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John 7:37-38
Pastor Michael Wheatley, July 3, 2011
Background. Although we list only two verses, I would
suggest that you read all of Chapter Seven. This will give you the bigger
picture which the sermon will fill out, for in order to understand and
appreciate verses 37-38, you need to know more about the Feast of Tabernacles.
This was a bold statement. It divided the people. Some believed.
Some wanted to seize Him to quickly dispose of Him.
Actually, the temple guard, which had been sent to arrest
Him, came back empty-handed. They couldn't do it. Jesus spoke with an authority
which scared them. So what was Jesus saying? What does He offer? What thirst
will He satisfy? How does this fit into the promises of God?
Scripture: John 7: 37-38. 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."
Sermon. Recently I’ve made a lot of references to the feasts of Israel. One cannot read the New Testament without stumbling across them rather often. Therefore, we need to understand them. They are called feasts yet only one is a meal—Passover. They are feasts in the sense of festivals—solemn occasions—something akin to the Latin word translated holiday, or we could say a holy day.
In this passage we have before us, Jesus has gone up to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles was the seventh of seven feasts, which lasted seven days and was held in the seventh month. It was the culmination of all the holy convocations.
God said, “Beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered in the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the Lord for seven days.” And God also told them that during those seven days they were to live in tabernacles. We could call them booths. They were little shelters, built on their rooftops or in the courtyards of their homes, reminiscent of the shelters their ancestors lived in during the Exodus.
So, the Feast of Tabernacles was two things. First, it was an agricultural festival corresponding to our Thanksgiving. During the feast, the people mixed praise with gratitude to God for the harvest. Second, they commemorated God’s deliverance of Israel from the oppressive hand of Pharaoh, hence the booths, which the people lived in for the duration of the feast, as had their ancestors for 40 years during the Exodus. Lest we think this burdensome, this feast was by far the favorite of the feasts—the most joy-filled—the most anticipated. The rabbis had a saying that no one knows the meaning of joy who has not been to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. It was Mardi Gras, Thanksgiving, the 4th of July and March Madness all rolled into one.
There were two significant features to the Feast of Tabernacles, the first being the illumination of the Temple. We will skip over that today. It will come up later in this series. It’s the second one that concerns us this morning. On each of the seven days of the feast, a priest would leave the Temple Mount and walk down to the pool of Siloam. There he would fill a golden pitcher with water from the pool. He would be accompanied by throngs of people, singing and chanting, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” meaning, “Save us now, Son of David.” At the temple this procession would be met by an even larger crowd of people praying a verse from the book of Isaiah, asking God to pour out upon them the wellspring of his salvation. Temple musicians would sing from the psalms words like, “How will I repay the Lord for all his goodness to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.”
And then the priest would pour the water out unto the altar. It was a symbol of what they had been praying for—the wellspring of God’s salvation. And they would repeat it on the second day, the third, and so on for seven days, except on the seventh day they would repeat it seven times.
Now you know the background to the story. To this feast Jesus came. He didn’t arrive until halfway through the feast. He went straight to the Temple and began to teach. He would be there as the procession returned from the pool of Siloam. He would watch as the priest poured out the water. And so it was on the last and greatest day of the feast, the seventh day of seven, the seventh feast of seven, after the priest had poured out the water for the seventh time that day, as the people were praying for God to pour out the wellspring of his salvation, as the court musicians sang about the cup of salvation, Jesus stood and cried out in a loud voice, saying, “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.”
Don’t think he didn’t have their attention. He did. Jesus was saying that he was the answer to their prayers. He was telling them that their centuries of praying for living water were being answered in him.
Let’s step back just a bit in the story. When Jesus arrived at the feast he went to the Temple and taught. In the course of his teaching the religious establishment asked him three questions. First, where did he go to school? This had to do with his authority to teach because he hadn’t gone to rabbinical school. Second, they asked where he had come from. There was some dispute about this—if he was from Nazareth, he was a nobody. Third, they asked where he was going, because he had told them that he was only here a short time. So where did he go to school; where did he come from; where was he going? His answer to all three questions was heaven. He was taught in heaven. He is from heaven. He is going to heaven. This answer placed Jesus at the Father’s side, which in turn reinforced his claim that he was the one they were praying for.
Jesus was telling them, and us, that he is the fulfillment of Isaiah 12: 2-3: “Surely, God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” He is the well of salvation. He is God, our salvation.
Jesus was telling them, and us, that he is the fulfillment of Isaiah 44: 3: “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.” There is a story behind this passage. God has called a court of law into session. There he put a question to the nations. He asked them what idol had done the things God had done and announced it before hand. The nations were called to produce witnesses who could give evidence that there was any other god like Israel’s God who would first tell what he would do and then do it. And there was only silence, for there were none.
This is where Isaiah 44 comes in. Here God is telling his people what he will do. He will pour water on a thirsty land, streams of water on dry ground. He will pour out his Spirit on his people. Jesus is the water on thirsty land. Jesus is the stream on dry ground. Jesus is he who comes in the Spirit of God. Jesus comes to us as the one who satisfies our spiritual thirst. Jesus is the one who comes and takes our hearts of stone and makes them hearts of flesh. Jesus comes as the one who enables us to truly live life. Jesus takes our old spirit, disconnected from God, thirsting, parched like dry ground and he makes it alive. Jesus is talking about a transformation of heart and spirit. He is talking about a heart transplant. It’s about a deep internal cleansing. It’s a cleansing from within, wherein he removes the impurities, the idolatries, the rebellion, and the lack of faith.
Where he says, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink,” this is the promise of himself, his presence within to give us new life.
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