New Thoughts (04/17/09-04/25/09)
John introduces this scene as happening on the last day, the great day, of the Feast of Tabernacles. There is debate as to whether he was indicating the seventh day of the Feast proper, or the subsequent day of solemn assembly. The CJB, by translating this as being the Hoshana Rabbah¸ apparently chooses to see it as the seventh day, the day called ‘the Great Hosanna’ because of the recitations associated with the day. Reading of the rites associated with this Feast, I find that there was a custom of circling the altar once on each of the first six days, and seven times on the last. One supposes this may have begun to take on greater significance as the days of burnt sacrifices passed into history, and a congregations grew smaller, such that the idea of each person circling the altar was perhaps more feasible.
Of course, this business of circling seven times on the seventh day cannot help but put one in mind of the Battle of Jericho as Joshua began the conquest of the Promised Land. The meaning that is associated with the Feast is clear in the association of “hosanna” with the entire event, with the people daily reciting hosannas to God, repeatedly calling out for Him to save them, for that is, after all, what the term means: “Come save us, we pray thee.”
I can accept the significance inherent in Jesus choosing the day of the Great Hosanna to reveal Himself as the One who saves. But, that is not exactly what we have happening here. Neither do the events described require us in any way to insist that it is this seventh day that is in view, rather than the eighth. Before I reach my own conclusion, we shall have to have a look at some of the other things associated with the Feast proper, as well as the whole of the Festal cycle, and its place and purpose in God’s way. We shall also have to consider some of those things that had been added to the Feast by the time Jesus makes this announcement, because He is speaking to the people of His day first and foremost. To truly and properly take His meaning, we must first hear Him speaking in the milieu into which He spoke the message.
To begin, then, we can take note that there were three major Feasts in the calendar of Jewish life: There was Passover, there was Pentecost, and then there was Tabernacles. I suppose it would be more reasonable to declare all of these as, “there is”, for they all remain current factors in Jewish life, but I am still aiming myself back towards that period of AD 30 or so. So, we have three major feasts, each established upon a specific and important point in the calendar year as regards agrarian concerns, and each reflecting upon a specific and important event in the establishment of Israel in the land.
The association of feast with harvest times might lead one of a skeptical mindset to suppose these were nothing but the same old pagan rituals honoring the mysterious god of the harvest; that they were the typical appeasement of those raging powers that threatened life, lest they destroy the crops or prevent next year’s rains, or some such. On the contrary, though, the very reality of these harvests, that they factored so heavily in the life of the nation, was evidence in itself of what God – God who was not some tormentor to be appeased, but a rescuer who had come for His people – had done for them.
They had been nomads, wanderers, vagrants. They had been a people of no known and certain address. Oh, certainly, there was the little plot of land that Abraham had purchased, but it was a graveyard and nothing more. And really, their entire history in that land prior to God’s arrival on the scene in Egypt, had been nothing but stress. Oh, they’d prospered alright, but by sweat and good fortune. When droughts came, they were as effected as any other nation, if not more, for they were not tillers of the land. Why would they be? There was no guarantee that they would be there for the harvest. They were nomads, shepherds. They would move to where the food was, and when the food was no more, they would leave.
This is what has changed as Israel comes into the land of Promise. There is a major shift in focus. Yes, sheep are still important to them, but now, there are vineyards, olive groves, wheat fields and barley to be managed. Now, the days of wandering are over. Now, there is a point to sowing, because they most certainly will be around for the harvest. The harvest, then, is an annual reminder of all that God had done for them. Each of the great feasts marks a harvest time. Passover marks the barley, Pentecost the wheat. By the time of Tabernacles, everything is harvested from the fields, and everything is in the storehouse. Even the issues of threshing out the grain, pressing out the oil and the vintage, all of this is complete. It’s a time to enjoy the fruits of a year’s labor in the land God has given.
It’s important, in this regard, to note that these feasts were times of commanded rejoicing (Dt 16:13-15 – You will celebrate, and you shall rejoice.) Think about that: You will. This is not a prediction. It’s a commandment. It is every bit as demanding as the days of Aaron’s sons’ punishment, when Aaron was commanded not to mourn. As R.C. Sproul noted in regard to Ezekiel recently, the man of God cannot sorrow over the Justice of God. God’s Justice is as proper a reason to rejoice as is His Mercy. After all, everything He does is Good.
In the case of the harvest, the fullness of His Provision for His people, what other response makes the least bit of sense, except to celebrate the goodness of His bounty? Indeed, I recall researching the tithe a bit for my father not so long ago, and coming across this idea that there was a second tithe. Some, in our day, are attempting to make the purpose of this second tithe the whole purpose of the whole tithe, but this is nothing more than a reflection of our society’s unwillingness to grow up. Life is all about the party, and now our religion is all about the party, too! You see, the tithe isn’t to promote God’s work amongst the lost, it’s to party! It’s to celebrate what He’s done for you. It’s all about you. Criminal, that such a thought should ever take root in a child of God!
The second tithe, as it is shown, was indeed about celebrating God’s provision. In fact, it is close-coupled with this Feast of Booths that we are looking at. It was the provision for the seven days of feasting that came at the close of harvest. But, notice something about this: Even then, the focus was not on you. First, the whole point of the tithe, even the second tithe, is acknowledging God’s provision, not your great farming skills. Second, in commanding this festival tithe, He explicitly lays out how this feast is to encompass more than you, more than your family. Bring in the Levites, too, the orphans and widows. If there is anybody in reach who cannot provide their own feast, call them to come join in yours. It’s not like you provided the food, after all! Celebrate! Celebrate the goodness of the Lord! Share with any who need! Give as it has been given to you, good measure, packed down and overflowing! The time for solemn assembly will come soon enough.
These feasts were also established, of course, to mark points of greatest significance in the spiritual history and establishment of Israel. Passover, we are of course wholly familiar with. It is the point of God’s stepping in to rescue His people. It is also the day of judgment upon those who are not His, and it has established forevermore the association of the Blood of the Lamb with the marking out of His people.
Pentecost is somewhat more difficult to nail down, as regards the rescue of the nation, but it has some association with the first fruits. The specifics of that day are not particularly germane to the topic at hand, though, so let me move to Tabernacles.
Here, the association is clearly stated as being with the forty years of wandering. Throughout that desert stroll, the people lived in tents, and throughout that time, God provided. He provided food and water. He provided clothing that did not wear out in spite of the abrasions of wind, sand and time. He provided light and shade. In short, He provided everything they had need of throughout that time, until He had purified them sufficiently to enter into the fullness of His promise of a land and a heritage.
Over the years, certain additional observances had been added to this celebration of God’s provision. Specifically, there were two that are of interest at present. First, there was this added tradition of fetching water from the Pool of Siloam and pouring it out as part of the libation offering. This was something done on each of the seven days of the feast. Second, there was the addition of the lamps which were placed in the court of women, and lit throughout the seven days of the feast. The importance of these additions lies in the very fact that Jesus, rather than condemning the modification of God’s commanded observance, declares Himself the fulfillment of these additions, even as He fulfills the Feasts themselves.
To fully take His point, though, we must understand not only that these additional observances existed, but also what they signified. In the drawing of the water, the intent was to memorialize the way God had provided water from the rock to satisfy the thirst of His people. The lamps were set up to represent the pillar of fire and smoke which had accompanied Israel as guide and protector throughout the forty years of their wandering. In sum, while these observances were not specifically prescribed for the Feast of Tabernacles, they were certainly fitting with the purpose of the Feast: the remembrance of God’s Provision for His people. It may have lost some of the sense of their being wanderers in that time, but as with every true observance of faith, it was not they who were to be in primary focus, but rather God. So, it is quite reasonable that they should add these reminders of God’s hand in their survival as nomads, and quite fitting that God should show Himself pleased by their remembrances.
In this passage, of course, we are focused on the added water libation. Before we consider what Jesus is declaring Himself the fulfillment of, let me flesh out the symbol just a bit more. We understand that the libation was in honor of God’s pouring out water from the rock as Israel wandered the desert. Now, consider why the waters of the Pool of Siloam were particularly chosen for this honoring. This pool is most fully associated with the siege of Jerusalem that came in the time of Hezekiah. It is the pool that held the waters that were diverted through the aqueduct he caused to be constructed, thereby giving Jerusalem an ample and all but indestructible source of fresh water throughout the siege.
It is because the pool’s waters came to it via that aqueduct that it was named Siloam, the word translating as ‘sent’. The waters that filled the Pool of Siloam were sent, via the aqueduct, from a spring in the surrounding hills. Interestingly, that spring is known among Christians as the Virgin’s Fount. To the Jews, those waters are were referred to as the waters of Gihon. Gihon is one of the four rivers of Eden, that one which “flows around the whole of Cush” (Ge 2:13). The term Gihon means to gush forth, or to issue. It is also called Shiloah (Isa 8:6), that term meaning to send away, send out, or send for. Even before the events of Hezekiah’s days, those waters had become important in the sight of the people. They were so important that they had become a part of the coronation ceremony for Israel’s kings, beginning with Solomon. So, set aside the later association with the Virgin Mary. Without that, we already have the spring from whence the waters issue, gushing forth to be sent out to the Pool to which the waters are ‘sent’.
Thus, as the water from the rock in the desert had provided for God’s people in their wandering, so the waters of Shiloah had flowed through and from the rock of the hills around Jerusalem to provide for God’s people in their time of need in Jerusalem. Always, the water was a God-send, and in both cases, though Hezekiah had his hand in that latter occasion, it was a situation in which Israel’s survival without God was an utter impossibility.
And into all that is symbolized by all these symbols steps Jesus, and declares that He is what all the symbols symbolize.
None of this, I confess, clarifies whether Jesus is acting on the seventh day of Tabernacles, or during the subsequent day of solemn assembly. I am, however, still inclined to hold to the latter view, for in that closing assembly of the eighth day, the full symbolic power of the entire calendar of Israel’s religious observances is focused, magnified, intensified. On this day, Israel was not marking only the end of the Feast of Tabernacles, but the end of the annual cycle of feasts and holy days. If I am understanding things correctly, this day also marked the final reading from the annual cycle of Torah readings. If there was a day to declare the fulfillment of all that God had revealed in Scripture, surely this was it! Everything has been said and done.
I also find it a reasonable, if circumstantial, support for the idea of an eighth day announcement that on that eighth day, the celebratory hubbub of the preceding days was replaced by solemnity. The symbols that had been there for the seven days: the booths and branches, the processional associated with drawing water from the pool, the lamps and special gatherings in the court of the women; all of these were gone, and nothing remained to take the focus from God. How much more powerful, then, for Jesus to stand up on that day, in that solemn and holy observance, and make this complete association of Himself with all that had been marked not only for the last seven days, but for all of Israel’s history as a nation, as a people!
Had He done this in the atmosphere of the Feast proper, who would have heard Him above the noise? Who would have noted Him in the midst of their own celebrations? It would have passed with little comment, even with His notoriety amongst the people. To the majority, He would still just be some country boy shouting in the midst of the party. But, today! Today, He has quiet, or as near to quiet as a crowd of such magnitude can be expected to achieve. Today, when He stands and shouts out His revelation, it can’t be missed. Neither can the significance of His words be missed.
How fitting, that Jesus should come on this final, culminating day of solemn assembly and announce that He Himself is the culmination of all things. Here, you have been remembering the water that came from the rock with such joy for God’s Provision. I AM that water. In fact, I AM the Rock from which the waters flow. Keep following the logic. I AM God’s Provision. In short: I AM God; I AM. Here in the relative quiet of the eighth day, the day of new beginnings, as the cycle of feasts and the cycle of Torah readings are come full circle, the New Beginning speaks to creation, declares that they, too, can have a new beginning. Marvelous!
Shortly, for those who missed the obvious implications on this occasion, we will find Jesus making a similar claim with regard to the light (Jn 8:12), drawing the connection between Himself and the lamps in the court of women, thereby to the pillar of light in the desert, leading inexorably to God Himself. Those who attempt to read through the Gospel record and maintain that Jesus never declared Himself to be God, never showed an awareness that He was God, are either ill informed, or intentionally lying about the evidence. The message of that claim, if it is not patently obvious to a casual reader today, was certainly obvious to those to whom Jesus was speaking. Why else the urge to stone Him? Why else the urge to worship Him? Either of these acts reveals in the actor a recognition of the implications in what Jesus said. The difference lies in their acceptance or rejection of His statements on the part of the listener.
The claim is there. I AM the fulfillment. I fulfill all the Feasts of Israel. I fulfill all the history of Israel. In Me, the line of king David is fulfilled. Ah, but here’s the rub: They were awaiting a king like David, the victorious warrior. But, in their anxiousness for victory, they forget about the years of patient waiting, the patient service even in the court of a king who sought to take his life. They forget the humiliation David suffered, a man on the run, his only company a collection of mercenaries and outlaws, his only shelter a cave in the wilderness; forever on the run, forever on the alert.
This is what it had meant to be God’s anointed. This is what it would mean for Messiah, at least on this current visit. The time for triumphal entry can come later, but He fulfills the type of David first and foremost as a man after God’s own heart. He fulfills the type further by accepting the humiliation of the present, knowing it is in God’s plan and purpose, and that what God had declared in regard to His future shall be, and it shall be good. To take upon Himself also the fulfillment of the victorious captain, the mighty warrior king overcoming every enemy is the final fulfillment, but in many ways, it is the least significant. It requires the first two to prove His qualifications for the last. And, in this, we can find a model for ourselves.
OK, I just left the script, but this is important. Saul, the first king of Israel, jumped straight from obscurity to the throne. Yes, it was by God’s command, but it wasn’t particularly for His pleasure. This was not a king after His own heart, as events would prove. This was not a king who was willing to abide patiently. This was not a king who was willing to suffer the least bit of embarrassment for himself. Indeed, his record shows him to have been far more concerned with his own reputation than with God’s.
David, on the other hand, proved himself. He proved, with amazing consistency for a fallen man, that his own wants and desires took a distant second place to God’s. Why did he go to join battle against the Philistines? Was it something he insistently begged his father to allow? No. His father sent him, so he went. Why did he accept the challenge of Goliath? Was it to show off his prowess? No. It was because he would not suffer such an insult against God to stand unchallenged. Why was he on the run for years? Was it because he had made an attempt on Saul’s life, trying to speed up the succession? No. It was because Saul had repeatedly made attempts on his own, in spite of his faithful service to the king. Why did he not take the throne by force? Was it because he didn’t really have the might with him to accomplish that end? No. He had several opportunities to remove Saul without any great risk to himself or his men. But, he not only refused to take the chance he was given, he refused to allow his men to do so on his behalf, and he made certain that all involved knew he was not going to touch the one God had set on the throne. In short, God put him there, and God would take him out.
Do you see this? Do you see how this is of a piece with what we see in Jesus, the Seed from the stump of Jesse? Do you see that this is the model we are to follow in ourselves? Service in the kingdom is not a matter of satisfying our own pride. If it is, then it is no service to the kingdom at all. It is just thinly veiled rebellion. Service in the kingdom may very well prove to be humiliating more often than not. It is embarrassing in these times to be a child of God. It’s hard to hide the fact that you’re a light when all around is darkness. Put it plainly: in your flesh, child of God, you will know humiliation. You may not suffer the agony of crucifixion, but you will die a little bit every day. Often, you should be warned, it will be your own conscience that humiliates you, and your own conscience that is humiliated. This is what happened to Peter after the death of Jesus. It’s also what happened to Judas, but with a much worse outcome. You see, Peter was not so full of himself that he could not repent of his evil. Peter would come, like Paul, to the point of disgust with is own inability to act as his conscience dictated.
Welcome to the walk of faith! The thing I would do, I find I do not do. The thing I would refuse to do, knowing it is wholly against the desire of my God, this I discover myself doing, and doing with alacrity. Oh! What a wretched man I am! I am a worm! What possible good can my God see in me, who cannot walk an hour without offending against His law? Me? As to the Law, spotless? Please! It is as far beyond my ability as any man’s, nor is there so much as one man living or dead who can honestly and accurately make such a claim. If he could, then God Himself must be a liar, and this shall never be! Yes, I am humiliated. I am humiliated daily. I am humiliated by my own craven weakness. I am humiliated by the opinions of those who look at me and marvel that I can call myself a Christian. I am humiliated by those who find the very concept of calling oneself a Christian proof of foolish ignorance. But, all of this just makes me more keenly aware of the Truth of Christ: “Apart from Me, you can do nothing. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. No man comes to the Father, except through Me; through My righteousness, My strength, My obedience. In ME all of Scripture is fulfilled. In ME all of ritual is fulfilled. In ME all of history is fulfilled. In ME all of you is fulfilled. And, in Me, the Father is fully glorified, for it has fully pleased Him to fully reveal Himself in Me.”
Here, then, is the only reasonable target of our worship. Here, then, is the only True Worship, for here, and here alone is completion. It is only because He is the completion – the completion of all things – that there can be the new beginning of the eighth day. It is precisely because He is the completion that He is also our source. He is our source of Life, the Rock. He was struck by God’s own command, and because He was struck, the springs from which flow the waters of life are opened on our behalf. He is the Light, the beacon which guides by night, the fire which consumes all that would prevent us from following, the fire which surrounds but does not consume all upon whom God would set His Holy Spirit.
Yet, even with that, the correlation of symbol and fulfillment is not yet complete. Consider what was cried out, or sung out, on a daily basis during this Feast: Hosanna! Indeed, the closing day was called the Great Hosanna, because the term was to be repeated so often. Yes, and even today we have any number of choruses and worship songs that happily shout out their own hosanna! “Hosanna, we praise You”? Sounds nice, but no offense: It makes just about zero sense. Hosanna is not a name. It is the cry of a desperate heart. It’s not a joyful note of praise, it’s a mournful acknowledgement of one’s dire need.
“Come save us! We beg You!” That is the meaning of the word. This is what the crowds were crying out as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on that donkey. “Come save us, we beg You. Son of David, throw off these invading armies and restore the glory of Israel! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is He who comes to rerun Israel to its proper place of honor among nations” (Mt 21:9). They wanted deliverance, but not from their sins. They wanted deliverance from their hardships. This, too, reflects the plague that still troubles the Church today. We, like Israel before us, are easily distracted by our hardships, and often more concerned about seeing them alleviated than about seeing God’s kingdom expanded. How else does the poison of the prosperity message spread so easily?
Perhaps, then, it is more fitting than we think that we are so enamored of this word, Hosanna. Perhaps, as our inclinations are not so very different from those who welcomed Messiah into Jerusalem, it is as fitting that we should blindly cry out for Him to save us, having no clear idea what we are crying out, or why. Oh, we want to be saved from the economic woes around us, to be sure. We’d like to be saved from the corruptions of the sort of governance we seem to be suffering of late, yes. But, the salvation of our soul? Salvation from our own weak and despicable flesh? Honestly, we don’t find ourselves all that despicable, and we rarely admit to our weakness. Hosanna, we praise You? Is it offered as an argument for why He should? It’s not much of an argument. Far more fitting that we should sing, Hosanna, we perish. Hosanna, Son of David, else all hope for us is gone. But, I challenge you to find anybody singing the hosanna songs today who understands them that way. Indeed, I challenge myself to sing them in this sense from here on out.
A large part of me says that we really have no business singing and shouting Hosanna any longer. Why call out to the One Who has already saved us to save us? Why beg for what is already ours? Paul writes of how we hope for what we do not yet see, because if we saw it, we should no longer require hope. We should have the reality of that thing in our possession. No need to hope for what you have. Doesn’t this apply to the substance of hosanna? Salvation is ours, bought, paid for and delivered to us once for all by the death and life of our Lord, Jesus Christ. What reason do we have to beg Him for it, then?
I understand that by and large, hosanna is sung with no real understanding of its meaning, other than that it’s this nice sounding foreign word that’s become very popular in Christian circles. It’s a bit of jargon that identifies us as part of the in crowd at church. But, if it wasn’t meaningless when it was picked up, the fact that it has become so ubiquitous in our music, and the way in which that music makes more of the sound of the word than anything touching on its meaning, has had the effect of robbing it of all meaning.
Where there is understanding, though, what does it say of us that we sing hosanna all the day? What can it signify but that we are dissatisfied with the salvation Jesus has wrought on our behalf! We are very much like those who shouted to Him as He rode into Jerusalem. We want Jesus to be the Jesus we want, not the Jesus He is. We want salvation to mean an end to every earthly trial, an end to even the slightest feeling of want. We want salvation to mean we can have whatever we want in the here and now. But, that’s not Christianity. That’s not even maturity. That’s the lifelong child nature that the culture around us has cultivated for itself and for us, and we’ve bought into it hook, line and sinker, without even noticing.
If there remains anything about salvation that Jesus still needs to accomplish on our behalf, it can only be to save us from our own foolishness. Surely, we are our own worst enemies. Surely, we are ever so incredibly adept at fashioning fictions to keep ourselves from seeing ourselves. Surely, for all that we like to blame the devil for our sins, we know at the end of the day it is our own will that has betrayed us. Satan can only provide the opportunity. If he was making our choices for us, then we should be without blame. The truth is that every choice has and continues to be ours. We shall have no excuse when we come to our Judge. We shall have no plea apart from His purchase.
The truth is that He has already saved us, even from ourselves. He has done all that was needful, left nothing to chance. I know Paul calls upon us to work out our own salvation (Php 2:12). I know he writes of doing for God what Christ had left undone (Col 1:24). But, do you not see that – certainly in that latter case – Paul is employing a certain hyperbole in his words? Can there be, truly, anything which Christ has left undone? Now, he qualifies that, saying that he speaks specifically of Christ’s afflictions, but even there, can there truly be anything lacking in what Christ suffered? If the penalty He paid suffices to redeem every sinner through all of eternity, what more would we ask of His sufferings? What remains that we need to do? Paul, I know, would answer that as pertains to our salvation, there is nothing at all. As it is God Who knew beforehand whom He had chosen, Who predestined that we would become conformed to the image of His Son, Who called us (while we were yet sworn enemies of His kingdom) out of our darkness, Who justified us by His royal decree on the basis of that suffering of our Lord, Who has glorified us (Ro 8:29-30). When Jesus proclaimed at His death that, “it is finished,” He meant it. Everything was done, nothing was lacking from the work He had accomplished. There were no nits for the accuser of the saints to pick, no fine point of the Law that could be argued. Done! Salvation bought and paid for.
So, what is it Paul is getting at in those comments? In the former case, as concerns working out our salvation, it is surely no suggestion that we need to earn our way in when Jesus has already handed us our ticket. No, it’s the effort of a heartfelt gratitude. We work out our salvation in seeking ever to reflect that image that has been granted us more fully, more accurately. We work out our salvation as an expression of gratitude for what our Lord has done for us, as an outworking of the love we have for Him Who first loved us. Because we love Him, because He is so much to us, we seek as best we can to be more like Him. We work to make our lives give evidence of that salvation He has already accomplished within us.
Why do you think we find it so reprehensible, so shameful, to realize that more often than not the sinners outshine the saints when it comes to expressions of mercy and compassion? Why do you think it stings so much to discover that the unbelievers we know would make better Christians in our own estimation than many of the Christians we know? In our more honest moments, we might even note that they would make better Christians than ourselves. Ah! Who can unravel the mysteries of God? Who can explain His choosing? Yet surely, the kingdom is near to those who elicit such healthy envy in us who are saved. Surely, God is at work even there, calling, wooing, fashioning the clay of another human being to be fit for use to His glory. Who is to say when their ears will hear and their hearts will be bowed before the Lord of all Creation?
As to the suffering that Paul says he undergoes to fill in what Christ had left undone, well, I do not see how that can be more than an expression of his willingness to truly live as being no greater than his Master. If Christ was willing to suffer and die such an ignominious death to plant the seed of His eternal Church, it would seem Paul could find no reason he should not suffer himself to see that Church properly fertilized, watered and well rooted. How we need to regain that perspective in our day! How weak we have become in our faith, because we happen to have enjoyed an era of acceptability in our nation. How complacent we have become, that as the nation turns further and further from the Christ at its roots, we are more concerned with our own liberties than with the erosion of His kingdom. And there, if there be any cause for the cry, is cause to cry Hosanna. Save us from our laziness, o, Lord. And yet, that is a cry unlikely to be heard, isn’t it? I have never known God to be overly impressed with the sluggard, for that laziness expresses choice, and it does not express having chosen God’s will over our own.
But, Lo! Even you lazy one: do you thirst? Would you be made well? Come, then. Come to Me and drink! And, don’t stop with just one cup. Keep coming to Me! Keep drinking! This fountain, this flow of Life from the Rock, Christ Jesus, is not going to be sealed up. It may be hidden from those to whom it is not given, but to the one who has tasted the Life He gives, it is a ceaseless flow, a bottomless spring. Come! Come every moment and drink! You need the hydration of your spirit that can only come from Him.
What had He said to that woman up in Samaria? “If you only knew…” If you understood the gift God is giving out to mankind right now; if you understood who it is who is talking to you, you would ask Him for a drink, not laugh at Him for offering. You would ask, and He would give. He would give you living water (Jn 4:10). Of course, we understand that He is speaking of far more than just spring-fed waters versus the stale waters of the cistern. “Everyone who drinks of this water will just become thirsty again. But, the one who drinks the waters I give will never thirst, for My waters become a spring within him, pouring forth eternal life” (Jn 4:13-14).
Yes, the thirst will cease, for that thirsting, that longing, is the same desperation that keeps crying out hosanna. It is, at root, the fear of knowing that death awaits at the end of our days, and beyond that, a loss of all hope. But, come! Drink! Taste once this fount of Life, and that thirsty longing will depart once for all. Why is that? Because having tasted the Life our Lord so freely gives, we come to recognize that something besides death awaits us. Life awaits us! In a moment, we are turned from a future with no least glimmer of hope, to a hope so certain that even the sleep of death cannot chip it away from us. The thirst will be gone because the fear will be gone. The uncertainty, or worse still, the certainty of hopelessness, will be gone; replaced by the absolute certainty of His wholly accomplished work of salvation on our behalf! But, don’t stop drinking!
You see, that drinking is no longer out of the desperation of deadly thirst. It is no longer the panting lapping of that deer in the wilderness that expressed David’s longing for what lay centuries beyond his death. No! Now, we drink for the pleasure of the taste of those waters. Now, we drink because it thrills us to draw once more from the wellspring of His love. Indeed, we drink deeply not to survive, but to serve. We find that as we draw spiritual nourishment from that never ebbing flow, we are empowered to pour that same life-giving flow out to those around us. It is nothing in ourselves, we must understand. It does not give us cause for boasting, for the only thing that can flow from us is the overflow of what He is pouring in. Yet, what shame must be ours if we have done everything in our power to dam up that flow and keep it all for ourselves!
This thought was really following me through my day yesterday. What sort of a body of water would best describe my spiritual condition? Am I a wadi, a stream that gushes dangerously for a few hours and then dries up entirely? Am I a brook, flowing but easily diverted by the least obstacle in my path? Am I a pond, gathering the waters that come in but parsimonious when it comes to letting those waters out? Or, am I a river, drinking constantly from the springs at my source, and maintaining a constant, powerful current flowing out through my surroundings? It’s pretty obvious which description Jesus wants to describe His followers. “From his deepest parts will flow rivers of living water” (v38).
Stay with the image Jesus has given us. That river flows from a spring that will not cease, and He is that spring. Elsewhere, He instructs us, “freely you received from Me, so freely give of what you have received” (Mt 10:8). We may as well hear, “From those who have received much, much will be required” (Lk 12:48) in this same sense.
That spring within us, opened at the moment of our redemption, does not cease to flow. Have you ever been near a spring, as it enters into the lake or river it feeds? Growing up, there was a spring that poured into the river as it passed near our house. Going swimming in that river in the summer, you could not fail to notice it. There was the push of current as that spring forced its waters upon the river, there was the chill of that fresh, subterranean supply jetting into the warmer waters of the river. Or, there was that lake in Austin, Texas, fed by many springs. On the hottest days of summer (and they were plenty hot), that lake would still be a chilly 50-some degrees because those springs were pouring their contributions into the lake. Indeed, the force of those springs entering the lake was so great that it was impossible to swim down to their point of entry. The current they produced would repel the best of swimmers long before they came in range.
Those springs don’t stop giving! What a perfect model for Jesus and for the Holy Spirit working in our lives. Freely poured out! Liberally poured out! Poured out in an utterly irresistible fashion. He is going to flood your life come what may, and what has He asked for payment in return for this great boon? What does the spring ask of the river, or of the lake to which it gives its waters? It asks nothing. It seeks no payment. Neither does our Lord and King. Yet, we are told that He has created these good works for us to do, set them up beforehand, prepared them for us as we come along, so that we can have the great good pleasure of doing Him a service by accomplishing the works He sets before us (Eph 2:10). We were created for this! What greater satisfaction can a man have than to know he has accomplished the purpose of his being?
Well, then, what is the purpose of the spring of life that He has set within us? What is the purpose of the river? If we go back to the scene fulfilled in Jesus’ proclamation, the immediate purpose of that water from the Rock was to satisfy the thirst of His people. There, then, is purpose number one. We are vessels to carry His water to His people. What does that mean? It means we are given to the body to help teach those who are in the body. We are given to the body to aid those who are in the body. We are given to the body to strengthen and encourage the body. What you learn of the Spirit, impart this to faithful brethren (2Ti 2:2). What you have learned, teach. Then those you teach will be equipped to teach others. And, the river flows on to the sea.
What about this? “I will pour water upon the thirsty land, streams on the dry grounds” (Isa 44:3). And, lest you miss His point, He adds, “I will pour My Spirit on your offspring, My blessing on your descendants.” There’s a double parallel in that. It is so amplified that we should be incapable of missing it. Water = streams = Spirit = blessing. Thirsty land = dry ground = your offspring = your descendants. How we reach the conclusion that He has poured Himself into us solely for our own benefit and entertainment is beyond me! How we have allowed this to be twisted into the “God wants you fat, rich and happy” message is, well, I wish it were beyond me. Sadly, it’s not. We are corrupt to the core, and it is only the grace of God that gives us any goodness, any usefulness.
God wants you flowing out. God wants rivers. Your own children depend on it. Generations to come depend on you pouring out what’s being poured in. Don’t get all swollen-headed over it! It’s not like you’re the point. It’s not as if you, by being the river God designed you to be, have done something marvelous for Him. It’s not as if He could not find any other way to reach your children and your descendants should you insist on constructing your dam and keeping all that water for yourself. God doesn’t need your help, thank you all the same. He is generous enough to allow you to help, because He knows it will bless you to do so. But, really: did your dad particularly need you passing him the wrench as he worked on the car? Was really all that helpful when it took you several tries to give him the one he was asking for? Or, how much was he aided by your hammering all those nails in bent and crooked, and banged over into the wood? Bet he was thrilled to have the benefit of your skills! Not that he would let on. He’s a dad. He’s pleased by your attempts, however faulty. He’s pleased to see you growing, even if there’s a long ways to go yet.
Welcome to God’s world. He’s not exactly benefiting from our expert assistance, but He’s pleased to have our efforts all the same. We’re Daddy’s kids, and Daddy loves to see us trying. He loves to have those opportunities to take note of the improvements over last time we tried to help Him. Ah, yes! My children are growing up. Someday; someday they will be fully matured. Someday they will seek to do My will and do it well. Oh, but how it blesses Me that they are trying. They are learning. They are growing into the fullness of My own image. They are reaching towards their potential. They may not be much more than the first shoots out of an acorn in the spring right now, but I see the end from the beginning, and oh! What mighty oaks they shall become!
But only if we let those rivers flow. Only if we don’t try to hold back the flood tide of the Spirit, of the Life that is welling up within us. Don’t you go crying out for those wells to spring up unless you’re getting ready to burst your banks and let those wells pour out!
Listen: Jesus has just declared Himself the Source. Come to Me – constantly – and drink. I AM the water from the rock, the provision of God. I AM the Rock! That rock had become the source of life for Israel, pouring out the water that would sustain them in the desert. Jesus is no less to those who are the called of God. He is the Source of Life. Except He has come into the life of man to be his wellspring, there is no way for rivers of living water to pour out of the man.
Living waters are joyful waters. You know, were you to climb down into a cistern, you would feel the damp of the air. You might hear the dripping of condensation from the walls and ceiling. But, it is not joyful. It’s dank, a bit moldy. It’s somber. You see, there’s no life in that water. It’s stagnant. It’s got a limited timeframe in which to be used before it becomes poisonous.
Swamps are not joyful waters, for much the same reason. They may have the open air overhead, but it’s not doing the water much good. Disturb the surface of those waters, and the smell of decay contained beneath will likely lead you to wish you hadn’t. Those waters are not alive. They’re just biding their time until they evaporate.
How about the ocean? There’s power in the waters of the ocean, especially as we hear those mighty waves crashing into the shoreline. There’s even a certain therapeutic peacefulness to the rhythm of those waves coming in. But, it’s not a joyful thing. It’s a time for humility, for recognizing the smallness of the self in the great scheme of creation. It’s a time for awe, as one looks out to the limitless horizon and sees the work of the Creator somewhat amplified by that scale.
But, a river! Even a stream! Those waters are joyful. They sing as they make their way over the rocks, around the trees, under the overhanging shores. Those waters are alive! They invite you to come and be a part of their own wonderful experience. Jump in! Come swim in the currents! Just stand in them, if you like. Let me take you for a ride over these smooth rock slides. Let me restore your youth to you for just a moment in time. Remember what life is about as my waters tickle you, massage you, cajole you. Life! Life is for joy! There will be more than enough mourning and sorrow as you toil through your days, but step out of that for now, and come bathe in the waters of joyful life. Come remember purpose. Come remember why you take up your cross, remember the rewards.
Life isn’t about earning a living, it’s about living! Yes, those labors are necessary. Yes, they are required of you, but they are not the end. They are the means. Don’t forget that. Don’t lose sight of that. The end is Christ. The end is Life, Life lived well, Life lived with meaning. To labor for the sake of earthly gain is meaningless, futile. You can stack up as much wealth as you please in such empty pursuits, but at the end, you’ll be just as dead as if you had been penniless. It won’t have made a difference how much you collected.
Same for us: It won’t have made a difference how much ‘spirit’ we’ve stored up in ourselves. It’s the love you give that makes a difference. It’s the outbound flow of the river that measures the man, not the deep reservoirs horded within. Freely, He has poured Himself into your very being. Freely, pour it out. The river cannot stop drinking, as the springs that feed it never cease. Even a dam must allow some water to evade its barriers, because the ceaseless flow of the spring really is irresistible. It will not be stopped. We do, though, have a choice in how those waters will flow in our lives, whether it will be the joyful, constant flow of the river or the destructive urgency of the flood as the spring-fed waters force their way past us.
With that, I want to turn to a flow of Scripture that rather burst into my thoughts as I prepared for this study. This is one of the joyful benefits of looking up all those parallel verses. Every so often, when I come to the point of reviewing those verses without having to go looking them up one by one, the picture that is painted by the sum of the verses is so much more powerful than each verse considered in isolation. This, I think is one of those occasions. The verses I have before me break into three thematically linked portions, so I shall present and comment in like fashion.
Every one who thirsts, Come! Come to the waters. If you have no money, Come! Buy and eat. Indeed, buy wine and milk without money, at no cost. I will pour water upon the thirsty land, streams on the dry ground. I will pour My Spirit on your offspring, and My blessing on your descendents. The Lord will constantly guide you; constantly satisfy your desire even in the scorched places. He will strengthen your bones. You will be like a well-watered garden, a spring whose waters fail not (Isa 55:1, Isa 44:3, Isa 58:11).
This first paragraph speaks to me of the promise that Jesus continues to hold forth. His words to the people of Jerusalem that day, and to us today, are a clear echo of what Isaiah had been hearing and speaking to Israel in his day. Isn’t it interesting, the degree to which Israel’s situation as Jesus walked its streets was much like it had been when Isaiah brought God’s word to bear? But, more to the point is that constant drumbeat of the Water Bearer’s cry to a people thirsty because they are parched for righteousness. You have nothing to offer, but come anyway. Let Me satisfy that thirst you have been unable to address. Let Me fill all those voids that have been bothering you, and as I make you whole, the waters of life within you shall never fail.
On that day, you will give thanks to God because while He had been angry with you, He turned that anger away and comforted you. “Yes, God is my salvation, and I will trust and not be afraid. For God is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation.” Therefore you will joyously draw from the springs of salvation. In that day the mountains will be dripping with wine, the hills flowing with milk, and the brooks of Judah flowing with water. A spring will pour out from the house of the Lord to water the valley of Shittim. In that day, a fountain will open for the house of David and all in Jerusalem, a fountain for sin and for impurity. And in that day living waters will flow out of Jerusalem, half to the east and half to the west, and it shall flow both summer and winter. (Isa 121-3, Joel 3:18, Zech 13:1, Zech 14:8).
In the second paragraph, I look at those verses that speak to the Day of the Lord, and the association of the bursting out of rivers of living water with that day. Notice that the waters of that river, the living water, is associated with not just forgiving sin, but cleansing from sin. It is salvation indeed! Salvation is our strength. Salvation is the reason for our song, and the subject of our song, and the joy that fills our voices as we sing our song. As His waters cleanse us of our iniquities, and heal us of the lingering effects of our iniquities, behold! The land over which we have labored bears fruit in abundance! Is this the prosperity message, then? No, for the land we are called to labor in, the fields that we are given to work, are fields of mankind. The fruit of our labors, if indeed, we serve our Lord in good faith, are the lives of those who have been brought to His grace, presented for His blessing, and made recipients of His salvation like ourselves.
Surely, we must recognize that the grapes we may produce, the wheat we may harvest and mill into bread, or whatever material product we might manufacture are as nothing when measured against the business of the Kingdom. Yes, it is true that our earthly efforts may be means of provision and grace to the community. Yes, by our efforts in agriculture we are God’s means to feeding His people. Yes, as we develop technologies, we may be making it easier for God’s people to spread word of His Truth more effectively. Indeed, our labors, inasmuch as they provide for God’s people in any fashion, are noble endeavors. But, even so, they must pale in comparison to the work of salvation and discipleship. I feel certain that these are the sorts of fruits to which the prophets point: declaring that it is as we ourselves are so fully plunged in the cleansing water of Christ, saved and set free, that our labors in bearing His salvation to others can come to full flower.
Nu 20:8 Take the rod, assemble the people, and speak to the rock while they watch; then it will bring forth water for them, and they and their animals can drink. Ps 78:15-16 He split the rocks in the wilderness, giving them drink as abundant as the ocean depths. He caused streams to flow from the rock, running down like rivers. Eze 47:1 He brought me back to the door of the house and water was flowing from under the threshold, flowing to the east, as the house faced east. Water flowed from the right side of the house, south of the altar. Jn 19:34 One of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and from His side flowed both blood and water. Jn 14:12 I tell you in all truth that he who believes in Me will do not only these works that I do, but greater works as well, all because I go to the Father. 1Co 10:4 All drank the same drink of the spirit, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock – a rock which followed them. And that rock was Christ.
With this last set of verses, the connections are clearly laid out, making plain for us that Jesus is the fulfillment of the type that was Moses. Moses struck the rock at God’s command and, as God had said, water poured out. Water poured out in that desert place! Out of nothing, something! This was in itself miraculous, but it was not enough for God. No! It poured as if it would drain the ocean depths, rivers of water running down from that rock to satisfy all the myriad people of Israel gathered out there, and to satisfy their livestock as well! That’s a lot of water! Is it any wonder that the image of the river pouring out of the place where God is became such a recurring theme for the prophets? And, notice where those rivers always, always, find their source: at the altar, which was, after all, fabricated of rock. Always, then, water from the rock. From the rock of the altar, from the rock of the Temple, from the Rock, Christ Jesus.
It is therefore with a sense of awe that John recalls the thing he witnessed that day that the Son of God was crucified. When the soldiers had come to make certain that the three who hung there were dead, they jabbed the apparently lifeless Jesus expertly with the tip of a spear and what came of it? Of course, we would expect that there would be blood. But, with Jesus, both blood and water came from that wound! Blood to satisfy the demands of justice, the necessary ingredient of sacrifice for sin. Water to wash away the filth of sin. Death to bring life.
Having borne testimony to God and man, and even to the devil in this way, Jesus returned home. He went to the Father, and thereby established His promise for us, that we should do greater works than even those marvels that He had done in the course of His ministry. And then, lest we miss it, the Church’s own expert on Torah explains the meaning of what John had seen. The Rock was Christ Jesus. Is it any wonder, then, that when He was struck, water poured out? He is, even as He said, the Source, and it is not just we of the post-resurrection age who drink of His life-giving waters. When Israel wandered the desert, and Moses struck that rock? That Rock was the same Christ Jesus. They who drank in the desert drank of the same Spirit that we of the Church drink today. They received the same Life that we receive today. The difference is not in the promise of God, but only our temporal relationship to the moment of His fulfillment.
For them, the waiting would be in the sleep of death, in the recesses of Hades until He had completed the work of redemption, and marched victorious into that realm to lead the captives to freedom in the kingdom of God. For us, I expect the transition shall prove more immediate, for He has already opened those gates, and it were impossible that any man or any power should shut the gate He has opened. “Behold! I AM the Alpha and I AM the Omega, the beginning and the end. I AM the Living One. I was dead, yet you see for yourself that I AM alive, and I live forevermore. It is I Who hold the keys of death and the keys of Hades” (Rev 1:17-18). Those gates have been defeated. Do we not, then, have every reason to expect that at our death, our life really begins?
One thing should be certain, having looked at these collected verses: Jesus made a claim here that nobody missed. The whole purpose of the annual cycle of feasts was to ensure “that your generations will know and remember” (Lev 23:43). The purpose is assuredly twofold. It is not simply that God’s people will remember what He did in the distant past. It’s not just a matter for the curious historian. Memory of God’s dealings with previous generations is insufficient. We must also know. We must know not only that these records are accurate, but we must know what they mean.
Facts are of little use until we know their significance, and most particularly, their significance going forward. I still recall my first engineering job out of school. Oh, we had learned the facts of Ohm’s Law well enough. Yes, I could happily solve it for any of its three variables. I knew how that extended to allow a solution for power, or for returning from power to whichever of its three variables might be missing in a given equation. But, I really hadn’t recognized how to apply it in a real situation. It was no more than mental gymnastics at that point, a clever manipulation of variables to produce an answer out of thin air. It took that first issue of how I was to measure a current too large for my meter to handle, and the advice of a coworker, to really grasp the point of the Law and the exercises. Ah! So, that’s what it means! Obvious in retrospect, but so long as one is stuck with only the facts, the meaning continues to elude.
The Feasts, then, were not simply a recitation of the facts, a reading of the court records. They were a time for instilling the meaning. They were a time of explaining what those facts meant in the lives of the present, and for teaching what those facts pointed to in the future. It was because of the lessons learned at the Feasts that the people were keenly aware of the Messiah to come, and of the Prophet to precede. They may not have got it entirely right, but they knew a lot. They certainly knew enough that when Jesus stood to make this proclamation, when He commanded them to come to Him and drink, they knew full well what He was talking about. The Rock in the desert was fresh in their minds, and they were quite aware that it was not Moses who caused that water to flow, but God.
There was division in that crowd as to exactly how much Jesus was claiming, but they were quite clear on the fact that He was claiming something. In reality, I don’t think the division was as to His claim. The division was along the lines of how much each person was willing to accept of that claim. Some, evaluating the evidence they already had regarding this Jesus, heard His claim to the Godhead and acknowledged that it was hardly likely to be otherwise. Indeed, some of these may have had to adjust their conception of what Messiah was all about just a little bit as they reached that conclusion. So! Messiah is more than a man!
Others, while unwilling or unable to deny the clear evidence that Jesus provided in His works and His teaching, were yet unwilling to go so far as accept His claim in full. No, not the Messiah, this one, but perhaps the Prophet? How many are stuck in this mode even today? How many of those who insist on continuing in their own false religion are yet unable to deny the manifest goodness of this Man Jesus? They cannot bear to concede that He is God, for this would require them to change. But, they have to concede that He is good. So, they allow that He was certainly a great rabbi, a fine teacher. Oh, sure, He might even be counted a prophet, even one of the greater prophets. But, they dare not accept Him as Messiah, for then the flesh must die and the will submit.
The third splinter group contains those who will raise up every argument they can to reject Jesus. He cannot be what He claims, He comes from Galilee. Look! Right here, it says He must come from Bethlehem! You won’t find any support for a Messiah from Nazareth. It would not surprise me if these were found to be the exact same people who argued that He couldn’t be Messiah because they knew where He was from, and nobody would know where Messiah was from. Do you see? This crowd is not interested in the truth. They will select and declare whatever tidbits of Scripture or tradition or even folklore seem to support their opposition to the Christ, and they are perfectly at ease with changing the argument, even in such contradictory ways, to fit the situation at hand. It’s not truth they want, it’s escape from the Truth!
So, Divisions arose. We could argue, I suppose, that those divisions arose because of the Truth, and there would be good basis for such a position. He is, after all, the Two-Edged Sword. He has come not so much to unite the people as to divide, that His own people may come to Him, and the rest forced to admit their rejection of Him. So, yes, in that sense it is the Truth that divides. But, in a deeper sense, Truth unites. It is the opinions that Truth confronts that divide. Truth unites in that all those who hear the Truth and accept it, who feed on the Truth and make it an integral part of themselves, are thereby bound to find themselves of one mind with all others who have done so.
This unifying power of the Truth is not some elixir to turn its pursuers into zombies of some sort. We are not made mindless by accepting the truth of Truth. Not in the least! It is simply that Truth, being true, can only have one answer to give to any question presented. It cannot be a no to some and a yes to others. When Pilate asked Jesus, “what is truth?” he merely reflected a mindset all too common to our own day. Truth is whatever I believe it to be. You say this is the truth, and I say that is the truth. Isn’t it possible that we’re both right? Well, if our two truths are in direct opposition one to another, the answer is no! It is quite impossible that we are both right. We may both be wrong, but we are certainly not both right.
The sun is either visible overhead or it’s not. The sky is either blue on a sunny day or it’s not. Every fact of our existence makes it clear that this is the case. To earnestly hold that the sun is simultaneously visible overhead and not so – for me, standing here in this spot right now – is to declare myself at least mildly insane. The nature of nature is that a thing either is or it is not. The nature of nature is that the simultaneous being and not being of any object or entity is inherently impossible. Welcome to Truth! Truth cannot simultaneously be untrue. It is what it is and it does not change. Modern man has lost sight of this to his certain detriment. Modern man no longer believes it to be the case, in spite of his senses, for modern man has become largely senseless. So, it doesn’t bother us too much when the historians tell us that history isn’t what we thought. It doesn’t bother us when the purported experts insist that everything we thought we knew is wrong. It doesn’t phase us all that much that our politicians are forever saying one thing and doing another. We don’t expect the truth anymore because we don’t think it exists!
Is it any wonder that kids lose interest in education? What’s the point of learning if the facts are unreliable? What’s the point of heeding laws, whether parental or governmental or whatever, if I’m pretty much in charge of my own private reality. I’ll just do what I please because it pleases me, and you can go lump it. Go make your own reality if you don’t like mine. We reap what we sow.
Opinions divide and we are in a very divisive society. It’s certainly true in the secular realm, and it’s equally true, sadly, in the house of God. It is not, in general, the Truth that has led the Church to fracture into so many denominations, but rather opinions. The opinions of man are lifted higher than the Truth, and there is no room left for reconciliation. Those who would rather be believed than be right will not tolerate the attempts at correction undertaken by those who are determined to remain true to God, though every man be shown a liar. They will go establish their own place of worship, insist on their own rules of worship.
Let’s be clear about this, though: this is the disease of every denomination, right back to the ostensibly original denomination of the Roman Catholic church. At each point of division, had all sides held firmly to the Truth of God, there would be no reason to divide. This does not mean that in every case, there was a disingenuousness on the part of one party or the other. There are many examples of division in which both parties were devoted to upholding the truth of Scripture, both parties were making earnest effort at properly perceiving the Truth, and both parties, in good faith, held that what they perceived was Truth. And yet, their perceptions differed.
What needs to be asked, in these later cases, is whether this was reasonable grounds for division. Were the matters that divide truly so profound as to justify rejecting those who held otherwise? In these cases, I have to believe that the answer is no. To this end, while the traditions and tenets that continue to define these denominations, at least on the official level, prohibit them from uniting in full, we have come to a time where the denominations can, at least, work together. In many cases, the division is most evident in terms of organization. Face it: many church members have little knowledge and less interest in the fundamental doctrinal beliefs of their church. This is not the stuff that hits their daily lives. How the church is organized, how it is led, what order of worship they follow of a Sunday; these things are observable. These things provide the flavor of the denomination to the member far more than foundational doctrines of the church. I do not say this is as it should be, only that this is how it is.
These distinctions are far more difficult to reconcile. If you are of a church that feels the congregation has the power to appoint and to remove its own pastorate and I am of a church that feels that there must be a more corporate method to ensure us of having a pastor upon whom is the call of God, then we are going to be hard pressed to find a means of church government that is mutually satisfactory. If you are fully convinced that the only true worship is that which consists of organ, choir, and four part harmonies, and I am equally convicted that worship ought to represent our best offering regardless of the style and mechanics by which it is presented, we are not likely to be found sitting in the same congregations.
But, if you are convinced that your free will has left you a hand in the process of your own salvation, I will most certainly think you mistaken, fearfully mistaken. Yet, I can still be found worshiping the same God in your company. I can still confess that you are, by all evidences, called of God unto salvation, even if you do misunderstand how that has transpired. I can still learn from what you have gleaned from the Scriptures. I may learn, in some cases, by more clearly defining my disagreement with what you say. But, I can learn. And, often, I will learn directly from what you say, because you, too, are a child of the Light. You, too, are informed by the Holy Spirit. And there shall always be those fundamentals of Truth about which no true child of God can find cause to disagree.
Truth unites. Where there is an earnest devotion to perceiving and pursuing Truth, denominational lines will be little more than the badge that marks one military division from another. You may be seventh infantry, and I fifth infantry, but we are in the same army. We serve the same Ultimate Commander in Chief. There will be those others, who have elevated opinion high and away above Truth, who have become more concerned with their own prestige than with the glory of God. They, too, wear the badges of their divisions. But, those badges mark them out as soldiers in another army, one which is, regardless of the diplomatic rhetoric they may spout, is at war with our own. These are soldiers that must be opposed by all who serve in our army, by all means authorized by our Commander – and only by such means as He has authorized!
This describes exactly the sort of opposition Jesus was facing on the Temple grounds. Those who led the Temple had left the faith of the Temple. Oh, they would still proclaim the Law and the Scriptures if it could be used to back up their points. They would still wear the robes of their office, still carry out the rituals of their purported religion. But, it was no longer about God for them. It was about power; personal power. The survival of the Temple and its religion was only of interest to them in that it was the basis for their power. But, Roman approval was equally important, nay: more important. By their time, it was not God who appointed the High Priest (by their thinking) but Rome. Indeed, rumor of such an appointment pending could prove dangerous to the appointee, as rivalries led to the setting aside of Mosaic Law. Murder was not an unheard of way of obtaining that office. And these were the ‘moral experts’ of the day!
Rome had set aside the lifetime nature of the office of high priest, as we can see in the fact that Ananias was still around behind the scenes while Caiaphas held the office. Neither had come to office by proper means, as established by God. Oh, they were both in office at God’s say so, it is true, but not as obedient to His command. The same could be said of the worst of the kings that ruled over Israel. The same could be said of the most vicious of the Roman Emperors. The same could be said of any ruler over religious or political body in any age. But, clearly, some are of greater benefit than others. Some are in place for the glory of God reflected in their leadership. Others are in place for the glory of God reflected in their downfall. Some to bless, some to discipline. For those who are in God, it is all good, but this is not to say that all involved are good in their intentions.
Returning once more to the text of this passage: Well, there is so much I could continue by saying. At this point, though, I want to take warning from the reaction of the people to the revelation of Jesus before them. We live in an era when many Christians are preoccupied with prophecy and with prophetic fulfillments happening all around us. Yet, it doesn’t take long before one recognizes that not all are agreed on what the prophesies mean, and what the fulfillments are. Oh, we have plenty of experts propounding their views, some more reasonable than others. But, look at the crowds observing Jesus, and take heed for yourselves! Some recognized Messiah, although it must be said that many of these same people misunderstood what Messiah was going to be about. Many did not recognize Him, and mostly because they thought they knew better. They failed to recognize their finite scope of knowledge and reached their conclusions without having all the data. Preconceptions trumped Truth for them.
We live in constant danger of falling into that same trap. Listen to what’s going on in Christian circles today. You will hear all manner of experts on what Daniel means for our time. You will hear all manner of folks proclaiming that they have the one true interpretation of the Revelation. And yet, there are many such claimants, and they don’t agree. Be careful! Be careful lest your opinions about how the end times are going to play out so cloud your vision that you miss the reality. Be careful that you do not become so ingrained in your sense of how it must unfold that you can’t see it unfolding around you.
It’s like the answer to prayer. So often we miss God’s answer because it doesn’t match the answer we thought we wanted. We have so thoroughly dictated to Him how we expect Him to respond, made ourselves so certain that our wisdom and cleverness must surely goad Him into acting in full accord with our request, that when He answers by His much greater wisdom, we’re busy grumbling at Him because He hasn’t heard us. The answer is all but smacking us in the face, and we’re crying out, “where are You, God?” The answer is poured out into our hands, and we’re busy noting that the devil seems to have stolen our blessings. How dare we insult God by insinuating that such a thing were even possible! Who are we convinced is greater? If God, then why are we so busy giving credit to the devil. If the devil, what are we doing in the house of God? Either believe or don’t.
OK. Last word on this passage, and I’m going right back to the start, with Jesus speaking. This is the question I have felt pressing on me for days now: What sort of body of water are you? Are you the river He has created you to be, or are you an intermittent trickle? Or, worse yet, have you allowed yourself to become a pond, hording the flow of that spring of life to yourself? Or a swamp, grown unpleasant with your stagnation? The old song says, “There is a river that flows from deep within.” Yes, and for that river to flow, we must first heed the call of Christ and come drink constantly of Him. But, we must also clear away the things that would bottle up that flow, lest we be found laboring vainly against Him in His name.
