37 On the last day of the feast, the
greatest day, Jesus stood up and shouted out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him
come to me, and 38 let the one who believes in me drink.
Just as the scripture says, ‘From within him will flow rivers of living
water.’”

39 (Now he said this about the Spirit,
whom those who believed in him were going to receive, for the Spirit had not
yet been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.)

- "On the last and greatest day
of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, 'Let anyone who is
thirsty come to me and drink.'" (John 7:37)

- We all know what it is to be
thirsty, and to have that thirst quenched.

- These words are beautiful on their
own. They are more beautiful when you know where he said them.

THE WATER CEREMONY

- Every morning of the feast, at dawn,
a priest went down to the Pool of Siloam with a golden pitcher and filled it
with water.

- He came back through the Water Gate
while the people sang, and poured the water on the
altar beside the wine.

- They sang Isaiah 12:3, a song about
drawing water with joy, and Psalm 118:25, a cry for God to save them.

- On the last day they circled the
altar seven times, crying, Save us now.

- The wine thanked God for the
harvest. The water asked him for rain. The ceremony remembered the water from
the rock, and rehearsed the age to come.

THE ROCK AND THE TEMPLE

- "Whoever believes in me, as
Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them."
(John 7:38)

- Jesus is claiming the water flows
from him. He is the rock Moses struck in Exodus 17, and Paul identifies that
rock with Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4).

- He is also the temple. In John 2 he
calls his own body the temple, the one that will be raised in three days. The
prophets said water would flow from the temple to renew all creation.

- On the cross, water and blood flowed
from his pierced side (John 19:34). The rock was struck, and the water flowed.

- It was always him. He is the rock.
He is the source.

THE SPIRIT

- John 7:39 explains what is flowing:
the Spirit. The Spirit would come to everyone who believes, but the gift was
still future then, because Jesus had not yet been lifted up
in glory.

- Glorified in John means lifted up on the cross. Jesus is not glorified just after
the cross. He is glorified on it. The resurrection and ascension complete what
the cross began.

- The Spirit is the promise of the age
to come, the down payment of the renewal God has
planned.

- You do not get these layers from one
reading. You read it over and over, the way you
rewatch a show you love, until it lives in you.

COME, BELIEVE, DRINK

- Come. Jeremiah 2:13 says we have
turned away from God, our source of living water, and dug leaky wells of our
own that cannot hold anything.

- What wells do you go to and still
come away thirsty? Work, achievement, relationships, comfort, control,
entertainment, substances, shopping.

- Believe. Trust Jesus as Lord and
Savior, the king who saves, the one who offers a river of life paid for with
his life.

- Drink. Drinking means you receive
it. What you are thirsty for is the Spirit. Receive the Holy Spirit.