The challenge of Jesus
Who is Jesus? part 77 – John 7:37-39
There are always dry times. The physical thirst from going to sunny tropical places and not taking enough water with you is becoming a reality here as the weather pattern changes to longer, heavier rainy periods followed by longer dry periods of dry, hot sunny weather. We have another hot spell forecast, and I pray for rain that will flow down the streets in the next few days before it arrives. But not so much as we have mud landslides.
37 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. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 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.
John 7:37-39 ESVUK
It is not like Jesus to speak to the people without giving them a challenge. The problem with John chapter 7 is that we are told that Jesus was teaching in the temple, but we have no idea what he was teaching. The people are discussing whether Jesus was a good man or if he was deceiving people, and the question of where Jesus got the teachings we are not told about.
That’s not John’s way. He is trying to show us who Jesus is, not what Jesus taught. If you want a gospel full of Jesus’ teaching, there’s always Matthew’s Gospel; it’s brilliant in that regard.
At last, we get the words of challenge. Jesus had gone into hiding; the Jewish authorities were trying to arrest Jesus; they wanted him dead, but on the last day of the feast, Jesus stood up again.
Water
On the last day of the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles, large quantities of water and wine were poured out.
Water means Spirit in scripture. John is teasing us again; the teaching that Jesus gives his disciples will come in chapters 16 and 18. What Jesus says to the people in Jerusalem now builds on what he said to the woman at the well in Samaria back in chapter 4. Jesus promised her living water, which simply meant flowing water, unlike the nasty well water. Here we have some flowing water again. Jesus talks about the Spirit again, adding something to what he has already said.
Come to me and drink
The Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) lasts for seven days. On the last day, the priests would walk seven times around the altar, chanting Psalm 118:25, “Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success!” Then they would draw water and pour it out, symbolic of when Moses drew water from the rock in Exodus 17. Jesus takes this day to launch his Challenge: “Come to me and drink.” He was using part of the most fun festival in the Jewish calendar and using it to point to himself. He is not calling people to a dour, po-faced religion, but to something living, just like the water that had been poured. Jesus is offering refreshment. Those who receive will provide their own refreshment.
Where is the temple?
God made the kingdoms of the heavens and the earth. The only place where these two kingdoms overlapped, where God’s presence was found on earth, was first in the Tabernacle in the Exodus in the desert, and then in the Temple in Jerusalem. More precisely, the presence of God was in a box inside the innermost part of the Temple, called the Holy of Holies. The problem with the new Temple, after the Babylonian Empire, built by Zerubabbel and enlarged by Herod the Great, was that the box, the Ark of the Covenant, was missing.
In chapter Ezekiel saw a vision of water running from under the Temple down to the Dead Sea, which became alive with plants and fish. Zechariah also spoke about water flowing from Jerusalem, “On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea (the Dead Sea) and half of them to the western sea (the Mediterranean). It shall continue in summer as in winter.” Zechariah 14:8, verse 16 and the verses following mention the Feast of Booths.
Jesus entered the Temple, an empty temple without the lost ark, but the irony was that Jesus himself was the place where the presence of God was present. Jesus was bringing heaven down to earth. God’s presence on earth was not in a building but contained in a human body that walked about, taught people, got tired, and performed signs of God’s power.
What he was teaching here was about the Holy Spirit. Flowing water is a sign of the Holy Spirit in scriptuer and still water is a sign of cleansing. Jesus is offering the Holy Spirit in the language of flowing water to those who follow him with the promise that the Holy Spirit shall flow from them. From us.
Come to Jesus and drink. Those who are new to Christianity and those who have known him a long time. Come to Jesus and accept his gift.
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