Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-march-25-2025
John 7:37-52
37 On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let them come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within them.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
40 On hearing his words, some of the people said, “Surely this man is the Prophet.”
41 Others said, “He is the Christ.”
Still others asked, “How can the Christ come from Galilee? 42 Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s family and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?” 43 Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. 44 Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.
45 Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”
46 “No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied.
47 “You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. 48 “Has any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49 No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.”
50 Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, 51 “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?”
52 They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”
Last week, we based a Reflection on a passage that told about Jesus’ travel to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. We said it was a harvest festival with themes similar to our Thanksgiving holiday, and that it also included remembrance of the Exodus. In that passage, Jesus’ brothers had urged him to make an appearance at the festival if he wanted to be ‘a public figure.’ But instead, Jesus came into Jerusalem quietly and without calling attention to himself, maybe because the Jewish authorities were watching for him.
But having come to Jerusalem quietly, once he got there he started to preach boldly. He declared himself to have been sent from God with the gift of the Holy Spirit, which his followers were to receive and pass along to others in his name.
Our reading for today says that “on the last and greatest day of the Feast,” Jesus stepped forward during a ceremony that was considered the climax of the whole festival.
The historians say that in this climactic ceremony of the Feast, some of the leading priests would go in a procession to the Pool of Siloam and draw water with a golden pitcher. Then the procession would go back to the temple for a ceremony at the main outdoor altar. A choir would sing joyful psalms and the people in the congregation would be holding up fruit and waving special branches. Then, at the climax of the ceremony, the priests would pour out water and wine at the altar in what was called a “drink offering” before the Lord.
Drink offerings aren’t that familiar to us, but if you think about the role of water in a hot and arid region, pouring it out before God would be just as much of an offering as sacrificing an animal.
The Bible scholars believe that it was at this moment, at the climax of the ceremony, that Jesus stepped forward and “said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let them come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, streams of living water will flow from within them.’”
It’s all this seems vaguely familiar, it might be because in the Gospel of John, there are other places where water becomes a symbol for the role of Jesus in the life of the world. You might remember that his first miracle in John is turning water into wine at the wedding at Cana. In that case, Jesus used water jars that were used for Jewish rituals, so as in today’s story from the feast of tabernacles, Jesus was adapting traditional Hebrew rituals to illustrate his role in salvation history. Of course, you might also remember that it is conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well near Sychar, Jesus described himself as the source of living water.
If the New Testament scholars are correct about how Jesus revealed himself at the climax of the feast of tabernacles, that would certainly help to explain the reactions John reports – some people saying that Jesus must be the prophet foretold in scripture, and others declaring that he must be the Messiah.
But those opinions weren’t shared by everyone. Jesus was known to be from Galilee. And the Hebrew scriptures said that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem, the city of David. Of course, we know what the people around Jesus didn’t — that he had been born in Bethlehem before settling in Galilee later in life.
It’s probably easy to understand why it wouldn’t have gone over well with the authorities when Jesus seized center stage at the climax of an important festival. The Jewish leaders sent some of the temple guards, their security men, to arrest Jesus and bring him in for questioning. But the guards came back empty-handed, and the leadership demanded to know why. The answer they got couldn’t have made the leaders feel any better – the guards said that Jesus spoke with an authority they hadn’t encountered before. The priests and Pharisees insisted that anyone who believes in Jesus is ignorant of the scriptures. They, of course, considered themselves ‘too smart to fall for Jesus.’
So what could the guards see that the leadership missed? It seems to me that the guards had experienced the reality of Jesus in personal way that the leaders had not. The guards had heard him speak and teach. They looked into his eyes and watched him interact with people, and that might have included people who disagreed with him. But the leaders were so consumed with their own power and privilege that they could only see Jesus in terms of the threat he represented. So they tried to undermine his credibility by declaring him a fraud and a blasphemer.
I can’t help wondering if maybe this reading is in the lectionary for this season of Lent to challenge us to ask ourselves where we would be in the story. Would we be in the crowd, perceiving Jesus as a prophet or the Messiah? Would we be with the guards, investigating Jesus but struggling to understand what he was all about? Or would we be more like the leadership in this story – thinking we know everything we need to know and resenting Jesus for disrupting a big event with us on center stage?
Let’s pray. Lord, we invite you to confront us with the truth about your presence, and move us to drink deeply of the living water only you can provide. Let that living water, the Holy Spirit, overflow from us into the lives of others who are thirsty for your loving presence. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
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