WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27
READ JOHN 7:37-39
JOHN 7:37 Now on the last day of the festival, Hoshana Rabbah, Yeshua stood and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him keep coming to me and drinking! 38 Whoever puts his trust in me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water will flow from his inmost being!” 39 (Now he said this about the Spirit, whom those who trusted in him were to receive later — the Spirit had not yet been given, because Yeshua had not yet been glorified.)
In a time when lack of access to clean water afflicts so many, the image of flowing rivers is both potent and poignant. Thirst is one of the hardest deprivations to bear—the one physical form of suffering Jesus named in his last hours on the cross. To bring water to dry fields or clean water to a person dying of cholera represents a powerful ministry. Jesus promises rivers of living water in desert country where his hearers know its significance.
Jesus is referring to the effect of the Holy Spirit on the lives and ministry of those within his hearing—and ours. Not only will the Spirit quench our thirst or give us unlimited access to the source that sustains our lives; but when the Spirit is “poured out” on us, we will become conduits of living water for others. The Spirit will empower and authorize us to bear God’s own gifts. This is the ordination of all believers upon which Luther insisted: Our own hearts, transformed by the action of the Spirit will be like artesian wells where water from a deep source is constantly replenished.
Flow is a verb worth pausing over while reflecting on this passage and on life in the Spirit. What flows from us comes almost in spite of ourselves. We simply open a way, and the water finds its course through the hills and valleys and rocky places of our lives into the open spaces where others may reach it. The Spirit that comes as wind and flame and Word also comes as water that finds its way through any terrain, persistent and patient enough to wear away the resistance of granite and make tunnels in any wall.
Gracious God, may your living water flow through us as we act as agents of your grace and bearers of your good gifts. Amen.[Marilyn Chandler McEntyre]
Our mailing address is:
The Upper Room Strategic Initiatives
PO Box 340007
Nashville, Tennessee 37203, United States
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