Max's Weekly Musings
Vol. 11, No. 13, for the week of April 13 - 19, 2008
John 7:37 - 39

Our text for this week is found in John 7:37-39.  Take a few moments to read it prayerfully.  Jesus is in Jerusalem attending the Feast of the Tabernacles.  This was one of the annual pilgrimage feasts which required the attendance of Jewish men to come to the Temple in Jerusalem to offer sacrifices.  This particular feast was in the fall of the year (usually between the middle of September to the middle of October).  This feast is first described for us in Leviticus 23:40-43.  The people were required to build booths with walls made out of branches such that they would give protection from the weather but not shut out the sun.  The roof had to be thatched but spacing had to be wide enough to see the stars at night.  The purpose for living in these booths was to remind the children of Israel that they had been wanderers in the desert.  There was also an agricultural significance to this feast.  Being a fall feast, it marked the time when the wheat, barley and grapes were being harvested.  It was a time of great celebration and thanksgiving.

As part of the ceremony, each day the people would come to the Temple with their palm and willow branches.  They formed a screen-like structure over the great altar.  The priest took a golden pitcher and went down to the Pool of Siloam and filled it with water.  It was carried back to the Temple while the people shouted Isaiah 12:3 - With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.  The water was carried to the Temple and poured out on the altar as an offering to God.  As the water was being poured out the people sang the Great Hallels (Psalm 113-118).  [It is interesting to note that these psalms are also sung as part of the Passover Seder].  This ceremony was an act of thanksgiving for the rain and the water.

What did Jesus mean when He said, 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 (John 7:37-38).  There are two possible interpretations.  First, Jesus may be referring to Himself.  Perhaps John is thinking about Jesus as the fountain from which the cleansing stream flows.  The early Christians had already identified Jesus with the Rock from which water flowed for the Israelites while at Mount Sinai (1 Corinthians 10:4).  Perhaps Jesus is saying that just as man cannot live without water, a person cannot really experience life without Christ.  Secondly, Jesus may be referring to the man who comes to Jesus Christ and who accepts Him.  Remember His words to the woman at the well: Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:13-14). 

But, whatever interpretation you might favor, we cannot ignore two significant truths Jesus was teaching.  First, there is a universality in the invitation - "If anyone is thirsty."  Any man who has any kind of a thirst is invited to come to Jesus.  Thirst for spirituality - come!  Thirst for purity - come!  Thirst for affection - come!  Whatever is the deep cry of your life, Jesus invites you to come and drink.  Second, once a person has had his thirst quenched by Jesus, he himself becomes a channel of blessing for others - "Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."  As long as I am a thirsty soul, I can supply no rivers of blessing to others that will help to quench their thirsty souls.  There can be no overflowing life until the a life is filled.  Jesus wants us to be a Jordan River and not a Dead Sea.  You remember that the Dead Sea is "dead" because all it does is receive water without ever giving it back.  No waters flow out of the Dead Sea.  The Jordan River, on the other hand, both receives and gives. 

Friends, you and I may never impact the world like a Chuck Swindoll or a John MacArthur, but we can let our hearts overflow as we work in our daily marketplaces.  How we need to daily pray: Lord, keep me hungry and thirsty for You.  Lord, fill my thirst and help me to spill over to others.  This might be a good time to sing quietly that little chorus: "Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.  Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.  Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me.  Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me."

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: One test of a person's strength is his knowledge of his weakness.