THE FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WATER

John 7: 37·44

ALL the events of this chapter took place during the Festival of Tabernacles; and now in order properly to understand this passage we must know the significance, and at least some of the ritual of that Festival.

The Festival of Tabernacles or Booths was, the third of the trio of great Jewish Festivals, attendance at which was compulsory for all adult male Jews who lived within twenty miles of Jerusalem. The three were The Passover, The Festival of Pentecost, and the Festival of Tabernacles. It fell on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, that is, about 15th October. Like all the great Jewish Festivals it had a double significance.

First, it had an historical significance. It received its name from the fact that all through it people left their houses and lived in little booths. During the Festival the booths sprang up everywhere, on the flat roofs of the houses, in the streets, in the city squares, in the gardens, and even in the very courts of the Temple. The law laid it down that the booths must not be permanent structures, but that they must be built specially for the occasion. The walls of the booths were made of branches and fronds, and must be such that they would give protection from the weather but not shut out the sun. The roof had to be thatched, but the thatching had to be wide enough for the stars to be seen through the roof at night. The historical significance of all this was to remind the people in such a way that they would never forget it that once upon a time they had been homeless wanderers in the desert without a roof over their heads (Leviticus 23: 40·43). The purpose was that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of, Egypt." Originally it lasted seven days, but by the time of Jesus an eighth day had been added. So then the historical significance of the Festival of Booths was to be a reminder that the children of Israel had been wanderers in the desert before they reached the settled life of the Promised Land.

Second, it had an agricultural significance. It was supremely a harvest·thanksgiving Festival. It is sometimes called The Festival of the Ingathering (Exodus 23: 16; 34: 22). To the Jews it was the most popular Festival of all. For that reason it was sometimes called simply The Feast (I Kings 8: 2), and sometimes The Festival of the Lord (Leviticus 23: 39). It stood out above all other Festivals. The people called it "the season of our gladness." Coming as it did in the late autumn, it was the gladdest of all times, for it marked the ingathering of all the harvests, for by this time the barley, the wheat, and the grape harvest were all safely gathered in. As the law had it, it was to be celebrated “at the end of the year when thou gatherest in thy labour out of thy field” (Exodus 23: 16); it was to be kept "after that thou hast gathered in from thy threshing·floor and thy wine·press”. (Deuteronomy 16: 13, 16). It was not only the thanksgiving for one harvest; it was the glad thanksgiving for all the bounty of nature which made life possible and which made living happy. In Zechariah's dream of the new world it was this Festival which was to be celebrated all over the world (Zechariah 14: 16·18). Josephus called it "the holiest and the greatest festival among the Jews" (Antiquities of the Jews, 3: 10: 4). It was not only a time for the rich and for the wealthy and for those who normally had plenty. It was laid down that the servant, the stranger, the widow and the poor were all to share in the universal joy.

There was one particular ceremony connected with it. The worshippers were told to take "the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of thick trees, and the willows of the brook " (Leviticus 23: 40). The Sadducees said that that was a description of the material out of which the booths had to be built; the Pharisees said that it was a description of the things the worshippers had to bring with them when they came to the Temple. Very naturally, the people accepted the interpretation of the Pharisees, for it gave them a vivid ceremony in which to participate.

This special ceremony is very closely connected with this passage and with the words of Jesus. Quite certainly He spoke His words with it in His mind, and very possibly, even with it as an immediate background. Each day of the Festival the people came with their palms and their willows to the Temple; with them they formed a kind of screen or roof and marched round the great altar. At the same time a priest took a golden pitcher which held three logs – that is, about two pints – and went down to the Pool of Siloam and filled it with water. It was carried back through 'the Water Gate while the people recited Isaiah 12.3: “With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation." The water was carried up to the Temple and to the altar and poured out on it as an offering to God. While this was being done The Hallel – that is, Psalms 113·118 – was sung to the accompaniment of flutes by the Levite choir. When they came to the words,, "O give thanks to the Lord" (Psalm 118: 1), and again to the words, "O work now then salvation " (Psalm 118: 25), and finally to the closing words, "O give thanks unto the Lord " (Psalm 118: 29), the worshippers shouted and waved their palms towards the altar. The whole dramatic ceremony was a vivid thanksgiving for God's good gift of water, and an acted prayer for rain, and a memory of the water which sprang from the rock when they travelled through the wilderness. On the last day the ceremony was doubly impressive for they marched seven times round the altar in memory of the sevenfold circuit around the walls of Jericho, whereby the walls fell down and the city was taken.

It was against that background, maybe it was at that very moment, that Jesus' voice rang out: "If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink." It is as if Jesus said "You are thanking and glorifying God for the water which quenches the thirst of your bodies. Come to Me if you want water which will quench the thirst of your soul.” Jesus was using that dramatic moment to turn men's thoughts to the thirst of men for God and for the eternal things.

Now that we have seen the vivid background of this passage we must turn to look at it in more detail.

The promise of Jesus presents us with something of a problem. Jesus said: “He who believes in me – rivers of water shall flow from his belly." And He introduces, that statement by saying, “as scripture says." Now no one has ever been able to identify that quotation satisfactorily, and the question is, just what does it mean? There are two distinct possibilities.

(i) It may refer to the man who comes to Jesus Christ and who accepts Him. That man will have within him a river of refreshing water. It would be another way of saying what Jesus said to the woman of Samaria: “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of living water springing up into everlasting life “(John 4: 14)It would be another way of putting Isaiah's beautiful saying: “And the Lord shall guide thee continually and shall satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not” (Isaiah 58: 11) The meaning would be that Jesus can give a man the refreshment of the Holy Spirit. The Jews placed all the feelings and the thoughts and the emotions in certain parts of the body. The heart was the seat of the thought and the intellect; the kidneys and the belly were the seat of the inmost emotions and feelings. As the writer of the Proverbs had it: “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly” (Proverbs, 20: 27). This would mean that Jesus was promising us that cleansing, refreshing, lif6·giving stream of the Holy Spirit so that our thoughts and feelings and emotions and inmost desires would be purified and revitalised and filled with new life. It is as if Jesus said: “Come to me; accept me; trust me; and I will put into you through my Spirit a new life which will give you purity and satisfaction, and which will take away all your frustrations and unsatisfied hungers and give you the kind of life you have always longed for and never had." Whichever interpretation we take, it is quite certain that that interpretation is true.

(ii) The other interpretation is that this sentence may refer to Jesus Himself. “Rivers of living water shall flow from His belly” may refer to Jesus. It may be a description of the Messiah which Jesus is taking from somewhere which we cannot identify, and applying to Himself. The Christians always identified Jesus with the rock which gave the Israelites water in the wilderness (Exodus 17: 6). Paul took that image of the rock and applied it to Christ (I Corinthians 10: 4). It is John who tells how there came forth at the thrust of the soldier's spear water and blood from the side of Jesus (John 19: 34) The water stands for the purification which comes in baptism and the blood for the atoning death of the Cross. This symbol of the life·giving water which comes from God is often in the Old Testament (Psalm 105: 41; Ezekiel 47: 1, 12). Joel has the great picture: “And a fountain shall come forth out of the house of the Lord” (Joel 3: 18), It may well be that John is thinking of Jesus as the fountain from which the cleansing stream flows. Water is that without which man cannot live; and Christ is the one without whom man cannot live and dare not die. From Him there comes the gift of the Spirit which cleanses and strengthens life. Again, whichever interpretation we choose, that too is deeply true.

Whether we take this picture as referring to Christ or to the man who accepts Christ, it means that from Christ there flows the strength and power and cleansing which alone give us life in the real sense of the term.

In this passage there is one startling thing. In verse 39 the Authorised Version tones it down, but in the best Greek manuscript there is the strange statement: “For as yet there was no Spirit." What is the meaning of that? Think of it this way. A great power can exist for years and even centuries without men being able to tap it. The power is there even when men do not know that it is there. To take a very relevant example – there has always been atomic power in this world. Men did not invent atomic power; it has always been there. But only in our own time have men tapped and used what has always been there. The Holy Spirit has always existed; but men never really enjoyed the full power of that Spirit until after Pentecost. They had had glimpses of Him, foretastes of Him. But it was only after Pentecost that the floodgates were opened and the tide of the Spirit flowed out onto men. And, as it has been finely said, “There could be no Pentecost without Calvary." It was only when men had known Jesus that they really knew the Spirit. Before that the Spirit had been a power, but now the Spirit is a person, for the Spirit to us has become nothing other than the presence and the power of the Risen Christ always with us. In this apparently startling sentence John is not saying that the Spirit did not exist; but He is saying that it took the life and the death of Jesus Christ to lead up to Pentecost, and to open the floodgates for the Spirit to become real and powerful to all men.