Pentecost (B) 2003

John 7:37-38
The Spiritual Thirst Quencher
”Is it in you?” Asks the TV commercial advertising the sports drink, Gatorade. The commercial shows a man drinking the fluorescent-colored drink and as he works out hard we see him perspiring fluorescent sweat. “Is it in you?” We are asked.

In our Gospel lesson Jesus makes a similar pitch: “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.” (John 7:37, 38) But Jesus is not offering a fluorescent sports drink that will ooze out of the pores of your body as fluorescent colored sweat. He is talking about a stream that will gush forth from within you. He is talking about the Holy Spirit. Ordinary thirst quenchers will always have you coming back for more. Once you have the Spirit of God in you, your spiritual thirst will be quenched for good--so you will never be thirsty again. (John 4:13)

The offer to receive this spiritual drink is universal. There are no ethnic, intellectual, or social qualifications for drinking at Jesus' fountain. The invitation goes out to all. Everyone gathered here has a personal invitation from Jesus to come to him and drink. There is only one condition: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me…” You have to be thirsty.

An evangelist once told me that the hardest work is not getting men saved but getting them lost. To put it another way, the hardest thing is not to satisfy their thirst but to make them feel thirsty for God. All people thirst. But not all thirst for God. We are the only species of God's creation afflicted and blessed with chronic longing. Dolphins are content to frolic in the sea, dogs are content to lie in the sun, frogs are content to bump their bellies from pond to pond. But mankind is not content. We are afflicted with chronic restlessness. Everything we set our hand to gets old. We fight without success against an epidemic of boredom. Fad after fad, fashion after fashion, challenge after challenge leaves us thirsty in the end—thirsting for something more.

Jesus breaks into this endless routine of life and offers something unique, something that can break the cycle of restlessness and give contentment and joy. He offers living water. To understand what this means let me take you back 2000 years with Jesus, back to Jerusalem where he uttered these words. The Jews were just finishing the Feast of Tabernacles. This feast was celebrated to remember how God provided for their forefathers who lived for 40 years in the wilderness with Moses. God provided them with Manna, or bread from heaven and with water from a rock that went with them. Previously Jesus had already identified himself as the true bread that comes down from heaven…and gives life to the world (John 6:33-4): “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35) So these words of Jesus during the feast should come as no surprise. They reinforce what Jesus has been saying all along about his mission.

Early each morning during the week-long Feast of Tabernacles the high priest took a special gold pitcher. He left the Temple area and he led a joyful procession of music and worshipers down to the Pool of Siloam. He would dip the pitcher into the pool and bring it back to the Temple Mount. As he entered the temple area, three blasts of the silver trumpets sounded from the Temple, and the priests with one voice repeated the words of Isaiah, "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation" (Is 12:3).
The high priest would proceed slowly to the great stone altar in the Inner Court of the Temple. At the peak of the altar were two silver basins or funnels, which drained to the base of the altar. One was reserved for drink offerings like wine and the other was used for water offerings. As the high priest raised the golden pitcher to pour out the water offering, the people shouted, "Raise your hand!" In response the high priest lifted his hand higher and poured, allowing all the people to see and verify that the water was actually being poured into the altar. As the high priest poured out the water before the Lord, a drink offering of wine was simultaneously poured into the other basin. Three blasts of the silver trumpets immediately followed the pouring and signaled the start of the Temple music. The people listened as a choir of Levites sang the praise psalms (Psalms 113 -118).

Now, can you imagine, that just as the high priests lift their pitchers up high and begin to pour, a loud voice rings out from the crowd. The priests glare in consternation, and the people whip around in great surprise to see who dare interrupt this most holy service. It was Jesus. His voice booming, "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." (John 7:37, 38)

Do you understand what Jesus is saying here? He is saying, "I am the one this water-pouring ceremony has been pointing to all these years. If you want life, you get it from me. If you want to live, you need to come to me. I am the one who gives you the bubbling streams of life. I am the one who satisfies your thirst." On the last and greatest day of the feast Jesus stood up and said, "Are you thirsty? Then come to me."

While the priest pours the water, a drink offering of wine is also poured upon the altar. You may recall that after Jesus died on the cross, the soldiers jabbed a spear into his side to make sure he was dead. Both water and blood rushed out. When a person is dead the blood separates into water and coagulated blood. This indicated that Jesus had truly died. This important ceremony during the Feast of Tabernacles showed the kind of sacrifice Jesus would make in order to be able to offer us “living water,” the Holy Spirit. He would offer up his life. As water and wine is offered through his death Jesus offers us life. The pouring of water and wine upon the altar during the Feast of Tabernacles helps us to see what God did for us so we could receive his Holy Spirit to abide with us forever. In this feast we see pictured the Sacraments which Jesus gave his church: The cleansing and life-giving water of Baptism and the wine of Holy Communion in which Jesus offers us his blood for the forgiveness of sins.

These Sacraments connect us to the death of Jesus: To his water and blood poured out of his body. These three elements appear lifeless to us. However, Peter says in his first sermon on the Day of Pentecost: “But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” (Acts 2:24) As we are buried with Christ in Baptism (Romans 6:3) and receive his body and blood in the Lord’s Supper (26:26-28), through the Holy Spirit Jesus comes to live in us.

When we receive his Holy Spirit Jesus says that it will be like streams of living water flowing from us. What Jesus means is that when he comes to live in us, we cannot contain or hide him inside us. With Jesus inside we are filled with joy and joy by definition is not something that we can just bottle up inside. Joy is something you want to share, something that changes you from inside and bubbles forth like a never-ending stream.

Are you thirsty for a meaningful life? Do you hunger for a joy that is permanent? Perhaps you feel that your life is more like that valley of dry bones that Ezekiel saw. Why is it that we fail to realize that joy God promises us will gush forth in our life? In order for God to fill you with his Spirit, you must first be emptied. You cannot fill a pitcher that is already full with something else. You see, our lives are full of cravings and desires, hopes and dreams, preoccupations and busyness, worries and distractions, that we cannot receive what Jesus has to offer us: His joy and peace. And even when we do come to receive it, we end up taking only a little and mix it up with everything else that is already in us. And so the pure water of God’s grace becomes diluted and polluted. No wonder it doesn’t take long for that initial feeling of joy to wear off.

As long as we cling to our own righteousness and to doing things our own way, we will be like a leaky cistern that gets filled up with water during the rainy season, but by the time the drought hits, the water has already leaked out. Or we are like a seasonal brook that gushes forth powerfully during the good times, but which quickly runs dry once the rain is finished. Or we are like the Dead Sea, which only has an inlet and no outlet. We keep receiving the Spirit but don’t allow him to rule our lives so we are but a dead end that leads nowhere. Our joy just evaporates.

The solution is to hear Jesus: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matt. 5:6) “Seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matt. 6:33) The way to be filled with the Holy Spirit consists first of all in despairing of our own righteousness, of our own way of life. We must first die to ourselves. Secondly, it consists in a desire to be filled with the righteousness that God offers us in Christ, a desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

This gift of the Holy Spirit is what we celebrate this Pentecost Day. That Spirit is our source of life. Dr. Howard A. Kelly had a nice way of showing that. He was known for wearing a pink rose wherever he went. When people complimented him on it, he would tell them that it was a Christian rose. And then he would turn over his lapel to reveal a small container of water attached to the end of the rose stem. This water kept his pink rose looking fresh. It was connected to the source of life.

As we celebrate Pentecost I would encourage you to remain connected to your source of life. Stay connected to Jesus and you will find joy and satisfaction. We find Jesus in the written word of God as well as in the Lord’s Supper. You will find him there if you are thirsty. If you are empty, the Holy Spirit will fill you and you will receive joy—a joy that gushes forth and overflows. Now may our Lord grant you his Holy Spirit that the joy of Christ may fill you and that your joy may be complete. Amen.