February 20, 2022
John 7: 37-52
Jesus is on his third visit to Jerusalem.

In John’s gospel, each time Jesus comes to the city, there is trouble … and each time there’s more trouble than before. First, it was turning over the tables and chasing the animals out of the temple … then, he heals the man who had been paralyzed since birth.

Now, it’s the final day of the Festival of the Tabernacle … which is also known as the Festival of Booths … it was one of the three major festivals and a week when the people gathered in Jerusalem … celebrated … gave thanks for their harvest and prayed for plentiful water for the next growing season.

During this time, Jerusalem became a massive tent city.

The people would pitch tents or make a temporary shelter out of branches and palm leaves. This helped remind the people of the life that was led as God led their ancestors through the wilderness.

Each morning during the festival, the priests would pour out water to commemorate how God provided springs in the desert during the people’s time in the wilderness.

At night, four huge golden candles … with wicks made from of the priests’ worn-out clothing … would light up the temple area. 

The Gospel of John was written at a time after the temple had been destroyed and the Romans had either slaughtered or scattered the people.

The people hearing the stories in John likely felt uncertain … anxious … lost and afraid … perhaps longing for the stability found in their remembrances … times like the festival that marked God’s gifts and place in their lives.

John’s story offers hope to a people who have lost a lot and face oppression and victimization on a daily basis.

In today’s passage, a homeless teacher from Galilee … you can just hear the sarcasm in the priests’ voices as they quiz the temple police and Nicodemus … challenges the power structures of the world and reminds people that God is not relegated to a building … that God is out in the world … nourishing and inviting.

It’s the last day of the festival and Jesus offers an invitation to faith to the people who have gathered around him … a crowd that also includes some Pharisees keeping track of Jesus’ actions for the religious leaders.

Jesus tells the people: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ ” 

Unlike bread and light, Jesus doesn’t say that he is the life-giving water. Rather, he invites people to come forward in their faith and he will provide them with the water … the Spirit … that will flow outward into the world.

This spirit evolves from the people’s faith … their thirst for God and something different than what the world offers.

This Spirit … notes John’s gospel … won’t exist until Jesus has been raised up … it comes through the crucifixion … vividly when his side is pierced by the soldier’s and blood and water flow.

So, Jesus’ words carry with them a sense of anticipation of what this water will offer believers and the world.

Now, here’s something interesting … a lot of how we understand this passage depends on the version of the Bible you happen to be using.

Some In the original Greek, the word “koilia” is what the version of the Bible we use translates into “heart.” But elsewhere in the gospels, that same Greek word … “koilia” …  is translated to “stomach” and … in the cases of Elizabeth and Mary … to the word “womb.”

Other translations simple speak of a river flowing from a believer’s inner most being.

Each of these alternate translations speak to the depth of the life offered by this water … that it is something that reshapes life.

Indeed, the idea of this river flowing from a believer’s womb … embodies the new life that the Spirit offers both to the believer and to the world. The Spirit gives birth to something new to the world … something that offers a change of perspectives and priorities … just as the encounter with the woman at the well fostered change earlier in John.

Belief … as one writer puts it … is a gift … it’s a gift that is meant to flow outward.

Through this belief we are invited … called … to bring the living water to others … to help satisfy a soul’s hunger and thirst … by drawing from the wellspring of abundant love … of grace … we have received.

AMEN