The problem of water is very real in the desert. We are not able to live long without water
and the people had no time to prepare for the journey into the wilderness in
such a way that water was taken along for all the people and animals in this
wagon train. It isn't surprising that
there was a serious dispute over the issue of water. The people still weren't prepared to
understand and to trust the Lord to provide in all the particulars, they hardly
knew Him. Their complete experience was
the plagues in Egypt, the experience at the Red Sea and manna. He was real and they knew that He cared about
them but this problem of water threatened to undo everything. The use of the names Massah and Meribah was
to remind them of who they were and to hopefully stand as a memory and a byword
for the future.
The particular feast here in John 7 is one where water is at
the center. They are coming to the end
of the dry season and it is an act of faith to pour out the water they have
stored against a prolongation of that season in the belief that God is going to
provide rain, something He had promised.
The priests were pouring out the precious water when Jesus stands and makes the plea to come
to Him for living water. If someone
stood in our worship just as we invited people to commune and said come here to
get that we would likely be telling stories about the nut job who did so for
quite some time, most of us would never forget it. The people were divided over Him in the
belief that perhaps He was the prophet like Moses promised in Deuteronomy. Not surprisingly, most weren't ready to acknowledge
such a thing at all, it was early in His ministry and people didn't know what
to make of Jesus. He is the source of
living water, something which Paul tells us He has always been, that Jesus was
the rock that followed them in the wilderness, the rock from our first lesson.
Just as He is the bread of life, and the cross for those who
believe the tree of life, so is he the river of living water. In the prophecy of Ezekiel the river flowed
from the temple and gave life wherever it went and provided for healing, the
same as it does in the Revelation. Jesus
gave life in the same way and healing as well.
The cross is the ultimate expression of God's love for us and His
provision of the water we need to give us life.
The water that flowed from the wound in His side means death to Him but
life for us. In the least peaceful
moment in His life He was making peace for us with God the Father, reconciling
us to Him that we might indeed have those rivers of living water flowing from
within by the indwelling of the Spirit.
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