Drink Up!

Read: John 7.1-52

The division and defection that happened among the larger crowd that was following Jesus was occurring at the same time that a plot to kill Him was forming in the region of Judea (where the Jewish capital of Jerusalem was located). The text today makes it clear that tension was growing around…and because of…Jesus.

The Feast of Tabernacles was an occasion when the Jewish people were to celebrate the gathering of the last harvest of the year. As was often the case, the people were called to remember the Old Testament exodus from slavery in Egypt in which God constantly provided for their needs. By Jesus’ day, Jewish tradition had extended the themes of this feast to include an elaborate procession in which priests took water up to the Temple for various ritual, featuring an impressive night show in which torches lit the Temple courtyard in Jerusalem as jubilant crowds celebrated.

It is in the context of these activities that Jesus says, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them” (John 7.37-38). The following verse explains that by this Jesus meant the Holy Spirit, “whom those who believed in him were later to receive.”

In his commentary on John’s Gospel, Dr. Joseph Dongell identifies four aspects of the gift of the Spirit that come to light in Jesus’ words about “living water:”

“First, it is Jesus who gives the Spirit as water to the thirsty. The Spirit does not stand as a power independent of Jesus, nor as a focus of faith distinct from Jesus. In coming to and believing in Jesus, the Spirit is given. Second, the gift of the Spirit comes in such abundance that what begins as a quest for a ‘drink’ becomes the discovery of a ‘river’! In many ways, grace far exceeds human expectation and desires, not only at the point of initial faith but throughout the entire course of Christian experience. Third, this gift of abundant water fulfills the longing of God’s people, a longing witnessed by the Old Testament…because ‘water’ appears repeatedly throughout the Old Testament as a symbol of life, salvation, refreshment and joy…all of the deepest desires of humankind are richly supplied in the water Jesus gives. Fourth, the giving of the Spirit would happen only according to the larger plan of God.”

This “living water” is available to us today…and Jesus invites us to “drink up!”