Thirsting for God. John 7.37-39
Today we hear a wonderful invitation.
Listen to the audio of the sermon here
Jesus says, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink’.
There was little water, much of the time the earth was
barren;
but when the rains came the world exploded into life.
Jesus was at the feast of the tabernacles, of the booths. This was a festival, held every year, when the people of Israel remembered how, about 1300 years earlier, God had led them out of Egypt to the Promised land, through the wilderness.
It was a desert land. There were times when they had no water. On at least two occasions the people are very scared. They begin to complain. They accuse Moses, who had brought them out of Egypt, of bringing them into the desert so that they will die. And Moses cries out to God. And God tells Moses to take his staff and to strike a rock, and miraculously water pours out of the rock.
The New Testament draws a parallel between the rock out of which that life giving water flowed and Jesus Christ. Paul writes, ‘That rock was Jesus’.
He was struck for us, and life-giving water flows out of him.
When he dies, we are told by John that blood and water flows
from his side.
I am told that it is known that, in some kinds of death,
water and blood separate. But I don’t think John, when he tells us that water
and blood flowed from Jesus’ side, is
wanting to make a biological point (I’m not sure he would have been aware of
it).
What he is telling us is that out of Jesus pours not only
blood – the blood of the sacrificed lamb of God which brings forgiveness - but also water which brings life.
And at this feast of tabernacles, on the last day, they would take water and (for that matter) wine and pour it onto the altar. They would pray for rain. They would give to God what God had already given them, and they would cry out in their desperation that God would pour out his water on them again.
It is not the first time that Jesus speaks of living water.
At the beginning of his ministry (John 4), he met a woman who
had come to draw water from a well. He asks her to give him a drink, and then
has a conversation with her about how he can give her living water, which will
never run out, and which gives eternal life.
Today Jesus talks about a living water which will not only come into the believer, but which will flow out of the believer.
It is hard to know which verse Jesus is quoting when he says, “As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ ” John 7:38
Possibly Isaiah 58:11
The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs
in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered
garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail”.
“On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem,
half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea; it shall
continue in summer as in winter.”
Or maybe Ezekiel 47, where the prophet has a vision of the temple, and from out of the temple a river flows. It gets deeper and wider, until it gets to the sea. It is abundant with life, and on its banks grow trees with wonderful fruit that are always in season and which bring healing. And when the river flows into the sea, it turns the sea water into fresh water.
What makes this invitation so exceptional is that Jesus is not just talking about how God will provide living water which will bring us life.
By quoting this unknown verse, he is stressing that the
individual who receives the Holy Spirit will not only drink from this
life-giving water, but that this life-giving water will flow out of them.
How thirsty are you?
One of the things that I have loved about ministering here,
is that people are thirsty here in a way that I have not known in the UK. They
have come here wanting to know about God. They have come here wanting to learn
to pray and serve God.
I remember Chad Coussmaker (a former chaplain) saying to me, with rather some surprise, that he had never before been in a church that was actually growing! Yes, there are many reasons why people want to come here, and English is one of them, but one of the reasons is that they really are seeing God.
But how thirsty are you – thirsty for God, thirsty for the life that is life?
The world claims to offer life.
It claims that it can satisfy all our desires.
It offers power, wealth and fame. It says that you can be or
do whatever you want to be or do.
But that is the offer of death, not of life.
Remember the story of Icarus. He thought that he could fly to the sun. But as he flew closer to the sun, the wax on his wings melted and he fell.
Remember Aesop’s story of the dog who had a bone. He looked
in the water and saw another bone that looked bigger and juicier than his. So,
he let go of his bone to grab the bigger bone, only to realise too late that
the bigger bone was a fantasy.
The world offers fantasies to satisfy our surface desires.
Initially what the world offers will satisfy our thirst – but only by making us more thirsty. It offers not fresh water but salt water. Or like a dealer offering the first drug. The more you drink, take the more you need, and it will kill you.
And the world continues to package its death water, which it claims will satisfy you, in new and more brighter ways.
It says, if you are not satisfied with your body, you will
satisfy the thirst by changing it.
My friends, unless you have been involved in an accident, or
do have some appearance that does destroy your confidence, don’t go down the
plastic surgery route. It will not satisfy.
People go further and think that they can satisfy their
thirst by changing their gender. They think it will solve all your problems.
But that is not really the answer.
Or you think you can satisfy your thirst by retreating into the virtual world; or by taking stronger and stronger drugs; or by doing more extreme sports – because they are the only thing that make you feel alive.
The world says that you can satisfy your thirst by being successful,
wealthy, significant; or by having the perfect partner (and so you ditch the
current partner because you think that the one out there is better. Remember
Aesop’s dog with the bone). Or you might throw yourself into a cause – the eco
movement, save the planet, or into a political cause or religious movement,
even into Christianity or even Anglicanism.
And the bad news is that even if you do find something that appears to satisfy your thirst, it will only be temporary, and it will not satisfy the deepest longing that is in us.
The deepest thirst that we have is the thirst to be reconciled with God, to know God, to have peace with God.
Augustine in a very well known passage said that we each have
a God shaped hole in our heart and we will only be satisfied when that God
shaped hole is filled – with God.
It does not mean that life will go well for you, or that many
of your surface dreams will be satisfied. Indeed, many of your surface dreams
may be taken away from you, and life at one level may become pretty rubbish for
you; but there will be one who walks with you through life, through the
persecution, through the trials, through the valley of the shadow of death. And
you will know life and peace and joy. You will have a hope that will not let
you down.
Jesus said that if we come to him, if we drink of his water (in a few minutes we are going to drink wine – his water has already become wine!), if we receive the Holy Spirit, then we will begin to know God – and that is life. And it is in relationship with God that we will begin to learn to accept ourselves as we are. And yes of course we long for that perfect whole resurrection body, but with Jesus we will learn to accept our bodies as they are – with our frailties, our disabilities, our screwed up psyches, our compulsions, our desires, with our sticky out teeth or dodgy hearing or whatever, with our aches and pains and even with our aging. Because we will have hope and we will have HIM.
And it is in relationship with God that we can bring to him the things that we are ashamed of, the people we have let down and hurt and abused, the people who have let us down and hurt us and abused us. We can bring our resistance to him, and he way that we have for so long refused the cup that he would give us, and our darkest places to him.
And it is in relationship with God that we discover our true
acceptance and forgiveness and meaning and destiny. And it is in relationship
with God that we discover how he can transform our weaknesses to bring blessing
to people.
And Jesus says that if we come to him, if we believe in him, if we drink of what he gives us, then living water will flow from our hearts (‘bellies’), from our deepest being.
We will be people who bring life to a parched and thirsty land. We will shine like stars in a dark world. We will hold out the word of life in a universe of death. We will be the aroma of life rather than the stench of death.
But this life giving water can only flow out of us, if it first comes into us and wells up in us.
So often we try to give of ourselves without allowing God to
first fill us with his Spirit – and we end up doing good, yes, but without God
constantly filling us up, we become weary and critical and cynical and
disillusioned.
You can only offer peace if you have received peace.
You can only offer forgiveness, indeed you will offer
forgiveness, if you are living in a state of being forgiven.
You can only kneel down and wash the feet of another person,
if your feet have first been washed.
You can only offer life if you have been given life.
You can only pour out this living water if you are receiving
and being filled with this living water.
Forgive the mixing of metaphors, but it is not just water
that is a picture of the Holy Spirit.
Fire is also a picture.
Today is the end of the Easter season. At the end of this service,
we will extinguish the Easter Candle.
But that is not sad, because we will only extinguish it when each
of us will have been given a light that comes from that candle.
You can only shine if you have been lit.
Today we hear a wonderful invitation. Jesus says, ‘Come to me
and drink. Come to me and find life. And you will become a life liver and a
life giver’.
Come to me and receive my life giving water, my Holy Spirit.
Come to me and receive life, and be a life giver
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