Pentecost

Day of Pentecost, 31 May 2020 | Sermon on John 7:37-39 | by Paul Bieber |

John 7:37-39 Revised Standard Version

 

³⁷ On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. ³⁸ He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ ”³⁹ Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

 

also

Acts 2:1-21

Psalm 104:25-35, 37

I Corinthians 12:3b-13

 

Rivers of Living Water

 

Grace, peace, and much joy to you, people of God.

 

“On the last day of the feast, the great day. . . .” This is the last day of the feast, the great Day of Pentecost: the fiftieth of the Great Fifty Days of Easter. But it is actually the other great pilgrimage feast of Israel that is meant. Hearing this brief Gospel on this day knits together all three of Israel’s great feasts. First is Passover, Pascha, the remembrance that God has brought Israel out of bondage in Egypt, the offering of the first fruits of the barley harvest, and the forerunner of the Christian Easter, the Paschal Feast that ends today. Second is Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks—a week of weeks since Passover and the Feast of the Unleavened Bread, the completion of the barley and wheat harvests, and the reason that all those devout Jews from every nation were gathered in Jerusalem for what would be the first Christian Pentecost. Then, third, just as the season of early rains is about to begin, comes the Feast of Tabernacles, the remembrance of Israel’s wilderness journey to the promised land, living in tabernacles, tents—and the harvest of grapes, figs, pomegranates, and olives.

 

It was on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles that Jesus proclaimed the relationship between living water and the Spirit; indeed, living water as a potent metaphor for the Spirit. On each of the seven days of this harvest festival, the pilgrims at Jerusalem for the feast took up willow and myrtle branches bound by palms, and pieces of citrus fruit, and they lined the steep stone-paved road from the Pool of Siloam to the Temple. A priest of the Temple dipped a golden pitcher into the waters of the pool fed by the Spring of Gihon, drew out water, and carried it in procession up the road, into the Temple, and to the altar, where the water was mixed with wine from the drink-offering and poured out as a libation at the foot of the altar.

 

The drawing and pouring out ceremony was anticipatory thanks for the early rains about to begin and remembrance of the way Moses provided water to quench the people’s thirst in the wilderness at the rock of Meribah. Just one chapter ago, in the John 6 bread of life discourse, Jesus had said that it was not Moses who gave bread from heaven, but the Father, and that Jesus himself is the bread of life. So here Jesus reinterprets the Tabernacles water ceremony by inviting those thirsty pilgrims at the end of the summer-dry season to quench their spiritual thirst by coming to Jesus and believing in him, and so receiving living water. As St. Paul says in I Corinthians 10, the story of water from the rock is really about supernatural drink, for “the rock was Christ.”

 

But this proclamation on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles is not only a reinterpretation of the Meribah story, any more than the bread of life discourse was only a reinterpretation of the manna. The One who calls himself the bread of life promises that those who come to him he will raise up at the last day. The One who says “come to me and drink” promises rivers of living water flowing out of the heart of the believer. Already in chapter 4 he had told the woman at the well that the living water he gives will become in the believer a spring welling up to eternal life.

 

It is a lovely metaphor for the Holy Spirit, whose feast day this is. Always on Pentecost we hear about the sound like wind and the tongues as of fire. But this brief Gospel from John 7 invites us to contrast a stagnant and brackish life without the Spirit with the gift that springs forth, wells up, quenches our spiritual thirst, enlivens us and flows out from us to refresh others.

 

As Peter interprets the Pentecost experience, through the lens of Joel’s prophecy, as God pouring out his Spirit on all flesh, so the water drawn from the pool fed by the spring of living water, then poured out, is a picture of the new creation, like the river that flowed out of Eden, like the water from the new temple in Ezekiel’s prophecy flowing out and enlivening the wilderness, and Zechariah’s prophecy that water would flow from Jerusalem on the day of the Lord, when the whole world knows the Lord as king. As Peter quoted Joel, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (And whatever Joel meant, Peter meant “Jesus.”) But as we know from I Corinthians 12, “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.”

 

Martin Luther said the same in the Small Catechism, in his explanation of the Third Article of the Creed:

 

I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one common, true faith.

 

Does this seem too circular? The Holy Spirit brings us to believe in Jesus; out of the pierced heart of Jesus, as from the stricken rock at Meribah, comes water that, like the Spirit, wells up in us to eternal life and flows out of our hearts to refresh other thirsty ones; that is, the Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy the many people, with their great variety of gifts, who are members of the one body of Christ. When Jesus was glorified, lifted up to draw all to himself, and raised up to the glory he had with the Father before the foundation of the world, the gift of the Spirit was given. But John the Baptist already testified that he saw the Spirit come down from heaven and rest on Jesus, and that this meant that Jesus is the one who is to baptize with the Holy Spirit. Jesus baptizes with the Spirit; the Spirit brings us to Jesus. The indwelling of the Spirit is Christ being formed in us. If this seems too circular, just wait for next Sunday, The Holy Trinity.

One step further. All of this is but an adumbration of the promise of the Lord’s great and glorious day, the truly great day, when God sends forth his Spirit to renew the heavens and the earth, the promise of Pentecost fulfilled, the great harvest, God tabernacling with his people, Easter forever, when, as we read in Revelation 7, that great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, worship before the throne of God. And this is the promise:

 

“They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more;

the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.

For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,

and he will guide them to springs of living water;

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber, STS

San Diego, California, USA

E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net