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John 7:1-52
The Source of Living Water
John 7: 1-52
April 5-6, 2008
Andy Kumpel
Have you ever considered what you would do if you could spend one day doing anything? I’m not trying to get real spiritual on you here, I want you to think about how you would spend a day here on earth if you had the freedom to be anywhere and do anything. The answer to this question is not “Jesus.” Some common answers are: go on a picnic, go hiking in the mountains, or spend the day with friends. Well I would spend the day in the ocean. Not at the beach; I don’t care to lay on the sand and soak in the sun, I don’t want to build sandcastles, or play Frisbee. I want to be in the water, I want the waves crashing over me, I want to swim furiously with the tides and ride the powerful waves to shore. I feel more alive in the water than anywhere else on earth. I feel the awesome power of God’s creation around me as I climb to the top of the wave and I’m thrown head over heels back into the depths of the sea. I find it thrilling to spend hour after hour in the ocean until I’m exhausted by the forces of God at work in nature. This is my ideal way to spend a day, and you can tell that I’ve put it into practice in my everyday life as we’ve settled here in landlocked Minnesota with no ocean within 1173 miles. Trust me I googled it, the closest place for me to love being pounded by the waves is Ocean City, NJ and it’s only a 19 hour drive.
I’ve learned to make due in the middle of the Midwest even with my love of the ocean. Because really the ocean is just the ideal day for me – I basically just love being in the water. So I spend summers swimming outdoors; it doesn’t matter much to me whether it’s in a river, lake, or pool just as long as I can experience the life-giving feeling of being in and swimming through water. Swimming in water isn’t water only use though. Water is a life giving resource on our planet. Water is absolutely essential to the human body’s survival. A person can live for about a month without food, but only a week without water. Water makes up about 70% of an adult human body and 70% of the earth’s surface. While water is abundant on earth, humans can only use about three tenths of one percent of water for drinking. The U.N. estimates that over 1.1 billion people live daily without a clean source of water. The benefits of clean drinking water have been well known for years. Water has always been a precious resource for human life. This is why Jesus talked about the spiritual implications for water.
Today, as we continue in our sermon series on the Gospel of John, please turn to John chapter 7 on page 756-7 and your sermon outline. We have just heard a short part of John 7 read when Jesus stands up on the last day of the feast and proclaims, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink…” But why has Jesus chosen this time to stand up and make a mysterious statement like this. He’s not at a well ready with water for those who are thirsty and he just told his disciples in John 7:6 “The right time for me has not yet come…” Today we are going to pry inside the words of John chapter 7 to see what leads up to this statement that Jesus makes “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.”
John is like a good mystery novelist, he fills his Gospel with foreshadowing and clues of events that have not happened yet. This particular chapter in Jesus’ life is a foreshadowing of the Holy Spirit of God coming after Jesus has been raised from the dead to new life with the Father. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, first we have to catch the scene of what is really going on in Judea during the Jewish feast of the tabernacles. Jesus’ brothers are trying to convince Jesus to go to the feast to perform miracles, “so that your disciples may see the miracles you do … Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.” John 7: 3-4. Jesus gives the familiar refrain about his time having not yet come, but then “after his brothers had left for the Feast, he went also, not publicly, but in secret.” John 7: 10. What is Jesus up to here, why is he acting in secret? Usually when we see the crowds, the Jews, or even Jesus’ own disciples begging him to perform a miracle Jesus is satisfied by saying “My time has not yet come.” But this time is different; Jesus has a plan to reveal something about himself at this special feast.
So Jesus arrives and lays low for a few days. This Jewish feast would last 7 days. “Not until halfway through the Feast did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach.” John 7: 14. Jesus begins teaching and the Jews are there ready to respond. This scene has been described by many commentators as a public courtroom hearing. In my mind the scene with Jesus and the Jews does not ring of a judge and jury, but more of a playground hearing where the mass of children are swayed by popularity. I remember a day in grade-school when I was about 9 or 10 when I was playing basketball with some other boys. I tried to steal the ball from another child and tripped and fouled him hard. He was upset enough in the moment that he pushed me and challenged me to a fight. I knew I was in over my head as I was about to get walloped by this kid, so I tried to back my way out of a fight by apologizing and trying to explain myself. The situation grew worse and worse as the crowd of children closed in around us screaming for a fight. Popularity won the day – the children didn’t care about me or the other kid – they just wanted to see a fight. I managed to squirm my way out of a fight that day, but this young boy made my life miserable for another week until I finally met him after school to receive my walloping. But this kind of mass judgment was the scene we see Jesus in with his confrontation with the Jews. The Jews have in mind worse things than a good playground beating, they wanted to kill Jesus. They were claiming that Jesus had no education so he couldn’t teach and their big complaint was of the healing at the pool in John chapter 5.
Jesus healed this man on the Sabbath, so the Jews were upset because healing on the Sabbath meant working on the Sabbath. Well, the debate began and John lets us as his readers judge in the same way that the crowds would be judging. This was a playground courtroom. This is where Jesus, who is the master of life, calmly explains God’s value for human life. You see the Jews had one exception to their “no work on the Sabbath” rule. It was circumcising a child. According to the law of Moses, “On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised.” Leviticus 12:3. So the Jews were perfectly fine breaking the Sabbath law if a boy was eight days old and it happened to be Saturday. Jesus rightly points out their contradiction in detailed law keeping and changes the frame of reference from the letter of the law to the spirit of God’s intention in giving the law in the first place. You see God didn’t give Moses and the patriarchs circumcision just so they had some rules to keep, God gave them circumcision as a sign of his covenant with his chosen people. The circumcision represented God’s redeeming humankind by his covenant. Now Jesus comes with a new covenant and explains that just as God was concerned about this small piece of a person in circumcision, how much more is God concerned with bringing healing to a whole person. Jesus brings wholeness.
Jesus’ entire concern for healing was that the person he was healing would be made whole. He points out to the Jews here that their law keeping was arbitrary at best. We also see from this passage that Jesus’ followers are completed. We sometimes might have a difficult time experiencing or understanding what it means to be completed by Jesus. It’s not like a romantic comedy moment when the leading actor says to his leading lady, “You complete me.” Jesus brings wholeness and healing to our whole selves the same way that he healed the paralytic in John chapter 5. He tells the Jews who are opposed to them that this was actually God’s design and while they are judging by appearances, God judges by what is right. This is the way that Jesus’ followers are competed. It is in the healing and wholeness of a life in Christ that we can be made whole in our individual lives within the body of Christ.
John’s novelist style continues as we see a brilliant sense of irony in the next movement in this chapter of Jesus’ life. The Jews point out the popular doctrine that, “when the Christ comes, no one will know where he is coming from.” John 7: 27. Everyone knew that Jesus was from Nazareth – at least he was raised there. The Jews expected the messiah to come from mysterious origins, and even so they knew the Old Testament said that the ruler of Israel would come out of Bethlehem, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” Micah 5:2. They certainly knew where Jesus was from – he was Joseph the carpenter’s son from Nazareth. Many of them had known Jesus since he was a young boy. Here John wants his readers to know what the Jews don’t; that Jesus was born in Bethlehem even though he was raised in Nazareth. This passage is just dripping with irony, yet Jesus himself reveals much more about where he has come from, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.” John 7: 28-29 Jesus’ conjecture here is that God’s chosen people, the Jews, do not know their own God. Of course they try to seize him and kill him when he says this, but his time had not yet come so they could not. Jesus has a mysterious origin. The messiah’s own confession about where he comes from and who sent him is mysterious. “He who sent me is true…You do not know him.” The language that Jesus uses to reveal this mystery about where he is from confuses the Jews. However, the astute reader of John’s Gospel will remember how John began his telling of the life of Jesus: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1. John’s story of who Jesus is and where he came from is coming into full view as Jesus tells the Jews about his relationship with his father.
And as much as Jesus has a mysterious origin, Jesus’ followers have a mysterious destiny. Have you considered what it means to follow Jesus today? As much as Jesus has come from God the Father he has returned to God the Father. Just as the Jews thought they knew where Jesus was from, as Christ-followers don’t we also think that we know our destiny? Heaven is the place we long to call home, but is that the final destination that God has intended for us? In Revelation we hear about God’s plans for the future, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth…” Revelation 21:1. We often think of this future experience as being in heaven with God forever, but do we really understand this mystery? We read on in Revelation, “…for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.” Revelation 21:1. The mysterious destiny of those who follow Jesus is not only an unknown new heaven and new earth; it is also the journey that God is taking us on now. The reason that the destination is mysterious is not only because we don’t know where we are going to end up, but that we also don’t know how we are going to get there along the way. God’s redemption of humanity has already begun. Jesus has already ushered in God’s kingdom. Eternity for followers of Jesus is not something that we must wait for – it is something that we are already living in. Jesus told his followers that his time had not yet come, but the time for us has come now and is now. To be a follower of Jesus means that I’m no longer waiting for heaven, but I am redeeming God’s kingdom here in this place. The mystery of where I am going next and how God will use me then to redeem his kingdom is my trail-marker in a life of following Jesus. As I stretch out to look over the hill on the horizon, I strive to see where God is moving and then I go there. This is precisely what the Jews could not do. This is why Jesus says to the Jews that they do not know the one who sent him. They are too busy trying to keep their laws that they don’t have time to get to know the one who sent him.
Isn’t that what is at the crux of the Christian life? Life in Christ cannot be lived alone – it must be lived out in the body of Christ. Jesus had experienced what the Jews had not – being in true community with God. That is exactly the experience that Jesus has intended for us – his followers. Jesus leads us into a life of discipleship that means being in true community with God and with other Christians. In fact, that is what my entire job at Autumn Ridge Church entails. Maybe this is your first week here and you’ve heard about that preacher with a strange accent, so you were disappointed to find out that he’s traveling this week and this other pastor is preaching. I don’t normally preach here, but I spend every week concerned with the community life of the church – I’m the Pastor of Community Life. It’s my job to help people who are new to the church find opportunities to connect in the community that is already thriving in the life of this fellowship. For some people this means getting into a small group, but not for everyone. Small groups have been a valuable way for me to be in community in my walk with Christ. But I know other people who don’t get inspired by small group life, but they experience community with God and others in different ways. Just last week I was talking with a woman who serves each week in the common grounds café on Saturday nights for our Emmaus meal. She said, “I love serving in the café – it’s like my own small group.”
Well, I’m the champion of small groups at Autumn Ridge and I can tell you that serving in the café does not have all of the elements of a small group. So I could look down on this statement and say that this woman is not really in community. But we need to have a broader perspective of where we experience the community that God has intended for us. Because I also know that my small group doesn’t have all of the elements of serving in the café together each week. So, for this woman who lives out her community with God and others each week, the common grounds café is one place where the real life of her Christian faith happens. So, even though it’s my job to develop small groups and help people get involved in a small group; I’m not going to stand up here and tell you that you have to be in a small group – Jesus never said that. What Jesus did say is that an essential way of living after him is being in community. Our journey to a mysterious destination is not a lonely journey – it is one that is lived out in community. That community is going to look different for each one of us, but it is something that Jesus calls us to pursue everyday.
Let’s get back to our text in John, “On the last and greatest day of the feast…” John 7: 37. Let’s take a step back and look at the historical context to get a good understanding of what was going on during this Jewish feast of the tabernacles. The feast of tabernacles was one of the three main Jewish feasts and it was celebrated to remember God rescuing the Israelites from Egypt. The feast went on for 7 days and Jewish people would build small booths where they would eat their meals for all 7 days to remember the temporary dwellings that their ancestors lived in for 40 years while they were being led through the wilderness by Moses. This and the other two main feasts, Passover and the Feast of Weeks were the three pilgrimage feasts, so all the Jews would return to Jerusalem to celebrate God’s faithfulness. Each day of the feast the high priest would lead the people down to the pool of Siloam, which was a stream of moving water that was known to have healing power. The priest would draw water from the pool and lead the joyful worshipping processional back to the temple mount. There the priest would pour out the water as a visual prayer for rain for the coming rainy season. The water represented the life sustaining power of water in human life and the salvation that God brings to his people. Three blasts of the temple trumpets would sound and the priests of Israel with one voice repeated the words of Isaiah, “Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” Isaiah 12:3.
The outpouring of the water offering was the culmination of the feast of the tabernacles. It was in this moment on the last and greatest day of the feast that Jesus interrupted this ceremony with his words in John 7, “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.” It was in this moment of ancient Jewish ceremony with the significance of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the people of Israel were remembering God’s covenant faithfulness that Jesus chose to reveal to the Jewish people that he has come as their salvation. That they no longer needed to pour out water sacrifices each year, but that Jesus was the fulfillment of the salvation they were searching for in the feast of the tabernacles. In this dramatic moment when Jesus has been telling his followers, “My time has not yet come,” Jesus claims his identity. Jesus comes to his own people and reveals to them that he is the anointed one, the messiah. The Jewish people are forced to judge who Jesus is. “Some of the people said, “Surely this man is the prophet.” Others said, “He is the Christ.” John 7; 41-42.
Just as the Jewish people at the feast of tabernacles needed to make a judgment about who Jesus is, we also have the chance to judge for ourselves. God has given us a savior in Jesus of Nazareth. He has come as the messiah. He has invited all who are thirsty to come to him and drink. Are you thirsty today? Is your spirit crying out to the living God for living water? Jesus invites you to come. And to all who come he says that streams of living water will flow from within you. Jesus’ followers are a temple of living water. The temple mount where the high priest poured out the water offering is gone and it is replaced by you and by me. John is foreshadowing the coming of the Holy Spirit and he tells us exactly what he is doing, “By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.” John just comes right out and tells us that we are the temple of living water that Jesus is talking about. We are the ones who have a river of living water pouring out from us. To those who thirst Jesus says, come and drink. And now he’s pointing at you and me to give living water on his behalf.
Jesus is calling us to claim our identity in Christ as the temple of living water. Are you ready to be that temple? It means you represent Christ. Around here it means you represent this church. Are you really ready to be branded “Temple of Living Water” and be known by that? I’m fascinated by the things that people put on the back of their cars to show the world what they stand for. Some people make political statements, some promote recycling, and some have that little Jesus fish. Well, I’m not sure that my driving consistently reflects a life of following Jesus, so I’ve decided to keep the Jesus fish off of my car. But certain people have decided to take a stand in the world and say, “I stand for Jesus.” That’s really what Jesus is moving us toward when he says – whoever believes – streams of living water will flow from him. As much as Jesus claims his own identity as savior on the feast of tabernacles – his real purpose on that day was to claim the identity of his followers as a temple of living water. If you follow Jesus you are a temple of living water. Here at Autumn Ridge we want to give you a chance to claim your identity – so we have all kinds of ways for you to find community and plug into ministry to pour out your living water. If you’re new around here and you haven’t made this place your spiritual address I would encourage you to do so. Jesus is ready to dwell within you and pour out living water. You can find out more about our membership class that starts next week in Ridgelines. I teach the class and we talk about the ways we can live out our identity as temples of God’s living water.
Let’s pray together:
God our father, we rejoice in the truth that you desire to bring wholeness into our lives. We pray that you might reveal to us areas where we are broken and we need your Spirit to heal us. Lord Jesus, thank you for your saving work and life giving water for all who thirst. Lord we commend to you those who need your healing touch: Isabella Kelling Gerdts who is in the hospital recovering from heart surgery. We pray that you would heal this little baby’s body and bring her to full health. We pray for Fannie Bonclair’s recovery from knee surgery. We lovingly extend our sympathy to Frank and Mert Armstrong on the death of frank’s mother and John and Suzanne Bundrick on the death of John’s father. May you comfort those who mourn and may they rest in your arms of peace. We lift Mario Franzone’s mother into your care in this time of her failing health and we pray that you would richly bless her and the Franzone family with your grace. Lord God, as we continue to worship you in our giving, we rejoice that some of the money that we give goes to support the spreading of your word among the Maninka people of Guinea, West Africa. We continue to pray for the construction of Compassion Evangelical Hospital for the sake of reaching many in Guinea for Christ. We pray for the sake of Jesus our Savior, Amen.