Trinity Sunday (John 3:1-16)

Sunday, May 27, 2018

            By the authority vested in me, as minister of the Gospel, an ordained Baptist Pastor, I hereby grant to all present, every one of you, the sanctified permission to say, “I don’t know.”  It’s OK.  It’s alright to not know everything there is to know about God. 

            That’s true all of the time, but this truth is of special import today – Trinity Sunday. 

            Just imagine yourself.  You go to church.  You sing the songs and listen, really listen, to the sermons.  You read the Bible on your own, and attend a midweek Bible study.  You can, in your own words, explain that you know you are a sinner and Jesus died for you.  You can give your own story, of how and when you gave your heart to Jesus and began living life under His rule, with Him as your Lord.

            Then, a non-church going friend, in the course of casual conversation asks that question.  “I get that you believe in God and everything, but what about the trinity?  Can you explain that?”

            Ooh. At that point, the collar gets a little tight, the mouth a little dry.  Beads of sweat appear on the forehead.  Explain the trinity?  Okay.  The trinity is God, 3-in-1; kind of like water, which is ice, liquid water, and steam; solid, liquid, and gas. 

            That explanation doesn’t work!  Those are just different modes of H2O, just different forms.  The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each God, the one God, but distinct from the other two. It’s how Jesus could pray to the Father.  They’re distinct, but also one.  It is how, as we see in Mark 1:12, the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness.  Jesus does not evaporate and become the Holy Spirit.  The Father does not melt to become Jesus.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct from each other, and the analogy of water fails to explain that. 

            Let’s try again.  How to explain the trinity?  The trinity is like the sun that produces light and heat and gives vitamin D!

            Again, that explanation is a no go!  The Son and the Holy Spirit are not produced by the Father.  Heat and light are things the sun produces as it gives off energy.  God the Son is fully God; so is God the Spirit.  Neither emanates as a product of God.  Both are eternal.  Both are persons existing as personalities, distinct.  And yet, the three together exist as one God and there’s no separating them. 

            We cannot claim the Father, Son, and Spirit are modes of God.  One could make such a claim, but that would not be an orthodox Christian claim.  Nor can we say the Son and the Spirit are produced from the Father, not if we want to align with the traditional claims of Christianity. 

            One more try?  Here goes: just as an apple is the core, the pulp, and the skin – all of the apple – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are all equal parts of God. Does that work?

            No!  The Father is not 1/3 of God.  The Father is fully God.  The Son and the Holy Spirit each are fully God.  The three persons of the trinity are not parts.  They are not modes.  They are not emanations.  Each one is distinctly, fully God – the one God; God, 3-in-1.

            Remember!  You have sanctified permission to say, “I don’t know!”  Your unchurched friend says, “Hey, Christian, what about the Trinity?”  Your response?  “The triune nature of God is an unexplainable mystery.  The Father is eternal, fully God, and distinct.  The Son, is eternal, pre-existent, and is fully God.  And the Spirit, is fully God.  The three together are one, existing in a perfect relationship of love and cooperation within the Godhead. 

            Regarding Trinitarian theology, we all have the permission to say, “This is confusing.  I don’t quite understand it.  It’s an incomprehensible mystery.”  However, we do not need to fear the conversation about the trinity.  Don’t be afraid of talking about and thinking about God in this way.  In fact, God as trinity is cause for rejoicing!  How so?

            In our reading, John chapter 3, we meet a great Pharisee, Nicodemus.  Jesus affords him the highest of respect, calling him a “teacher of Israel” (v.10).  Nicodemus also gives Jesus great recognition.  He says to Jesus, “We know that you are a teacher who has come from God.  Nicodemus, the “teacher of Israel,” has come to Jesus, the carpenter-rabbi from Nazareth, to be taught.  He’s not prepared for the lesson Jesus will give.  It is as hard for him to understand as it us for us to wrap our brains around the notion of trinity. 

            Jesus tells him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above” (3:3).  All who want to follow Jesus, all who want to go to Heaven and not Hell, and all who want to be Christian must be born again.  All Christians are “born again” Christians.  Any who have not undergone second birth have are not followers of Jesus.

            I know this can be distressing.  I have talked to people desiring to be Christians who have said to me, “Rob, I cannot sense the Holy Spirit in me.”  Or, “I don’t remember a definitive time of being born again.”  People who want to be with Christ, but lack such a clearly identifiable divine encounter, have obvious concern.  Maybe they aren’t truly Christians.  Maybe you have such worries.

            Jesus explains in verse 5 that “No one can enter the Kingdom without being born of water and of Spirit.”  Nicodemus might hear “born of water” and think of a several different things.  There’s natural child birth.  He might remember the Noah story: the world was remade in a flood.  He would definitely call to mind Israel’s defining moment.  The nation escaped slavery in Egypt, and then received the 10 commandments and the written law at Mount Sinai.  The centerpiece of that story comes when God parts the Red Sea and the people pass through those waters. 

Nicodemus would remember that.  He also knew that his own day, John the Baptist and other radical teachers were baptizing in the Jordan River.  He would have known that Jesus himself was baptized by John.  So when he hears Jesus say, “Born of water,” familiar thoughts come to mind.

            What is “born of Spirit?”  Nicodemus is absolutely perplexed.

            Jesus has told him that he cannot enter the Kingdom of God without being born of the Spirit and he doesn’t know what that means.  I insist that this teaching, for us in our time, means each one of us has to be born of the Spirit to be with Christ.  I say that knowing many people who want to be Christians but cannot, in their own story, identify that specific time when they were “born again.”  It’s hard to pinpoint.

            The crux of the matter comes when Jesus talks about the wind in verse 8.  In both Biblical Greek and Biblical Hebrew, the same word means wind, breath, and Spirit.  As we said a few weeks ago, as the writer of this gospel set pen to parchment, he surely had the prophet Ezekiel on his mind.  Ezekiel tells of a time when God set him down in a valley of dry bones and commanded Ezekiel to tell the bones to come to life.  He obeyed, and the commanded the bones rattled and came together and took on muscle and tissue and skin.  And there before Ezekiel stood a multitude of lifeless people.

            They did not come to life until Ezekiel prophesied a second time, this time to the breath.  He did that, and the multitude came alive.  God told Ezekiel, in exile, the nation of Israel completely destroyed, “Mortal man, these bones are the house of Israel” (37:11).  God told him to tell the people in exile, “I will open up your graves” and restore your life.  “I will put my spirit in you.”  They would not be the people of God until God put God’s spirit in them. 

            Nicodemus may not have thought of Ezekiel when he spoke with Jesus.  But looking back on the encounter, later, after he gained understanding, I imagine he made the association.  God promised to put his spirit in the people, through the mouth of the prophet.  And God the Son, Jesus, told Nicodemus, you must be born of the Spirit to see and enter the Kingdom of God.  I think Nicodemus understood that when Jesus told him this, he, Nicodemus, was having his own Ezekiel moment.  I think he figured this out later, probably with a lot of help from the Holy Spirit.  He’s probably the one who shared the entire story that’s told in John 3 with the writer of the Gospel.

            In the moment, he was thoroughly lost.  “How can these things be?”  Jesus let him ponder.  He didn’t clear it up right away, but rather, he let Nicodemus sit with it.  All he said to Nicodemus was, “Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things” (3:10)?  That’s how utterly new and unexpected the Gospel was.  Neither uneducated people nor the most educated of people were ready for what God would do in Jesus.  The only way understanding could come would be by the Spirit.

            Yet, Jesus says in verse 8, “The wind [the spirit] blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”  We have no control over the Holy Spirit.  It seems hardly fair for God the Son to tell us that we need God the Spirit to enter the Kingdom of God the Father, when we cannot grab hold of the God the Spirit.  Does that mean that anyone who has not felt the touch of the Spirit is just left out?

            Of course not!  Jesus mentions in verse 13 that he is the one descended from heaven, and then in verse 14, he references another story Nicodemus would have known.  This comes from the book of Numbers and might be less familiar to us.  The people of God were in the wilderness and rebelled against God.  Poisonous snakes came and began biting the people and they were dying.  God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and to display it atop a tall pole.  Anyone who had been bitten should fix his gaze upon this serpent that had been lifted up and he or she would be healed of the poisonous snake bite.

            Jesus tells Nicodemus and all of us, John’s readers, that he must be lifted up like that snake.   If you fear that you lack of that experience with the Holy Spirit that tells you that you’ve been born again, look at Jesus, lifted up on the cross.  Verse 15, “Whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” 

            This illustrates both the beautiful dance of the Trinity and the reason our understanding of God as Trinity is cause for rejoicing.  The Kingdom of God the Father is eternal life, eternal joy, and eternal love.  We all want to be in it.  We need the Spirit to get there.  But we can’t control the Spirit.  However, we can fix our gaze upon the God the Son, who inhabited human flesh in Jesus of Nazareth.  We can look at Jesus, believe in him, worship and follow him, and we are saved.  Even if you don’t feel it, per se, the Spirit is working.  Believe in Jesus. 

            The next verse, maybe the most famous in the Bible, ties together God’s love and the salvation of the world.  Remember what we’ve stressed throughout our 9 weeks spent in the Gospel of John.  “The world,” as presented in this Gospel, it opposed to God.  It is the realm of the enemy.  John 3:16 says God loved this world so much, he came – gave his only son – that whoever believes in him may not die, but rather may have eternal life.

            Can’t explain the Trinity?  It’s OK.  The Trinity is a mystery beyond comprehension.  What you can share with friends and what you can count on, if you’re trembling in the shadow of doubts about your own relationship with God, is the Gospel.  We can rest secure in the Gospel. 

God is love.  God’s love is on display in the beautiful dance within God – the perfect love and cooperation between Father, Son, and Spirit.  The Son went to the cross for our sins.  The Spirit is about in the world, convicting people of sin so that they might repent and turn to God.  The Spirit is also residing in your heart and in the body of Christ – his Church.  Instead of trying to reduce this beautiful mystery to an easily contained explanation, live in it.  God invites us to join in the dance and live in relationship with God.  And not just at Pentecost or on Trinity Sunday, but every day.  Every day, His love is real and present for us.  Every day, God walks with us that we might have life and live in His joy.

AMEN

"Animated by the Spirit" (John 3:1-10)

Trinity Sunday, May 31, 2015

        “We know that you are a teacher who has come from God.”  Nicodemus said that to Jesus.  He called him ‘rabbi,’ and not just any rabbi.  Nicodemus felt Jesus was unlike any other. 

Moreover, John writes, Nicodemus was a Pharisee.  He was an expert in the scriptures, one devoted to study.  He was the other people would come to if they had questions about the laws of God.  And he comes to Jesus. 

John also writes that he came “by night.”  Why?  Was Nicodemus up late, studying the scriptures by candlelight.  Some scholars think so.  Or was he afraid?  Jesus had an antagonistic relationship with the Pharisees.  Was Nicodemus trying to avoid being seen by his colleagues?

        John frequently writes that Jesus’ problems were from “the Jews,” but he did not specify which Jews.  All Jesus’ disciples were Jews.  Some Pharisees, like Nicodemus, were Jews who respected Jesus.  So too were there council members who followed him, like Joseph of Arimathea.  So when we read John’s Gospel and see Jesus in conflict with “the Jews,” we have to realize John meant something he thought his first century readers would understand.  But we are removed from the context and do not see the entire picture.  Jesus did not oppose Jewish people.  He was Jewish.  He gladly received the Pharisee Nicodemus. 

        Why did Nicodemus come under the dark of night?  We cannot be sure.  We know this man revered Jesus, but when Jesus spoke, Nicodemus was taken aback.  “No one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above” (3:3).  What does that mean?  Nicodemus didn’t like it. 

        Jesus did not soften his message to accommodate Nicodemus’ reservations.  Jesus continued, “No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and of spirit.”  Baptism had already been introduced in John 1.  And the community that would receive John’s gospel was already a baptizing community.  To be born of water was clear enough; Jesus meant baptism.  But he also said that being born of the Spirit was necessary. 

        The word can mean either wind or spirit and it is used both ways in this passage.  Furthermore, this word has layers of meaning both in its Hebrew rendering, ‘ruah,’ and in Greek, ‘pnumatos’.  In the book of Genesis, chapter 1, verse 2, creation has not yet begun.  God is there and so is chaos, a raging, water, an ocean of blackness.  Genesis 1:2 says a wind from God “swept over the face of the waters.”  Throughout the Old Testament the Holy Spirit shows up with this as the first example. 

        In Genesis 2:7, at the apex of creation, “the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”  “Wind,” “Spirit,” “Breath;” it is all the same word.  Before anything exists, there is the Holy Spirit.  The muscles, bones, ligaments, and skin do not become a human in God’s image until that creature is filled with the Holy Spirit. 

        We see it in Ezekiel 37.  The Lord sets the prophet down in a valley of bones.  At the Lord’s command, Ezekiel prophesies, and the bones rattle and shake and come together.  Flesh covers the skeletons until the piles of bones are replaced by an army.  The valley is filled with people – but they are not yet people.  These bones do not truly live until Ezekiel, at the Lord’s instruction, prophesies to the breath and the breath fills them.  And then a multitude of humans made in God’s image stand before him. 

        Nicodemus would know these stories.  He was familiar with God’s Spirit hovering over the pre-creation chaos.  He knew of God’s breath animating the first humans in the Garden of Eden.  He knew of the Spirit’s activity in Ezekiel’s vision.  Yet when he talked to Jesus he got confused.  “How can these things be?”  Nocodemus asked. 

        If a teacher of his stature had trouble, how can we hope to understand God?  How can we relate to one who is three?  What does trinity even mean?  It seems mystical, like something that cannot be explained.  How is the idea of God as three-in-one in any way helpful in the struggles we face in daily life? 

        We are challenged to live holy lives in a secular culture.  Some among us find it difficult to make ends meet.  Financial stress eats away at our emotions.  Others battle physical health and the limitations that sickness brings.  Others face mental health problems, which sometimes come with stigma attached.  Some among us are burdened to serve in ministry for the poor, but the reality of debilitating poverty is so massive it seems our efforts to alleviate it are futile.  In these and a thousand other struggles, what help is there in a discussion of trinity and new birth?

        Jesus says we must be born from above, and Nicodemus counters with “How can these things be?”  Jesus responds, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand?” 

        In the Greek, verse 10 includes a definite article.  Jesus does not say, “Are you a teacher of Israel?”  He asks, “Are you the teacher of Israel.”  This entire story is bracketed by acknowledgments – Jesus acknowledges that Nicodemus is a ‘didaskalos,’ a teacher.  He is the teacher.  Nicodemus represents the education establishment, the fount of knowledge in Israel.  Yet, he comes up short.  He does not understand a crucial point. 

        Nicodemus also acknowledges Jesus as a teacher.  He is not just any teacher.  He is a rabbi from God.  Nicodemus will lay his own credentials aside and submit to Jesus’ instruction, but when he does, he sees just how much he does not know.  He knows about ‘ruah,’ and ‘pnematos;’ he knows about Spirit and wind and breath of God.  He knows the creation story.  What Nicodemus does not know is that it needs to happen again.

        The fall – Adam’s sin and the sin of every generation thereafter – has corrupted and decayed God’s good creation to the point that death reigns.  Nicodemus is bound for death.  We all are and it is because of generations of rebellion against God.  That is what sin is and it is the source for all pain in the world. 

A moment ago, I cited struggles many of us face as I wondered how a discussion about trinity or new birth could help us face these struggles.  The problems exist because we are in a fallen world.  Every one of us sins – everyone.  Sin always leads to pain and death. 

        When Jesus came, the progression of sin in the world had gotten to a point and is still at that point where death is inevitable.  The old bromide the “only things that are certain are death and taxes” holds true.  But it should not be this way.  When God created the world, he created life.  God is the God of the living Jesus says in Luke 20:38.  That death is our greatest certainty is the complete opposite of God’s creation plan.  It is so because of the fall and sin.  God will not tolerate such a state of affairs.

        So God the Father came and walked among us as one of us, God the Son – Jesus.  God inhabited human flesh and went to cross to die so we would not face eternal death.  Our bodies will die but as Jesus was raised so too will resurrection come for us.  We enter the kingdom of God by being born of water and spirit.

        The water, the baptism, represents what God has done for us.  We are immersed, buried, dead in sin, never to live again.  But as Jesus rose, we rise, this time born of the Spirit, filled with the Spirit, and in resurrection, death is defeated forever. 

        There is no such thing as a Christian who has not been born again.  All Christians are born-again Christians.  “Born-again” has, in some circles in our country, come to be some kind of identifier. 

Oh, she is one of the born-agains. 

Really?  Are you also a born-again?

Oh, no, no, no.  I am an Episcopalian.  No, I am not one of them.  I am a Methodist.  A born-again?  No, not me, I am a good Baptist.

It is like being born again is some kind of condition and if you just calm down and live in a sensible, sedate religion you can in time be cured of it.  But Jesus said “No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.”  He said this to the teacher of Israel because he wanted Nicodemus to take this truth and pass it on to all who would sit under his instruction.  Jesus said it because sin abounds and is destroying the creation God declared good.  Jesus said it because he had come to declare the end of sin’s time.  Death was done with Jesus on the scene.

A sensible, sedate religion?  No, when we turn to Jesus and receive His Holy Spirit into our lives the change we go through is as dramatic the change a baby experiences when passing from the dark warmth of the womb into the invasive light outside.  That is a picture of how radically different life is for one who is in Christ from one who is not in Christ. 

Any who would say becoming a Christian is no big thing has not heard a word Jesus has said.  He sees us and breathes and his Spirit animates us to the point that we are completely different than we were before meeting him.  This is why the idea of being made new is so important in our church’s expression of faith.  Someone says, “I don’t see what the fuss is all about.  I decided to become a Christian.  OK.  I am still me.”  Jesus says, “You have read the Bible and sung the songs and heard the preaching, and still you do not understand.”  You are the teacher of Israel and do not understand?

Last week in Acts 2, we saw what happens when the Holy Spirit comes and animates the church.  People become prophets.  Everyone hears the Gospel in his own language.  Disciples come out of hiding and tell their stories even when doing so gets them arrested and executed. 

What does it look like when God animates the church today?  We learn and re-learn this each generation.  What we can depend is God’s generosity.  The Spirit did not pour out on a select few in Acts 2.  All in the church were blessed and filled.  And it is so today.  As Paul writes in 1Corinthians 12, we are all given the Holy Spirit. 

In a sense this is how we relate to God and to each other.  As born-again people, we are born into love.  More important than identifying specific spiritual gifts, we remember that the greatest fruit of the Spirit is God’s love which passes through us from one person to the next.  This love holds us together.

And the generous God who fills all of us also is a patient giver.  Nicodemus was not ready in that nighttime conference to receive the Spirit.  By the end of John’s Gospel, Nicodemus has forgotten that he was afraid to be seen with Jesus.  He is out in the open as a follower.  He is a disciple and he will receive the Spirit, he didn’t know he needed.  He will undergo the new birth he did not understand. 

This patient, generous Spirit is patient and generous with each of us as individuals and with us as a gathered body.  Together we are and will be animated and filled.  Sin abounds around us, but, born again, we are already living into eternity.  Even as we live our daily lives, we do so as new creations ready to draw others to Jesus and to life.   We don’t understand it all yet, but He meets us where we are and guides us each step of the way; it is the way of life, life everlasting.

AMEN 

River of the Spirit

River of the Spirit (John 7:37-39)

Rob Tennant, Sunday, June 12, 2011

Thursday afternoon this past week, I was working on this sermon. Ideas weren’t coming. So I went for a walk. I thought activity would wake up my sleepy mind.

You may remember Thursday. Humid. 94 degrees. I did not want my bald head sunburned, and did not bring a hat. So I got a costume cowboy hat out of the 4’s and 5’s Sunday school room. I must have been a sight – sweating profusely, with a child’s cowboy hat sitting atop my head, I walked along in Southern Village reading my Bible out loud as I sought inspiration.

Not many people were out – most joggers and walkers do there thing early when it is cool. I did pass one guy. He was in slacks and a dress shirt. I guess he ride the bus home from and was walking from the bus stop. He was sweating through his clothes.

As we walked toward each other I thought, “How can pour living water onto him?” I don’t know what his thoughts were. As we passed one another, he gave me a weird look. I can’t imagine why.

Is it odd? (I don’t mean walking around in unbearable heat in blue jeans wearing child’s cowboy hat reading the Bible out loud as I walk. I know that’s odd.) I mean is it odd that seeing someone I would think, how can I pout living water onto him right now, in this moment?

Jesus says, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.”

Candy, my wife, had living water poured on her several years ago. She was in the hospital recovering from surgery after her appendix had ruptured. She felt vulnerable and scared. I should have stayed, but I thought she was fine. I went home. After I was gone, she felt very alone. That’s when God poured out a river on Candy.

It came in the form of the night nurse, a little lady with an annoying, high-pitched voice. She had an exceedingly cheerful disposition and it quickly became clear that she was a Christian. She and Candy were sisters in Christ. She held Candy’s hand. She prayed with her. Now, seven years later, Candy still remembers her, a nurse who was an angel, who encouraged her through a scary time.

I like that story because it was blessing to my wife. I also like it because it’s something each of us can do. We can pour out living water by being positive, encouraging, and cheerful. The nurse probably wasn’t appreciated by all her patients the way she was by Candy. Every time we show love the way she did, we won’t impact people. But, we never know when we will come across someone who is alone, scared, uncertain, hurting. So, we make it a practice to be positive, available, joyful with everyone. We’re ready in the moment when the Lord will speak through us as He spoke his love to Candy through that nurse.

What is living water? Hope for the one who’s a lost a job.

What is living water? Someone to listen and love when life is unbearably hard.

What is living water? It is keeping the faith along side a person who has lost the faith. We keep the faith for our friends and for strangers who are broken. We let them know they are loved and that God has not given on them even if they have given up on God.

What is living water? It is the undeniable reality that God is in this moment no matter what this moment is. Everyone in our church family has gone through pain – some are going through it right now. Everyone we meet outside the church in the daily comings and goings of life has been hurt. Some are weeping even as we meet them. We don’t know what their pain is. We just see them be rude to us as we wait in line. We just see them be impatient with the check-out clerk at the store. We don’t know the story. So we practice joy and encouragement, patience and generosity. We do it not because of the other, whether the other is a friend, stranger or enemy. We do it because of what Jesus is to us – Savior, Lord, Guide. Because he gives us life, we pour life out onto people – all people.

The problem is believers do not always do this – pour out life. Christians are not always cheerful and joyful. People who claim to be Christ-followers are not always ready to give love, to give blessing. We are sometimes cranky or grumpy; sometimes prejudiced; sometimes foolish; sometimes impulsive; sometimes jealous. The believer is not always poised to share Christ.

Furthermore, there was a problem when Jesus made his statement at the Great Festival about rivers of living water flowing from believers and the narrator names the problem. He says Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit had not yet come. The way it reads in the New Revised Standard Version, as yet there was no Spirit).

How then does the narrator of John’s Gospel get us to this statement of Jesus, a statement that could not yet be true? Jesus told his brothers he would not attend the Festival of Booths. Then he went, but secretly. He tried to keep a low profile. But as soon as he began teaching, people were astonished at his wisdom, knowledge, and authority. The crowds buzzed with excitement even as some religious leaders seethed with hatred. They hated that he was smarter than them. They hated that he interpreted the scriptures better then them. They were enraged that the crowds would listen to him instead of them.

On the last day of the Festival (v37), Jesus cried out. He didn’t whisper. He did not speak in elusive code words that only the initiated would understand. He did not reject some in the crowd while blessing others. Jesus cried out for all to hear.

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me.” He summoned seekers, and he indicated that anyone could be a seeker. A thirsty person has not found the water yet. He won’t stop looking until he does. It’s water or death. The spiritually thirsty person knows without doubt the only satisfaction he can find in is in God. Jesus invites all God-seekers to come to him for satisfaction. This is for all who know they have a deep need that nothing can meet. Jesus will meet that need.

Next he says “Let the one who believes in me drink.” Those who already believe he is the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior, the believers are invited to drink of Jesus. We are invited to walk in his ways, receive his love, and live our lives on the terms he gives. This invitation goes to all people – it did when Jesus said it and it does now. Jews and Palestinians, Afghan Taliban members and American soldiers, liberals and conservatives – all people are invited to come to Jesus.

To review … at the festival, Jesus spoke out loud, to be heard. Jesus invited those seeking God to come to him. Jesus invited those who already believed to also come to him. When we are in Him, and he is in us, we get filled to the point that He pours out of us.

The prophet Isaiah said, “Everyone who thirsts come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! … Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich foods” (55:1a-b, 2c-d). Also the prophet Zechariah, who speaks of the day the Lord comes. “On that day, living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem … it shall continue in summer as in winter” (14:8). In Jesus, the Lord has come and the living waters are flowing.

He told the woman at the well,

Those who drink of the water I give will never be thirsty. The water that I give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life (John 4:13-14).

Jesus fills us and then fills others through us. The idea that God provides and then blesses others through His people is as old as God is. Grace did not begin with Jesus. The coming of Jesus is the most significant gift grace in a long history of gifts of grace because after Jesus came all the previous gifts of God, given through Israel could be understood. Because Jesus came and comes to each of us, each one of is a child of God, and each one is empowered to pass on the blessings of God.

How? I have shared that sometimes Christ followers are crabby and unavailable. That’s true of all of us. So how do we become the point from which the living water flows? I have already mentioned John’s observation that when Jesus said this, it wasn’t yet possible because the Holy Spirit had not come – at least not in the person way we understand the Holy Spirit coming on believers in this post resurrection age. So how does living water pour out of us?

We aren’t the source. God is. In fact, we need it as much as the woman at the well, as much as the anxious person lying in a hospital bed, as much as the tired person walking home from work, as much as the person who reads the news of disasters and terrorism and wars and wonders if the world is about to end. We are fragile broken people, all of us. We need living water.

Yet, if we are believers, Jesus not only says we will be filled and never thirst again. Jesus says, living water will pour out of us. How? How do we get to that point?

Since Jesus stood up on that last day of the festival and cried so all would hear that seekers and believers alike could to him, a couple of crucial things have taken place. He died. He rose from death. He ascended to be at the right hand of the Father with the promise that at the judgment, he would be back to all who believed in Him to be with Him for eternity.

Then we come to the book of Acts. The narrator said in John 7:39, “For as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” By the time we get to Acts 2, Jesus had been glorified.

There we read,

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

⁵Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. ⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”

“Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” The narrator in John 7 says this statement of Jesus is about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. The river that flows out is God flowing out of us. How does that world become a better place? It happens with God at work in His church; God at work in individuals who have given their lives to Jesus.

In our deepest need we are satisfied when we seek Jesus. No matter how hard life gets, we come to Him. He has invited us. When we do, he doesn’t just fill us. He pours out of his, His Holy Spirit, onto the work around us.

The Holy Spirit is here, in this place, in the world. We go out seeking Christ. And we go out, looking at the world with open eyes, so when we see someone on the path or in the normal places life, we constantly ask, “Holy Spirit, how will flow through me and pour out a river of living, life-saving, life giving water on all those I meet?” Most people aren’t ready for that Holy Spirit River. But we will come across those who are. When we do, we’ll be ready to play our part, and the Spirit will flow through us and pour life – eternal life onto all who will receive it.

AMEN