Streams of Living Water

Barry Metz 1/18/15

Streams of Living Water

John 7:32-52

It was the last day of the feast, the great day of the feast and Jesus stood up in the temple 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.’”

I have a sense that these words have become way toofamiliar for you and me. We’ve lost the sense that Jesus is making an astounding offer and promise! An astounding offer and promise for spiritually thirsty people!

Who is this Jesus? Who is this Jesus that he can take away the spiritual thirst that people have for God? Who is this Jesus that he can slake spiritual thirst?

His words, his offer is astounding! In an attempt to recreate how astounding Jesus’s words are, permit me some off-the-wall creativity. There you are at McDonalds, a man stands up and cries out, “If anyone is hungry, let him come to me and eat. Whoever believes in me, …out of his belly, will flow assembly lines, veritable conveyor belts of Big Macs” “Astounding or crazy!”...you and I would say. Or there you are in the pulmonary wing in a hospital,a man stands up and cries out“If anyone can’t get their breath, let him come to me and breath. Whoever believes in me, out of the deepest part of his lungs will flow cubic feet of pure oxygen.”

Who is this Jesus? Who is this Jesus that can promise and deliver so much?

Well He’s God. He’s the Messiah. He’s the Lord.

Let’s not dismiss him as a mere man. (I’m reminded of C.S. Lewis’ famous trilemma—Don’t suggest that Jesus is a mere man. He is either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord but don’t even think that he is just a man.)

May our eyes this morning be opened to who Jesus really is!

______

Justin got us started in John chapter 7 last week. We continue there again this week.

Early on in John 7,Jesus transitioned to Jerusalem from Galilee for the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths. We’ve said it before. Let’s say it again. The gospel of John shows Jesus to be the fulfillment of all the Jewish feasts. John 7 and 8, specifically, show Jesus to be the fulfillment of “The Feast of Tabernacles or Booths.”

Verse 2 of John 7 tells us the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand. And our goal this morning will be to paint the backdrop of the Feast of Booths to shed light on the interactions that Jesus has in the chapter.

(When you go to a play in a theater, you can tell you’re moving from one scene to the next by the different props and curtains that show up behind the actors. Well if we were to provide a backdrop for the message this morning it would be the ‘Feast of Booths’ in Jerusalem—there would be pictures of makeshift shelters throughout the city, there might be one up here on the stage; there would be the daily procession of the high priest and temple worshippers to the Pool of Siloam with a pitcher to get water for the procession back up to the temple; there would be the joy of harvest on people’s faces. More on all of that in a little bit.)

Now whenJesus arrived in Jerusalem, it was the middle[1] of the seven day feast. Hewent up into the temple and began to teach. And his teaching, well it just divided people.[2] He would speak. And people would evaluate or judge his words and they would either believe him for who he was or bring judgment on themselves because of their unbelief. Their judgment of him and all that He claimed to be, in the end, brought judgment on themselves if they chose to reject him.

There is much muttering about Jesus—the word muttering or grumbling shows up twice in the chapter. And themuttering seems to be an echo of the muttering that the people of Israel did in the wilderness wanderings as recorded in Exodus and Numbers. Back in Exodus and Numbers the people muttered about Moses and all that he was doing (but ultimately they were muttering about God and all that He was doing, weren’t they?). Well here in John 7 the people are muttering about Jesus and all that he is saying and doing (but again, they are ultimately muttering about God because of course Jesus is God).

Some of the people said Jesus was a good man.[3] Some suggested he was leading the people astray.[4] Some wondered how Jesus became so learned given that he had no formal training.[5] Muttering, muttering, and more muttering.

Some wondered if the authorities knew that Jesus was the Messiah because they continued to let him speak publicly.[6] Still others suggested that Jesus might be theMessiah but then they talked themselves out of that idea by arguing that they knew Jesus’s origins and the conventional wisdom was that the Messiah would arrive on the scene secretly, his origins unknown.[7] Muttering, muttering, and more muttering.

So they were seeking to arrest him, verse 30 tells us, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.

It was in God’s plan for Jesus to be arrested; it was part of the script; but it wasn’t the time.“Not at this Feast. Not at this hour. Everything must go according to plan. Everything does go according to plan. God’s plan. Not human plans.”[8] Jesus’s hour had not yet come.

Verse 31 tells us that many of the people believed in him—and in the book of John when you see the word believe you wonder if the belief is real saving faith—many people believed in him because when they added up the signs he had done, in their way of thinking, he had to be the Messiah. When the Christ appears will he do more signs than this man has done?

We pick up in verse 32…

32The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. The Jewish religious leaders have had enough. It’s gone too far. Some people are starting to believe in him! So they issue an arrest warrant for Jesus—“Arrest the man!”

Now these officers, these temple guards, were kind of a temple police force drawn from the Levites and their responsibility was to maintain order in the temple area.[9] But keep in mind they were religiously trained; they had a measure of spiritual sensitivity. And being the good writer that John is, he doesn’t tell us the ‘outcome of the temple guard’s mission right away’[10]—we’re left in suspense.

33Jesus then said, “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me.

Hearing of or at least knowing about the official warrant for his arrest, Jesus then speaks of his departure… “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me.

34You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come.”

You and I, because we’ve read the story before, because our eyes have been opened to the details of the story…well we know the end of the story, so we know exactly what Jesus is saying—He’s returning to heaven to be with the Father. He’s returning to the one who sent him.[11]People will seek him but they won’t be able to find him and they won’t be able to go to him. We can almost see an implicit threat here-“the time would come when some would look for him and die in their sins.”[12]

35The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? 36What does he mean by saying, ‘You will seek me and you will not find me,’ and, ‘Where I am you cannot come’?”

The people are completely confused. They can’t see Jesus’s heavenly connection at all. They wonder out loud if he’s going to other countries where the Jews have been dispersed (the Dispersion) to teach the Greeks.

There’s some irony here I think.[13] Jesus will, through his Spirit-empowered church in the book of Acts go into all the world and teach the Greeks. So for a moment these spiritually blind people speak of more than they know.

But in general they are completely clueless. They can’t make heads or tails of Jesus’ heavenly connections at all. And that’s the way people are in the world today. Where did he get his training they ask in verse 15? Jesus answered, ‘My teaching is not my own but his who send me… Jesus basically said“I was trained in heaven.” The people wondered where Jesus was reallyfrom,verses 25-27. Again Jesus’ answer was basically, “I’m from heaven” And now in verses 35-36, they wonder where he is going? And again, Jesus replies, “I’m going to heaven” .[14]

Well we come to the centerpiece of this wonderful passage, verses 37-39

37On 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.38Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”39Now 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.

Almost every student of scripture connects Jesus’ words in verse 37-38 with a water-pouring rite that occurred once on each of the first six days of the feast of Booths and seven times on the seventh day.

It went like this. At the break of day, priests in procession would walk from the temple to the pool of Siloam. There they filled a golden flagon with water and bore it back to the temple. They would be joined by pilgrims who were filled with joy. One Jewish writing at the time said this, “He who had not seen the joy of the water-drawing has not seen joy in his whole life-time.”[15]

As the procession came north from the pool of Siloam and approached the watergate on the “south side of the inner court, three blasts from the shophar—a trumpet connected with joyful occasions--were sounded.”[16] The trumpet blasts were explicitly related to Isaiah 12:3…3With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

The priests bearing the water then processed around the altar, watched by the pilgrims, while the temple choir sang portions of Psalms 113 to 118.[17]

When the opening words of Psalm 118 were reached, “Give thanks to the Lord,” every man and boy shook the lulab (a bunch of willow and myrtle tied with palm) with his right hand and held aloft citrus fruit in his left hand (a sign of the harvest gathered in), and the cry “Give thanks to the Lord” was repeated three times. The same thing happened at the cry “O Lord save us!” of Ps 118:25. Since all this took place at the time of the daily offering, the water was offered to God in connection with the daily drink-offering (of wine). A chosen priest mounted the altar on which stood two silver bowls, one for the reception of the drink-offering and the other for the water. When the priest had poured the wine and the water into their respective bowls, they were then poured out as offerings to God.[18]

So the idea is that on the last day of the feast, the great day—and this may have been the seventh day of the feast when this water-pouring rite took place seven times or the eighth day which was essentially a Sabbath and things were closing down[19]—Jesus stood up in the temple and cried out ““If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” And if Jesus stood up and cried out as the priest was making the offering, and Jesus was offering himself to people who were thirsty—and we don’t know for sure if that’s when he did it—“the effect of the cry would have been a thunderclap from heaven”[20]

The water-pouring rite (and the entire Feast of Booths for that matter) captured the imagination of the Jewish people on several levels.

On one level, the Feast celebrated God’s saving acts in the past. Living in booths, temporary shelters, celebrated God’s care and provision in the wilderness wanderings recorded in Exodus and Numbers. And God’s miraculous provision of water from the rock during the desert wanderings—stories from Exodus[21] and Numbers[22]— were recalled.

On another level the celebration was a harvest ritual and it represented every pilgrim’s desire and prayer for water during normally dry time in the year. The late autumn, when the Feast of Booths was celebrated, was typically a time of drought in Israel. “Strong, drenching rains had not been seen since spring. Cisterns were low. Springs were becoming weak. The hills were barren and parched. The ground could not be renewed without water.”[23] So the water pouring rite symbolized the fertility and fruitfulness that only rain could bring.[24] “Give us water, O God”, was the prayer of pilgrims at the Feast.

On still another level the celebration looked forward to God’s saving acts in the future in the Messianic age. The prophets Zechariah and Ezekiel “had visions of rivers flowing from the temple in a miraculous display of God’s blessing in a Messianic future—Ezekiel 47:1-9 and Zechariah 14:8 [25]. If you haven’t read Ezekiel 47 in a long time it’s a real hoot! Let me “whet” your appetite with the first six verses…

The title in my bible before the chapter is “Water Flowing from the Temple”

47Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. 2Then he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east; and behold, the water was trickling out on the south side.

3Going on eastward with a measuring line in his hand, the man measured a thousand cubits, and then led me through the water, and it was ankle-deep. 4Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was knee-deep. Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was waist-deep. 5Again he measured a thousand, and it was ariver that I could not pass through, for the water had risen. It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through. 6And he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen this?” Then he led me back to the bank of the river.

What a river issuing from the threshold of the temple!

Revelation 22:1 has a similar picture… Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2through the middle of the street of the city….of course the Jewish people wouldn’t have had these verses in their sights.

Now this is where it gets really meaningful. Let’s put ourselves in the sandals of the pilgrims watching the water pouring rite on the last day, the great day of the Feast of Booths. Perhaps the minds of some of the pilgrims there are focused in the past. They find themselves remembering how God brought water from the rock when their ancient ancestors were in the desert. Still others there have their minds fixed on the present and they are praying for rain because it’s very dry and all their cisterns are low. And still others have in their minds eye the future end time river that will flow from the temple in Ezekiel. And a voice cries out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”

In these verses Jesus is essentially saying, “I fulfill the Feast of Booths.” “Come to me if you are thirsty! All those stories from your past, of life giving water at just the right time, all of your present needs for water, those close-to-empty cisterns in your fields, and all those longings of yours that the prophets Ezekiel and Zechariah have stirred up inside you… Come to me and drink! Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water!”

{There is a rabbit trail we could take here regarding another way that verses 37-38 could be punctuated.[26] As most of our bibles are punctuated, the rivers of living water are flowing out of the hearts of those who believe. With this different punctuation—and if you have the ESV bible you’ll see the alternate punctuation in the margin—the rivers of living water are flowing out of Christ. Someday when we preach through John again we’ll explore this difference as we have time.}