A River Runs Through It
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jeremy_2_08-07-2025_131529: [00:00:00] Throughout John chapter seven, we've seen Jesus and his disciples at the Feast of Tabernacles,
this is an eight day festival and lots of things are happening each and every day of this festival. There's sacrifices, there's prayers, singing, and rituals. And lots and lots of teaching about water, about the significance of water.
Water as rain, water as divine provision, water and thirst, thirst as a metaphor for spiritual longing. All of this is asking God to bring winter rains so that they'd have food in the spring, so it's an entire festival talking about water. Now, each morning they had a tradition. Each morning the priests would go to the pool of Siloam.
, Jesus is gonna be there. In John chapter nine, there's a story we're gonna look at that happens there, but they will go to the pool of Siloam and with the high priests leading the way, they would carry a golden pitcher full of water from the pool of Siloam. [00:01:00] They would take it to the temple and they would pour it around the altar.
They would do this every. Mourning now on the very last day of the festival. Rather than just doing that whole water transfer one time, they would repeat it seven times in a row. So imagine watching these priests go to the pool of saleo, bring the water bucket, pour it, you know this whole thing you're watching seven different times.
Okay? That's what's going on during this festival. Then we get to John chapter seven, verse 37. On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood up and shouted to the crowds. Anyone who is thirsty may come to me. Anyone who believes in me may come and drink for the scriptures. Declare rivers of living water will flow from his heart.
Now when [00:02:00] he said Living water, he was speaking of the spirit who would be given to everyone believing in him, but the spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet entered into His glory. Now, this is an incredible theatrical moment for Jesus to say this. He's making a very obvious claim at his divinity here.
I mean, can you imagine being there in this moment? You're watching the priest take this golden picture of water from this holy pool to the temple, putting it on the altar, and then in the midst of them dumping this water out and eight days of talking about water, Jesus says, Hey, if you're thirsty, come to me.
I mean, you could just imagine everyone's like, uh, you can't say that. Do you have any idea what that sounds like as we're all talking about needing water and going to God? To get our [00:03:00] water. Then he quotes a passage from the Old Testament, but we're not exactly sure what passage he's quoting.
Scholars disagree on what they think Jesus might be referencing here. It's not a direct quotation. Now, some have suggested Ezekiel 47, and personally I think that one makes. A lot of sense. In Ezekiel 47, you have the temple portrayed with a river flowing out of the temple. Okay, so this is something that doesn't really make logically make a lot of sense, but imagine this, you have this temple and then you have water flowing out from the temple.
And this, this water makes a river, and it's not just an ordinary river either. This river has profound power in everything that it touches. In Ezekiel 47, verse eight says, the waters of this stream will make the salty waters of the dead sea, fresh and pure. They, there will be swarms of living things.
Wherever the water of this river flows, [00:04:00] fish will abound in the dead sea for its waters will become fresh. Now I've actually been to the Dead Sea. I have swam in the Dead Sea, and there is nothing quite like it. You literally float because of all the salt and all. It just, it's a funky, this is not fresh water at all.
So Ezekiel 47, this water that's coming out of the temple is going to make the Dead Sea back to life. It's going to be living, it's gonna have fish in it again.
This is an incredible image of death to life because of this river. And then in verse 12, we see this fruit trees of all kinds will grow along both sides. Of the river. The leaves of these trees will never turn brown and fall. There will always be fruit on their branches. There will be a new crop every month for they are watered by the river, flowing from the [00:05:00] temple.
The fruit will be for food and the leaves for healing. Now, this entire scene, both what Jesus is quoting, if it's is Ezekiel 47, and what Jesus is doing in the midst of this festival is loaded with imagery of Jesus offering life, not just like abstract, like, hey, once you die, maybe like, but like life, the things that you want, how we can thrive.
That is what Jesus. Is offering. Now, I can't help but think about some marketing that I've heard, and there's a tagline that always comes to my mind whenever I think about this story. You may be familiar, 10, 15 years ago there was a beer company, dos es had a famous commercial or a series of commercials, and they ended with a unique tagline.
Stay thirsty, my friends.
jeremy_2_08-07-2025_131529: Stay thirsty, my friends. Isn't this the message of the world? Keep [00:06:00] striving, keep trying, keep working more and more and more, always up and to the right, and Jesus is literally saying the opposite of that. Now notice Jesus doesn't eliminate desire. He doesn't say, you shouldn't be thirsty. Why do you have a thirst?
He's not faulting anyone for their thirst, but he's redirecting. Their thirst. He's saying, Hey you have this whole ritual and festival and all these things you're doing, and this is how you think God's gonna provide. But actually just come to me with that thirst. And again, you can imagine going, but no, we go to God and that's how we do it.
We do this whole festival and just like, no, no, no, just you just come to me now and you come to me for this. Now, much like he did in his first miracle in John chapter two, Jesus is redirecting the religious traditions to himself. [00:07:00] Now in John chapter two, when Jesus turns the water into wine, he uses these ritual basins used for ritual, purification.
That's where they get the water from, that he's gonna turn into wine. So they're not using it for the ceremony part anymore. They're not using it for their tradition anymore. And it's the same thing here, just saying, you don't need to keep pouring this water out on the altar. No, no, no. Just come to me. So he's redirecting people away from religion.
And instead back to him, which is a theme we always see Jesus doing, which means you and I, we don't have to keep chasing these things that don't satisfy us. And some of them can be found in religion. Do this, do less of that, do more of this. Do this the right way. And all these things can sound so good, and yet you may have experienced, Hey, I'm still thirsty.
It doesn't seem to be [00:08:00] satisfying. We can try to find our life and our validation in all sorts of places, but if you've tried that and you're realizing it doesn't deliver the way you thought, you have different options. If the things that you're pursuing in your life right now are just making you more thirsty.
It's time to try something else. Jesus is offering us something better than that, but we may have to move away from what we've known in order to experience it. I'll see you next week on Rebuilding Faith.
