two verses, we have salvific waters cleansing the people of sin and uncleanness, this is the moving of the Holy Spirit!

This water right, in a way presaged the coming of Pentecost and looked forward to the arrival of the Holy Spirit!

It must be udnerstood that they only saw as through a glass darkly, they of course didn’t understand the full might and power that would come at Pentacost, but the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentacost would not have been an unheard of event, they had been praying for it for hundreds of years!

Okay, it only gets better. As the priest walked through the streets, taking the pitcher of water to the altar, men would follow and chant Psalms 113-118, this was called the hallel. Let me read to you the ending of Psalm 118:19–25 “Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it. I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success!”

Here are the Israelites, chanting the Psalm about the arrival of the cornerstone, a ritual chant they have been doing for 700 years, and here, in front of them, stands the true Cornerstone!

As they approach the temple where Christ is at, they are singing “Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter in” and here stands the Messiah who will open that gate that the sons of God may enter in.

As they sing “Save us O Lord, O LORD we pray give us success” here stands the Savior himself in whom we will find victory of sin.

And then Jesus speaks!

John 7:37–38 “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ””

Can you imagine the shock of the hearers! After witnessing the water ritual with all its imagery, to then have this Rabbi proclaim to be the source of living water! And the implications of what Christ was declaring was immediately evident to the crowd, as we read in the following verses John 7:40–44 “When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This really is the Prophet.” Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” So there was a division among the people over him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.”

The crowd understood full well the imagery that surrounded Christ when he made this proclamation and the conversation immediately turned to whether or not Jesus was the Messiah.

And we see the usual reactions, some believed, some questioned his origins, and some wanted to kill him. And we too must be ready for all three reactions, to welcome with open arms those who proclaim the Kingship of Christ, to patiently walk with, and open the eyes of those who doubt His words, and to guard the church against those who wish only to harm the living Lord and His church.

Now that we understand the scene into which Christ is speaking, one that beautifully points to him; there are three lessons to learn from this passage (and yes, Aslan and Jill are coming):

Christ is the source of living water. x2

First we have to understand this phrase Jesus uses, living water.

It has two complimentary meanings, the meaning in the physical world and the meaning in the spiritual world.

In the physical world living water is a Jewish phrase to mean fresh running water. It was living because it was moving. This is also clean water because as it runs through the stream beds the rocks filtered out the impurities. In contrast, still water, or dead water, collected bacteria and scum and.

And this is how Jesus uses the term living water, saying, “out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” The water that Christ gives is flowing, its clean, its invigorating, its pure.

As for the spiritual meaning, John gives and explanation John 7:39 “Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

Living Water for John then, symbolizes the Holy Spirit. And these two meanings come together, for the Holy Spirit moves among the church, it cleanses us of sin, and sanctifies us until the day we will stand pure before God.

And this Holy Spirit/water imagery plays heavily in John’s Gospel, think back to Nicodemus’s night meeting with Christ. There Jesus tells him in John 3:5 “J“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Christ is not listing two types of brith, a water birth and a Spirit birth,

They are one birth. With water and Spirit defining each other, John Calvin makes this point in his commentary on this passage.

Matthew does the same thing but with different elements when he writes what John the Baptist said in Matthew 3:11 ““I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

Obviously believers don’t need to be baptized both with water and then with fire! Rather it is a dual meaning, think of the tongues of fire on the heads of the crowd in the upper room! In the same way one of the ways that John uses water in his Gospel is to portray the Holy Spirit filling up and purifying the believer.

And Christ is the source of that Living Water.

This may sound pedantic and obvious from the text, but how often do we forget this ‘obvious truth’ that Christ is the source of living water in our own lives? When facing trials and struggles and temptations do we always turn to Christ, the source of Living Water to see us through?

Do we seek out the purifying streams of the Holy Spirit to cleanse us of our sinful thoughts?

If we truly want to progress along our sanctification, becoming more and more shaped in the image of our Father, our eyes must remain focused on Christ, our thirst should lead us time and time again to the Cross and the Source of Living Water!

And here I want to briefly address a small controversy about this passage that I think actually gives it deeper meaning.

In the Greek there are no punctuation marks but the sentence structure becomes clear as you read it (for it was meant ot be read aloud) and naturally tells the reader where the breaks should be. This, however, is one of the passages where the punctuation isn’t clear where it should go, and where you put the period slightly alters the meaning. Your Bibles might have a note in the margin regarding this.

Basically, where one puts the period shifts the emphasis on where the water is springing up from. In the ESV the period makes it so that it is out of the believer that flows the living water, and in the alternate punctuation Christ becomes the source of that living water. But there really is no controversy because both are true! And in my personal opinion, I can’t help but think that John left this purposefully vague so that both truths are evident.

Let’s look at both variations.

The second one first: Of course Christ is the source of the Living Water! That is why people are coming to him, believing in Him to drink and have their thirst quenched!

This also accords well with the imagery of the feast. Remember that the water ritual held multiple meanings, there was the prayer for the Holy Spirit to poured out again, there was the prayer for the actual rain to return, but in the context of the Feast of Tabernacles, which reminded the Jews of their desert wanderings, it also looked back to the rock in Exodus 17 that Moses struck and water poured forth giving life to Israel!

And did you know that that Rock, in the desert in the time of Moses, was Christ?

The Apostle Paul understood that truth, and wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:1–4 “For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” In the same sense in which we say that the bread and wine of Communion is the body and blood of Christ, so to this rock is to be understood as Christ.

So John very well means us to understand that Christ is the source of the living water in the same way the rock at Meribah was the source of living water.

But, it is also true that the believer also becomes a conduit of this water, funneling, you might say the Holy Spirit THROUGH the DUE TO the salvific power of Christ! This is the punctuation route that the ESV went, that it is from the believer’s heart that will flow rivers of water. And while the last example makes sense in the environment in which Christ is speaking, the second option plays into the broader narrative that John is telling in his Gospel.

We see this most clearly in Christ’s interaction with Samaritan woman at the well. There Christ plainly tells her in John 4:13–14 “Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.””

If the woman accepts Christ’s offer, and places faith in him, then from WITHIN her will spring up wells of water. Now some might object and say the Holy Spirit doesn’t flow out of believers, but isn’t that what the fruit of the Spirit is?

When Christians are Loving, Joyful, Peaceful, Patient, Kind, Good, Faithful, Gentle and Self Controlling, does that not affect everyone around them?

So Doesn’t the community enjoy the overflow of the power of the Spirit when the fruit is evident?

When we give water the stranger,

food to the hungry,

comfort the mourning,

and share the Gospel with the lost, all of that comes from the power of the Spirit working in our lives.

So the main point still stands, Christ the source of Living Water. As he tells the Samaritan woman, “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him…” We go to him to drink and be filled, then in turn we become the conduits of the Spirit to those around us, we become rivers of living water to our church, our home, and our community.

This is why those who want us to keep our faith internal are up against an impossible task! When filled with the Spirit it will flow out our toes, our fingers, our mouths!

2. For us to receive the Holy Spirit, for the Living waters to flow, Christ had to be die. x2

While this truth doesn’t jump off the page, it is there both in the text and then also in the surrounding imagery.

Remember that with this declaration, that from him will flow rivers of water, Christ is implicitly saying that He is the great Rock of Meribah. But while that rock only gave physical water, He however gives the greater Living Water. And how did that water come from the Rock in Exodus 17 It had to be struck and the rock had to be broken. And so to must Christ… In fact, in a sense, Christ was struck at the rock of Meribah, lets look at the text:

Let’s turn to Exodus 17:4–6 And see how the text itself points us in this direction:“So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.”

Did you hear that? God stood before Moses, aka He was in between Moses and rock. We don’t know how exactly He appeared, but more than likely the cloud moved between Moses and the rock. So when Moses goes to strike the rock, he must also strike the manifestation of God.

Let that sink in,

at the rock at Meribah we have another prefiguring of the Cross. God took the punishment for the Israelites rebellion on Himself and in return He gave life giving water from the rock… Isn’t it amazing how Scripture points to, with flashing sings, the Son of God!

But as usual with John there is more! There is one more piece of the water ritual I haven’t covered yet. When the priest brought the water to the altar, it was poured on the alter alongside a pitcher of wine. Water and red wine ran together down the altar used for sacrifice….

Hold that image in your head for a minute.

Those are the two background clues that point to Christ having to die to release the living waters.

The textual evidence that Christ had to be broken is in verse 39 where John gives his readers an editorial comment saying that the Holy Spirit would only be givien when Christ was glorified.

Now if you are like me, this sounds like the ascension.

But in John the glorification of Jesus begins when he is lifted up, and that starts with cross. Look at Jesus says hours before his crucifixion Jesus says in John 12:23 , “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

When Christ was lifted up on the cross, His glorification began there, a process that would culminate in the ascension.

And to complete the picture, lets turn to John 19:

Here is Christ on the cross, He has been lifted up and notice what John writes in John 19:30 “When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

The phrase “gave up his Spirit” is not Jesus casting his spirit up to God. This is a giving over, a handing over to someone else. This is Jesus giving His spirt to His apostles. Now the full might won’t come until Pentacost, but it starts here. In fact when Jesus meets his disciples in the upper room following his resurrection, he tells them John 20:22 “And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit began flowing into our wold upon the glorification of the Son on the cross.

And remember the image of the priests pouring water and wine over the sacrificial alter… John alone of all the Gospels records this about the death of Christ. In John 19:34–35 “But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe.” out of the body of the crucified Christ came water and blood.

The living water and the sanctifying blood, just as Christ promised when he stood in the temple, in front of the sacrificial alter that had just had the water and wine poured over it and declared that all who come to him to drink, from him will flow rivers of living water.

Brothers and sisters, Christ had to be crucified. When we partake of the communion, and it is declared the body of Christ broken for you, we should be thankful for many reasons, one of those being that because He was broken, we now have the indwelling of the Spirit.

3. And last point: When we come to Christ to drink of HIs living water, we must do so with complete and utter surrender. x2

And so we return at last to poor Jill. Dying of thirst but afraid to come forward because of the Lion. She has a choice before her, does she drink and risk being eaten, or does she walk away and die of thirst? We then pick up the story:

READ FROM THE SILVER CHAIR

This story beautifully illustrates this last point. Jill had to come before Aslan in complete and total surrender in order to drink the water. Aslan won’t move, he wont bargain, he wont plea. It was Jill that had surrender her own sense of security in order to drink of the life-giving, running water in front her.

Brothers and sisters, when we come before Christ to drink we must not come with a spirit of bargaining.

Notice the question Jill asked, “Will you promise not to do anything to me if I do come?” How often do we, secretly in our hearts, ask this same question? Begging to hold on to this sin, or asking if we can get the power of the Spirit without having to surrender to Christ, wanting our thirst to be quenched but not to be transformed.

(like asking to be able to eat cake and drink soda and not gain weight!)

It is Christ or death.

The same options Jill had. She could either drink and surrender or die of thirst in sight of the water. We must give over our most heart felt, bosom sin to be completed transformed by the Holy Spirit.

And when we present the Gospel to those outside of the faith, we must also make this very clear!

That all may come to Christ for all are welcome, but all must surrender. We must not equivocate for the sake of “winning souls.”

Gluttons and liars are welcome but they must surrender their appetites and loose words to Christ.

Homosexuals and couples living in sexual sin are welcome but it must be made clear that their lifestyle must be completely destroyed as they seek the living waters of the Spirit.

Prideful, deceitful, angry people,;sluggards, murderser, conservatives and leftists are all welcome to come and drink, but only if Christ is unequivocally acknowledged as King and they seek to put all sin to death, and submit all fleshly desires to His glory.

Come to Christ, come to the Living waters, come to the spirit and surrender, die, and then live!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen!