Have you ever been thirsty? I mean, really
thirsty? So thirsty that you purse your lips together to try to get a
little saliva going? So thirsty that you feel that you have cotton in your
mouth? So thirsty that getting drink of water is all you can think about?
It’s your number one priority – have you ever been that thirsty? Just
thinking about it makes you thirsty.
Did you know that your body can go without
food for several days, but it cannot go without water without experiencing
serious health problems, reduced alertness, reduced concentration, slower
reaction times, nausea. Did you know that the lack of water in your body is
the number one cause of daytime fatigue? Did you know that 100% of your
midnight hunger pains could be answered with one glass of water?
And research shows that 8-10 glasses of water
a day could reduce back and joint pain for 80% of people. Of course, we all
know that the human body is essential 75% water, our blood is 90% water, so
clearly we need to drink water.
Water is essential to our life and our
well-being.
So when Jesus stands up and says, “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,”
we have a fundamental understanding of what He is saying. He’s comparing
Himself to water – the great essential of life – and saying that if we are
thirsty, not physically thirsty but spiritually thirsty, we can come to Him
and our parched souls will be satisfied.
And so we read through Scripture and we come
across person after person who says that Jesus is the one who they have been
longing for. He is the one they have needed, He is the one who satisfies
their spiritual thirst.
But not only this, but Jesus is saying that He
is the one promised by God to satisfy the thirst of our souls. It is
significant that Jesus says this during the feast of Tabernacles. The feast
of Tabernacles was one of three great celebrations on the Jewish calendar.
We could simply call it their thanksgiving celebration, where God was
praised and worshipped for the gathering in of the harvest. It got its name
from the fact that during the harvest farmers would have to protect their
crop and so they would build temporary shelters, like booths in the fields.
These booths reminded them of the booths they lived in while they wandered
in the desert back in Moses’ time, so it had ties to that event as well.
Each day of the feast there was a great water
ceremony. Basically it was a parade in which the priests would go to the
nearby spring and fill a golden pitcher while the choir chanted Isaiah 12:3,
“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
This water was then paraded through the
streets to the temple and the priest would climb the altar steps and pour
the water onto the altar while the crowd circled him and sang from the
Psalms (113-118). On the final day, this parade would take place 7 times.
On one level it was a plea from the people,
asking God to bless the harvest and bring the rain that was needed in what
can be a very dry autumn. On another level it speaks of the promise of God
given to His people through His prophets, Zechariah and Ezekiel (Zechariah
14:8; Ezekiel 47:1) who had visions of rivers flowing from the temple in a
miraculous display of God’s blessing.
It is in this setting that Jesus stands up and
says, “all you who are thirsty come to me and drink.” He is saying –
do you see this ceremony – well, I am God’s answer to it. I am the
fulfillment of that ceremony – that which you have longed for – the blessing
and the relationship with God is found in Jesus.
That is the second point that Jesus is making
here – He is the thirst quencher. He is the answer to the thirst of our
souls. Do you remember His encounter with the Samaritan woman? He says to
her, pointing at the well they are sitting beside, “Everyone who drinks
this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him
will never thirst.” We will never thirst because He is the one who is
able to quench the thirst of our souls.
In 1981, Ida's Pastry
Shoppe in Jenison, Michigan, advertised this special offer: "Buy one of our
coffee mugs for $4.79 and fill up your cup for a dime each time you visit."
Lots of people took
them up on their offer – and I can tell you that the owners never expected
that 25 years later, four longtime customers would still be getting their
cup of coffee every day—for 10 cents!
Sounds like heaven, eh? You won’t find any
deals like that anymore in the coffee world, but Jesus offers us something
infinitely better. He says that if we trust Him, follow Him, depend on Him,
we will never thirst again. His love, His grace, His hope, His joy, His
presence will so fill our souls that we will never be thirsty again. He is
the one who can satisfy our thirsty souls.
But His claim is more specific than that.
Jesus is saying that He is the only one who can satisfy the thirst of our
souls. The great tragedy of our age is that there are many who don’t
recognize that they are spiritually thirsty. And even more tragic are the
millions of people who satisfy or seek to answer their spiritual thirst with
other things besides Jesus.
Perhaps that’s the greater danger for those of
us gathered here today. I assume we are all spiritually thirsty, we
recognize that thirst or we wouldn’t be here. The greater question we all
have to answer is, “Do we satisfy the thirst of our souls with something
other than Jesus?”
In the wonderful world in which we live we can
be satisfied with so many diversions that really do not satisfy – activities
– baseball, basketball, hockey – things – cottages, cars, large screen TVs
– people – family, friends.
And as soon as we say it, we realize we have
to be careful because much of what we speak of in the world can be a good
thing. I mean, take gardening for instance. It’s a good thing. It can be
rejuvenating, it’s healthy, it can be a means through which we meet God.
But if we allow gardening to become such a
passion, such an obsession that is the focus of our lives then it can become
an activity that shrinks and rots our soul.
Jesus says, If anyone is thirsty let him come
to Me and drink. Jesus is to be the life source of our souls – not anything
else. Why? because He is the only one who can satisfy the thirst of our
soul.
Or consider money. It can be used to satisfy
a thirst in the soul that it was never meant to satisfy. But we cannot
say that having money is a bad thing, and that all people who have any
amount of money are satisfying their soul thirst with money.
It’s not true. This past week I met with my
accountability group – we were looking for a place to retreat to, a place
where we could pray, were we could meet in quiet – for free. We managed to
find a place, a Christian couple we know who owns a mansion out in the
countryside. A beautiful home nestled in 50 acres of rolling hills and hard
wood forest. A huge gate at the base of the driveway, beautiful stone home
with two turrets and sweeping driveway to the front door. Inside, large oak
staircase. We met in a room surrounded with windows that gave spectacular
view of the pond and the walking paths through the bush.
The owners of the house are very wealthy. And
they said to us, this home is not ours. It belongs to God – so please come
and make yourself comfortable. They have lots of money but they realize that
it doesn’t satisfy the thirst of their souls and they use their money for
the good of the kingdom and of others.
I think there is much in our world that is
neutral – it is neither good nor bad – it just is. We can use them for the
kingdom and meet God in them, or we can allow them to so consume us and
divert our attention that we mistake these things for that which satisfies
our souls. The question for us is, “Do we seek to satisfy the thirst of our
souls with something or someone other than Jesus?”
We have to look at the work we do, the things
we enjoy, the company we keep, the activities that we participate in, the
reading we do, and ask, are we using it as a substitute for the One who can
truly satisfy the thirst of our souls.
Beware because Jesus is the only one who can
satisfy the thirst of our souls. And you see why, don’t you? Because the
water He brings to our souls is living water.
Did you know that healthy water carries
nutrients, minerals, dissolved salts and trace elements which are the
building blocks for growth in our bodies? It’s true. Well Jesus is the
living water – He brings with Him the ability to cleanse our sin through
faith in His sacrificial death. He brings with Him joy, hope, peace, love,
kindness, goodness. He brings with Him all those qualities that refresh and
give nutrients to our soul. He is living water, and so the only one who can
quench the thirst in our souls.
And it’s clear that Jesus doesn’t just satiate
that thirst but enables us to be pools in which streams of living water will
flow. This is what He says, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture
has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”
Now John gives us an interpretation of this
and says, at verse 39, “By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who
believed in him were later to receive.” Clearly John is saying – I
didn’t understand this at the time – but now, having received the Holy
Spirit I know this is what Jesus was talking about. He was speaking of His
own Spirit being in us, His own life filling our lives and coursing through
our spiritual veins. So we have this wonderful promise that we would not
only be receivers of this living water but we would be vessels through which
that water is to flow to those around us.
In Israel there is a body of water called the
Dead Sea. It is so called because nothing lives in it. Nothing can live in
it as it has an unusual heavy salt content that enables one to float in the
water without treading water. It’s quite an experience, but another reason
that the Dead Sea is dead is because it has no outlet. Year after year it
receives but it never gives out. It has an inlet but no outlet.
So the person who takes in the life giving
water of Jesus is meant to give it away. That’s the way the spiritual life
is designed. We are meant to give it away - if we don’t we too become
lifeless.
The story is told of a student who went to a
professor and complained that he wasn’t making any progress in his studies.
He asked his professor if he should look for a tutor. And the professor
responded, “No, you don’t need a tutor, you need a pupil.” And isn’t it
true? This fresh, vibrant life that Jesus has put in us is meant to be given
away.
And as we give it away we draw more from the
one who is the source of living water. And as we draw more from Him we are
meant to give it away. We always learn more, when we are teaching the word
then we do when we just take it in.
It was Andrew Murray who said, "Wherever
there is life, there is a continual interchange of taking in and giving out.
. . . The one depends on the other—the giving out ever increases the power
of taking in. . . . It is only in the emptiness that comes from the parting
with what we have, that the divine fullness can flow in."
Jesus is inviting us thirsty people to come
and drink. He is the thirst quencher, promised by God given to us as the
true thirst quencher for our souls. Are we trusting in Him alone? Are we
filling ourselves with His life? Are we giving that life out to those
around us or are we like the Dead Sea, absorbing all His life but refusing
to give it others?
May we be a people who drink deeply of the
living giving water that is Jesus Christ and may streams of living water
flow out to all those around.
Copyright MBC and Rev. Dr. Tom Cullen -
February 2009
