“Streams of Living Water”
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen. Today’s message is based on Jesus’ declaration in today’s Gospel
Reading: “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.” As a child, my mother lived through both the Great Depression and the
great Dust Bowl on the parched plains of western Kansas. But, mother
always said that, although as a child she heard about how bad it was for other
people during those terrible years, her family was spared the worst of the Great
Depression and Dust Bowl. All around them, crops were failing, and farmers
going broke, because of year after year of disastrous drought. But, my
grandparents had a very special blessing that made all the difference. There were two wells on their farm. The one up by the house was a
typical well for that part of McPherson County, brackish water with a very high
mineral content that made it almost undrinkable. And, this well was also
shallow and unreliable. I remember staying there during summers as a teenager,
helping out with harvest, and my uncle’s family who lived there then had a
system for their water a lot like Oliver and Lisa Douglas had for electricity on
the television show “Green Acres.” You had to be careful not to run two
things at the same time, the shower and the sink, or the washing machine and the
toilet, because, if you did, the well would run dry. But, out by the garden on that farm was the other well, and that well
was a real rarity on the parched plains of Kansas. It must have tapped
into some deep source, probably the aquifer called the Equus Beds, a vast
underground ocean beneath parts of McPherson, Harvey, Reno, and Sedgwick
counties. The water in this well was pure, fresh, and, most importantly during
the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, this well was inexhaustible. All
through the “dirty 30’s,” and just as bad droughts later in the 50’s, as long as
there was wind to power the windmill, that well never stopped pumping, and never
ran dry. My grandparents had a huge garden and orchard, and plenty of
water for their animals. That well made all the difference. It made
their farm an oasis in the midst of the Dust Bowl, and spared them the worst of
the Great Depression and Dust Bowl years. “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.” The Bible often uses the imagery of drought and desert,
contrasted with life-giving water. The Bible lands, of course, include
some of the hottest, driest deserts on earth. Our nation’s soldiers
stationed in that part of the world routinely endure temperatures over 120, even
130 degrees. In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus was speaking at the Feast of
Tabernacles at the Temple in Jerusalem. If I were to take you to Jerusalem
during their summer season, and plop you down without water in the desert—just
a short distance from where Jesus was speaking—you would be dead within hours. So, the desert was a very apt symbol for death, doom, destruction.
The desert in the Bible often symbolizes sin, and the consequences of sin: hell
and damnation. You’ll remember that as punishment for their rebellion
against the Lord, the Israelites had to wander in the desert for 40 years.
As punishment for our sins, we all deserve damnation in the desert of hell for
eternity. But, Psalm 105 says: “He opened the rock, and water gushed out; like a
river it flowed in the desert.” That is the other, contrasting imagery in
the Bible: God’s gracious gift of forgiveness and eternal life, symbolized by
life-giving water, miraculously flowing in the desert. For the people back in Bible times, there could be no better imagery of
God’s mercy and love and salvation, and heaven itself, than an inexhaustible
supply of water. The coming of the promised Savior was often symbolized by the
miracle of water in the desert. “As the deer pants for streams of water,” say the Psalms, “so my soul
pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. . .
Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams in the desert.” Isaiah says,
“Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning
sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. . . the Lord
will satisfy your soul in a sun-scorched land . . . With joy you will draw water
from the wells of salvation.” “On that day,” Zechariah says, “living water
will flow out from Jerusalem.” Today we celebrate the feast of Pentecost, from the Greek word for
“fifty,” because it falls on the fiftieth day after Passover. In the Old
Testament, it was originally called the Feast of Tabernacles, which is the feast
Jesus was celebrating at Jerusalem in today’s Gospel Reading, probably during
the second year of his ministry, the year before the Passover at which he was
crucified and rose again. For us, the Feast of Tabernacles would be better called for us the
“Feast of Tents,” because it commemorated the Israelites living in tents as they
wandered in the wilderness. For one week each year, they would again live
in makeshift tents or “tabernacles,” to remind them of how their ancestors
wandered in the wilderness. The last day of the feast was called the
“Festival of Living Waters,” because it commemorated God’s miraculous gift of
water in the desert when Moses struck the rock and water came gushing out.
On that last day of the festival, water would be poured out on the altar at the
Temple, while trumpets sounded, and the people sang the words of Isaiah from
today’s Old Testament Reading, “With joy you will draw water from the wells of
salvation.” “On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a
loud voice, ‘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.’” Jesus was proclaiming, in a very dramatic way: “I am the fulfillment of
this festival. All of this symbolic imagery of life-giving water points to
me. For, just as God in his mercy miraculously opened a rock in ancient
times to provide water for his people wandering in the desert, I have come that
you may escape death in the true desert of hell. I have come to give you
the true water of eternal life.” “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.” “Living water” is what is called a “double entendre,” a
play on words with a double meaning. Geologically, living water means not
a stagnant source, like that shallow, brackish well at my grandparents’ farm,
but a living source from a steady supply, like their deep well. And,
symbolically, living water also means water that is life-giving, that rescues
you from death. Jesus intends both meanings of this double entendre when he describes
the salvation he brings as “living water.” His forgiveness is not shallow
and temporary, like that well on my grandparent’s farm that often failed and ran
dry. God’s love for you will never fail or run out, but, like a deep well
of continuously flowing living water, he washes all your sins away forever.
Paul puts it this way in 1st Corinthians, after giving a long list of very
serious sins, “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were
sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the
Spirit of our God.” And the salvation that Jesus brings is “living water” because it
rescues you from death and gives you eternal life. As Paul says in
Ephesians, “You were dead in your trespasses and sins. . . But because of
his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ.” “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” Of
course, this flowing water of life, and this drink which quenches your spiritual
thirst, also symbolize the Sacraments the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy
Communion, which are the “wells of salvation” though which God pours out his
love upon you. “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.” Faith in Christ is like that deep well on my
grandparents’ farm. Life in his world is often like a drought in a dreary
desert. For, in this world, we endure sorrows and struggles, like the
Great Depression and Dust Bowl. And, often our individual lives in this world
can be our own personal Great Depression, as we endure our own sorrows and
struggles. Yet, in the midst of it all, we have an oasis, an inner oasis of peace.
As Paul says in 2nd Corinthians, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not
crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck
down, but not destroyed. . . because we know that the one who raised the
Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus. . . Therefore we
do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are
being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are
bringing us to an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our
eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary,
but what is unseen is eternal.” “Whoever believes in me . . . streams of living water will flow from
within him.” Like my grandparent’s well-watered oasis in the midst of the
Dust Bowl, those who trust in Jesus are tapped in to the inexhaustible well of
God’s love, and, in the dreary desert of this world’s sorrows and struggles,
find an inner oasis of hope and peace. In Philippians, Paul describes it
as, “The peace of God which surpasses all understanding.” Jesus put it
this way at the Last Supper: “I have told you these things, so that in me you
may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have
overcome the world.” “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.” Return to Top | Return to Sermons | Home | Email Church Office
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