I was so excited to have an OT reading and the opportunity to preach on it this week. It was funnier to me because Brian and I were chatting about it over mulch–hey, don’t look at me like it is that weird. What are we supposed to do to pass the time as we are shoveling and spreading 137 cubic yards of that stuff? Brian, to his credit, even remembered the names of the two who received some of the Spirit that God had given Moses but were not in the camp when God gave it to the others. But we chatted a bit about the Holy Spirit clearly preceding Pentecost.
And, for those who overheard my conversation about Heidegger and the Ontology of Being with a visitor who knew professor Wood at UD, the psalm serves as an instruction why those studies can be important. For those of you wondering how an ontology of being can impact our faith, think of Prayer C earlier this month. We remind ourselves that by His will we, and everything around us, was created and have their being. Remember that? It ties into our discussions about the Name of God that Moses learned at the Burning Bush and giving of the torah. The Name is rendered in Greek, I, I am. People wonder whether God listens or realizes what is going on in their life. All that combines to remind us that God is always. God is always thinking of us if we exist. Were He to forget about us for a split second, we would cease to exist. And some theologians like to argue that we would never have existed in the first place place, were He somehow to forget about us. But that is an entirely different conversation.
Now, here is the psalmist claiming he or she will sing praises to God, I am that I am, as long as he or she has being. What is the claim? As long as God is thinks of the psalmist, the psalmist will have being and be able to sing those praises. I see the elbows. I know it would be fun one, but God gave me a better one on John’s Gospel.
Those who are annoyed that we jump back and forth in time during Easter are not going to be happy today. Our Gospel lesson takes us back a year or two rather than just a few weeks. The background is the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths, which was a fall festival that lasted a week and commemorated Israel’s wandering in the desert and God’s provision during the Exodus. More importantly, it reminded them that God had dwelt among them and would, one glorious Day, make His dwelling among them again. It is the festival that serves as the background for why Peter offers Jesus to build a tent or booth for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus on the mountain during the Transfiguration. Good, I see some nods of recollection.
People would pilgrimage to Jerusalem from all over the ANE. Because of the nature of the festival, tents or booths went up everywhere there were open fields. Think of years ago, if you are of a certain age, and how Koa campgrounds would fill up on the Friday evening of Memorial Day weekend after a winter of emptiness. The acolytes are trying to figure out what a Koa is. Lol. But we know. We were there before the deep magic of Air BNB. In a similar way, Jerusalem would be flooded with pilgrims, and they would set up tents wherever they could find space in and around the city.
Now, before we get too far in, I will deal with the controversy over which day this is. There is some academic hay made over the fact that Exodus, I think it is, describes it as a seven day festival and Leviticus describes it as a seven day festival with an extra Feast day observed on the eighth day. Academics like to argue over such things. That’s why they get the big bucks and the outstanding reputations. For us, it is only important if we REALLY want to know which day is the Great Day, as John calls it. I think it likely the eighth day feast, but I am not going to get too upset if I get to heaven and learn it was actually the seventh day.
The festival itself would have appealed to modern liturgical Christians. The high priest would process from the Temple with a retinue of assistants, musicians, and others to the pool of Siloam. You know Siloam as the pool that bubbles at the stirring of an angel. The tradition was that when the pool was stirred to bubbles, the first one in would be cured of their ailment. Jesus famously heals the crippled man who has no one to get him into the water when it stirs with bubbles. Remember that miracle?
The pool of Siloam was important because it was a pool of living water. Living water, in case you have forgotten, was water that was moving, like a creek or river. Pools and ponds and lakes were only living if there was a source, like a spring, that fed the body of water. Siloam was fed by a spring.
Those of you who have been to Israel understand the importance of water. Israel is an arid land. In fact, God promised the people that, if they kept the covenant, He would send the rains to give life to the earth in the Promised Land. When the Bible notes a drought, it is more a theological observation than a meteorological observation. Living water was necessary for purification before entering the Temple, and Living water was important for cleansing after defilement. The need for Living water meant that Israel could not build big storage or flood control ponds to meet the needs of those coming to the Temple. The need for Living Water meant that Israel needed to keep the covenant, and repent when they failed, else they would be unable to be purified or cleansed from their guilt. Everyone following along so far?
So the high priest would process from the Temple down to the pool of Siloam. There, he would fill a dedicated container with water and process back up to the Temple. In front of the altar, the high priest would pour the water out. There was a prayer for rain, which was necessary for human life, animal life, and plant life. And the high priest would ask for God’s blessings. Just as God had given Israel all that Israel needed during the Exodus, their hope was that God would provide for all the needs for those living in the Land.
Everybody think they understand this background? Any questions?
With that as the cultural background, John writes that Jesus, on the last and greatest day of the festival, the seventh or the eighth day depending on your favorite academic scholar, stood up and invited anyone who thirsted to come to Him and drink. We have been studying the symbolism of John a lot in both the Gospel readings of Lent and the Easter Season, and those Bereans among us have really been studying the symbolism of Revelation, so Jesus saying come to Me and drink is not as crazy as it might sound in another church today or in our parish a couple years ago. Of course, John knows how it will sound and gives us a note, but before we get to the note, Jesus teaches that, as Scripture has said, whoever believes in Me, rivers of living water will flow from within them. We are, of course, used to thinking of the Holy Spirit as a flame or like a dove. Most of us are not used to this kind of image, this kind of symbolism pointing to the Holy Spirit. And like Brian and I were chatting over mulch, many Christians do not know what to think of the Spirit, and lots of non-Christians think we are nuts claiming there are three persons in one unity. We know it is true because Jesus was raised from the dead. Had he lied, God would have left Him in that tomb. Yes, I understand the Resurrection is the lynchpin. John would correct us and say the Cross, the Resurrection, and the Ascension are the lynchpin, but we would all agree that salvation history depends upon Jesus’ vindication, right? As Paul reminds us, we are to be most pitied if it were to turn out false.
When we think on it for a few minutes, though, it should make lots of sense. After all, Jesus instructs us that another Advocate will come when He leaves. Jesus promises that this Advocate will seek to glorify Jesus in our lives, that this Advocate will empower us to do greater miracles than He, and that through this Advocate, and in fulfillment of God’s promises, we will be a blessing to the world. No longer will the Advocate be confined to one particular geographical space in a certain period of what we call time. We will feed the hungry in His Name; we will visit the sick and imprisoned in His Name, and we will clothe the poor in His Name. We will do those things which remind us and those in the world around us that God is seeking every single lost sheep in the great flock of humanity. Every single one of them. Just as He sought us when we were lost or stubbornly heading away from the pastures to which He was gently leading us and into those valleys of shadows and death.
It is really too bad we did not read this last week, when the drought had not yet been conquered by our purchase of mulch for the playground. Think how dry it was. And we reminded ourselves in the prayer after Communion that, having been nourished by His Body and Blood we were being sent out into the world to do His work. We could have reminded ourselves that, now that His living water flows from within us, we can bring Good News to those who are parched and thirst for Living water. We could tend our little patch of wilderness and nudge it more to a plot of garden with the Living water that is welling up from within us. It is a beautiful image, is it not? What makes it beautiful is the truth. God is using you and me and anyone who will seek Him to lead others to His Son, the Source of that Living water.
But think a bit deeper. When Jesus finally gives up His soul on the Cross and the soldier stabs Him with the spear, what pours out? That’s right, blood and water. His living water is literally poured out on the earth beneath Him. When I lead us in the celebration of the Eucharist in a few minutes, what will I add to the wine? That’s right, water. When we baptize people, what do we use? Everybody starting to see it now? Water is an important symbol to us. Over it the Spirit brooded before Creation, through it God led His people out of slavery in Egypt, and we are outwardly immersed in water to signify the cleansing within. Those of us studying Revelation: what is the source of the river that flows in John’s mystical vision? That’s right, the Temple. See, we understand the literal and the symbolic meaning of water, even if we do not always associate it with Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit the way we do fire and doves. We understand its importance to life.
The Jews at the festival understood it, too. But they intentionally reminded themselves during this festival that, even when they grumbled against God, He provided food and water for them and their flocks, even in that arid environment. Like us, they gave back to God what was His, no matter its importance to their life. Their liturgy reminded them of the truth that all things came from Him, and that they were merely giving to Him that which was rightfully His. Year in and year out after the Temple was built, this was the pattern of worship they observed. And some likely reminded themselves that when Messiah eventually came, they would buy food and drink without money, just like the prophets had proclaimed and would proclaim in the years to come, that grace and blessing would flow from the Temple, the very seat of God, like Living water from a spring. The young and the old, the men and the women, all would prophesy in the Name of God because His Spirit would have been poured out on all of them on that Great and Glorious Day.
John, for his part, does not want us to miss this symbolism. He tells us that this all happens before Jesus is glorified, that the Spirit has not yet come as it did eventually come. It makes sense to us because we considered it last week. What was Jesus’ path to glory? His Passion, His Death, His Resurrection, and His Ascension. At this point in John’s narrative, we are only about 1/3 of the way through, even though we have read ahead and behind these last two seasons. The seven miracles in John’s Gospel testify completely that Jesus is the Messiah, the One through whom new birth is possible, but His glory is found in the Cross. He walks the path given Him so that you and I might become fountains of living water through His atoning work and His nourishment of us with His Body and Blood.
Like those who celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles, you and I celebrate that He is with us. We give those things at our altar which belong to Him, and we abandon those things which lead us from Him, reminding ourselves that He is the source of life, He is the source of redemption, He is the source of love, He is the source of grace, and He is the source of wonder. Who else can take men and women and youth like us and turn us into heralds? Who else can take men and women and youth like us and turn us into fountains of living water?
We often speak of Pentecost as the birth of the Church and an important day to attend. We break out our red and remind ourselves that we should be burning with God’s love. But we must also remember that Pentecost was that Great Day when the Spirit came down to guide us, to lead us, and to empower us to glorify our Lord in our lives. Pentecost is that Day when we remind ourselves that, in fulfillment of Christ’s promises, we who have drunk from His Spring have become fountains of living water, and sent back out there to offer drink and hope and love to the thirsty, that all might come within His saving embrace and drink deeply of that Living water that He offers and accept the life to which He calls them and us.
In His Promise,
Brian+
No comments:
Post a Comment