“Living Water” John 7: 37-52

 I have had several conversations with people over the last month about how blessed we are to be able to turn on our facets and have water rush out. I’m not sure what led to this realization at the same time by multiple people, but it is true. We turn on the facet and we have water to brush our teeth. We turn on the washing machine and there is water to clean our clothes. We turn on the tap in the kitchen and we have water to make dinner or to clean. Water seems to be around us in abundance. 

Yet, we know that this isn’t true in many places - both in our own country and around the world. Water is a precious resource. 

A few weeks ago, we talked about the task of carrying water, going to the well, several times a day, to draw water for the household, for chores, for animals. It is the source of life, yet people knew just how costly it could be to obtain. 

Enter Jesus. It is now the last day of the Festival of the Tabernacles, a week long celebration in the fall, to commemorate the Israelite’s 40 year journey through the wildness to the promise land as well as the blessing of the harvest. During this time there would be worship. People would often sleep in tents or take their meals in them. 

Jesus and his disciples have once again traveled to Jerusalem for this religious festival. And on this last day he stands up and proclaims, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.” In other words, come to me and be filled. Come to me and be renewed. Come to me and find life. 

It seems like an odd thing to proclaim unless you unpack some of the particulars of worship during this festival. As part of the worship, which came out of Rabbinic tradition, is that water would be carried from the pool of Siloam, a freshwater reservoir, into the temple. Water was central to the celebration. And Jesus is proclaiming - this is me. I am the life-giving water. 

And folks again miss the point. They start to speculate amongst themselves who Jesus could be. Is he a prophet? Is he the Messiah? No, he can’t be the Messiah because there’s no way the Messiah would come from Galilee. The people were divided. 

There is enough division and curiosity that the temple guards overstep a bit and go up to the Pharisees and tell them to invite him in. To hear what he has to say. Only they are dismissed as well - being told that they had been sucked into his deception. Only those who don’t know the law - those who aren’t as studied in the Word - could be tricked by Jesus. 

Except Nicodemus. Remember Nicodemus who went to Jesus at night. Nicodemus who is trying to tell the other Pharisees that the law said to at least listen to Jesus. And they mocked him as well. 

In a lot of ways, we have been leading up to this moment for the last several chapters in the Gospel of John. Starting in chapter 4, where Jesus invites the woman at the well to receive life-giving water, water that would make it so she could never be thirsty again. Jesus is trying to show people that he is the well-spring of life, only the people in power around him aren’t really willing to hear it.

They would rather argue about scripture and correct interpretation (sounds a bit like the woman at the well, as well doesn’t it?) For they believe that authority and ability rest soundly in being correct - having the correct interpretation and understanding of the law. 

What course is humorous is that Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. And he himself is paraphrasing this beautiful passage of scripture from Isaiah 55:1 “Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.”

Christ is saying, loudly, come if you are thirsty and find life-giving water. Come to me and drink freely. 

And those folks who thought they knew all of the law and interpreted it correctly - they were so caught up in their idea of “rightness” that they missed what Jesus was offering. 

In fact, they didn’t just miss it, they actively dismissed the thought that Jesus could be the Messiah. They saw Jesus as this individual who had come to destroy all of their traditions, when really, Jesus was standing firmly in tradition more than they could know. Jesus is saying again and again, “this is me!” In the Gospel of John. It isn’t a secret. He is trying to show people who he truly is - that he is the Messiah. And they are not willing to accept it. 

We, like the folks from long ago, want simple answers. Or maybe a better way to say this is that we want God to simply fit into our expectations. And then Jesus shows up and acts in a way that is beyond our wildest imagination and we don’t know what to do with him. So we try to dismiss him. Or push him aside. Or put him back in our own boxes of “right” thinking. 

But the truth is that rules, laws, and norms of this world are not the same as the realm of God. And there are going to be things we never fully understand, even if we trick ourselves into thinking that we are always right. 

Or maybe even deceive ourselves into thinking that we are never thirsty. 

It’s not lost on me that Jesus points out that he is water in this text. Life-giving water. Our bodies are composed of water. We can’t last very long without having a fresh supply. We need water as part of our daily lives. Water runs in and through every moment of our days. 

Yet, we often take it for granted until we are thirsty. I mean really thirsty. The type of thirsty where you need to have water now. Your mouth feels parched and your skin gets dry. Your eyes may get a little itchy. That type of thirsty. 

Then we know that we need water. 

Friends, Jesus isn’t just talking about being the water that quenches our bodies. He is talking about being the water that brings life to our spirits. And if we think we don’t notice that we are physically thirsty until it is all upon us, that is even more true when it comes to being spirituality dry. When we start to act out of anger. Or snap at people. Complain more. All because we have this deep longing that we do not know how to identify or meet. 

When you are thirsty what do you do? Turn on the tap. Go to the source. What do we do when we are spirituality thirsty? Go to Jesus. Go to the source. And be filled. 

But when we are filled, after we have come and received, that water needs to spill out of us. We need to share the gift of the spirit, pointing others to the life-giving source. To how Jesus has not just quenched our thirst for a period of time, but truly changed us. 

How about you, friends? Have you received the life-giving water? And how are you being invited to share this source of life with the world? Amen. 

Sabbath. Study. Serve.

 Sabbath, Study, Serve 

Taking the Sermon Into Our Week 

Scripture of the Week: John 6: 35-59

From the Sermon:

Jesus says - _______ and simply ________ to what I am trying to say.

These folks that Jesus was talking to about being the ______________ - they had just experienced a miracle.

The questioning of the crowd is not the problem here. It was that there questions were really just an excuse to __________.

Jesus said, I _____ the bread of life. Present tense.

Reflection Questions:

What leads you to grumble?

How do you relegate God to the past and the future?

What is the invitation of Christ for you in the present?

Prayer:

Lord, teach me how to live with you in the present moment in a way that shares your goodness and grace with the world. Amen. 

“Bread of Life” John 6: 35-59

 When I was in sixth grade, we had a weekly writing assignment that would revolve around a prompt. We were told to expand it and make it into a short story. My dad and I were recently reminiscing about these assignments and how frustrating they were for both of us - me as the writer, he as the proof-reader, because I could not for the life of me get my tense right. I would switch from past to future to present in the matter of a few sentences. It was a mess. 

Switching of tenses isn’t just a mess when it comes to writing. They also can make our understanding of Jesus and all of his power and glory quite messy as well. Jesus has just fed a large crowd to their absolute fill - performing this miracle. Now Jesus is offering a teaching to the crowd that starts with the declaration, “I am the bread of life.” Come to me and you will never go hungry or be thirsty again. 

And the people do not get it. They start grumbling amongst themselves about when was Jesus really to be the one saying these things? Isn’t he the son of the carpenter? Isn’t he a nobody from nobody parents? Who is he to make these sweeping claims?

To which Jesus simply says - stop. Stop your grumbling. Stop and simply listen to what I am trying to say.

You can’t understand the one who is the bread of life and know what that truly means unless you know God. 

And let's be honest, you don’t always recognize God or what he is doing very well either. Think back to our ancestors - freed from Pharaoh’s rule, but wandering in the wilderness. They were provided for by God in abundance, but they didn’t even recognize him amongst the manna and quail. They received actual bread from heaven, but they still perished. 

But my life - given as bread beyond your wildest imaginations - will give you life forever. Because I offer it to give life to the world.

And then the people argued even more about what Jesus could possibly mean. 

These folks that Jesus was talking to about being the bread of life - they had just experienced a miracle. They didn’t watch the miracle happen to someone else. They weren’t just observers. Their own stomaches were filled with the very sign. Yet, even as they moved from observers to those who experienced Christ, they still had these persistent questions. 

Now, questions themselves are not bad. Think about some of the people of profound faith who asked questions of God throughout the Scriptures. Mary, the mother of Jesus, who at her tender age, when told by the Angel Gabrielle that she had been selected to be the mother of the Savior of the world asks “how can this be?” Or Moses, when he was called by God to bring the message to Pharaoh to let God’s people go asked wouldn’t God like to send someone else instead? 

The questioning of the crowd is not the problem here. It was that there questions were really just an excuse to grumble. And grumbling comes when our human expectations are not met the way that we would like them to be. In other words, they weren’t asking questions in order to get to a place of understanding, but rather to just quarrel and sow discontent. 

But time after time, Jesus tried to invite them into a place of belief. 

But Jesus also wanted to unpack for them what such belief actually means.

Jesus knew that for some folks in the crowd that day, belief was simply tied to what had happened in the past. Their ancestors had belief, so therefore that belief must be transferred on to them. To which Jesus says, that’s not the way that it works. 

He gives this example of the Israelites during the Exodus when they were fed manna from heaven. And they still didn’t believe that God would provide for them and bring them into the promised land. Some of that manna was preserved in the ark of the covenant, as a sign, and they people forgot its meaning there as well. 

The problem with transferred belief or faith is that people do not make it part of their own story. It is something that happened in the past. And do we not all look towards the past at desperate times - to try to infer from what already has happened what God will do in the future. 

But the bread of life is not contained to the past. 

The opposite of the past is the future. We want past evidence to guarantee future results. And when we start to get nervous about the future, it leads to us asking questions like “What will God do for me?” But just as God didn’t only act in the past, so can the bread of life, but just be put off until the future as well.

Jesus said, I am the bread of life. Present tense. Right here and right now. And belief is the bread of life isn’t something we can depend upon the past for or put off until the future. Jesus is inviting us, just as he was inviting the crowds, to experience in the present moment the meaning of the bread of life. 

But we are not very present-minded people. Or rather, we have abused what it means to be in the present moment. Instead, of looking around us right here and right now, at who Jesus is inviting us to be his hands and feet to, we try to consume Christ. We try to hoard him for ourselves, as if he was bread that could not be shared. 

Or we try to make him into the bread of life… that we only need some of the times. Think about when you go out to eat, what often comes to the table before the rest of the meal? The bread. As an appetizer and not the main course. But when Jesus said that he was the bread of life, he did not mean that he was simply an appetizer that could be picked at or disregarded at will. No, bread was the main course. It was also the utensil used to bring nourishment to the body, since forks, knives and spoons were not readily available. When Jesus said he was the bread of life, he was saying he was the very source and sustainer of life. 

Friends, we can be just as confused today about how to live in the here and now. We can also be just as confused about what it means that Jesus is the bread of life. Jesus is the food that endures. This was an enrmonous promise for those who had just experienced being filled by the miracle of abundance. 

But let us not let our confusion block us from offering the bread of life to others. Not in the past. Not in the future. But here and now today. Let us testify to the one who was broken so that we could be made whole. To the one who fed both body and soul. We do not need to have all of the answers in order to share who Jesus is to us. Let us share the very bread of life. Amen. 

Devotional for Week of February 6th, 2022

Text: John 4: 43-54

43 When the two days were over, he went from that place to Galilee 44 (for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in the prophet’s own country). 45 When he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the festival; for they too had gone to the festival.

46 Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. 47 When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48 Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you[g] see signs and wonders you will not believe.” 49 The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my little boy dies.” 50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. 51 As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. 52 So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.” 53 The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household. 54 Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.

Reflection

The man took Jesus at his word and departed. If it only it was that simple for us. If only we would put our hope and trust in Jesus Christ. This is hard for us, because it is not rational. And more frightening - it may not mean that we get what we are asking for. In this case, the man’s son was healed. In other cases, it may mean that we do not get the physically healing we desire. We may be healed emotionally, relationally, or spiritually instead.

What if we began to see our prayers for healing to Christ, as acts of trust. Acts of faith. Trusting that God will act. I told the Bible Study group this past week that I stumbled upon something interesting on the internet. It was labeled, a story about faith, and told of a town that had a major drought. The towns people decided to gather together to pray for rain. But as they came together, only one little boy brought an umbrella with him. In other words, only one little boy thought that their prayers would be answered.

Sometimes we pray to God for healing because we’ve run out of options other places. Prayers become a last resort. And other times we pray because its what we think we should do. But how often to we pray because we believe that God will answer our requests? Believe that God will move in a mighty way? Believe that God will heal?

 The people of Cana knew Jesus performed miracles, it was the place where he turned water into wine. Yet, Jesus asked if that was really all they wanted. Just wanted a sign or a wonder so that they could believe? We are just like the people in Cana who beg for signs and wonders because we heard Christ did them before, now we want one of our own. Though we quickly forget the ways that Christ has healed us in the past when we are faced with a new crisis. A new test of faith.

 

Reflection Questions:

Tell of a time when you took Jesus at his word. What was that experience like for you?

In what ways are you longing for healing and wholeness?

What sort of power does Jesus offer versus the power of the empire? 

How is life about more than healing? What else does Jesus offer the man?

How is belief a matter of the heart for you?

How are belief and trust connected in your life?

What does it mean to you that Jesus is the ‘giver of life’?

Prayer:

Lord, we come before you in an act of hope and trust as we pray. We believe that you act. And we also believe that your will will be done. We come to this time of prayer, trusting you with the same faith as that little boy with the umbrella and the royal official crying out for his son. May you move in a mighty way, even if it is not always the way we expect. Shape us to be a people of faith, belief, and trust, we pray. Amen. 

“Healing Stories” John 4: 43-56

 Have you ever met someone who didn’t ask you for something, but demanded it? You know what I’m talking about, right? Folks who have an air of confidence about them - like you need to do what they say or there will be consequences. Or if they say please, it is as they are offering you a gift. 

That is the type of person I imagine the royal official to be in today’s Gospel text. Jesus has just traveled throughout the region of his home town - where he wasn’t really respected or listened to. Now he is headed back to Galilee and it is met with fanfare. People know what he is capable of. They have heard the stories of the miracles and the hearings and they are coming seeking that for their own lives as well.

Amongst those seeks is a royal official. When we are told his is a royal official that means he isn’t a Jewish leader. He is related to the Roman government. The occupiers. The others. The folks who everyone else in the area had grown to detest just the presence of for all that it represented in their lives. 

Yet, here comes this royal official who we are told begged Jesus to come and heal his child who was on the brink of death. Friends, royal officials did not beg for anything. In fact, they didn’t have to ask for anything. They simply commanded and expected people to do it in return. 

But this royal official comes before Jesus this day, not in his title or role, but as a father. As one who’s heart is broken open for his child, who is so sick that he doesn’t know where else to turn. He is beyond the point of commanding that the doctor come. He is no longer at the point where he can demand healing. He just comes in total and utter grief, begging Jesus, his last hope for his child.

And Jesus says this funny thing in return, “you all only want to see signs and wonders, because without them you fail to believe.”

Of course people were coming to believe in Jesus because of the signs and wonders taking place. Sometimes its the disciples coming into greater realization of who Jesus is and what his Kingdom is all about. Sometimes its people who are seeking Jesus out and coming to believe because of what he can do in their lives. But the trust is people are coming to belief through those signs and wonders. 

Or at least their version of belief.

But the official - he has no desire to dwell on belief. Belief to him seems like a far removed thing, when he is dealing with matters of life and death right before him. Brushing off Jesus’s statement, he begins begging again - come down, Jesus, before my child dies. 

And Jesus does something he hasn’t done up to this point with healings. He simply speaks the child’s healing into being. No laying on of hands. No grabbing the child and telling him to get up. No mud and spit. No one grasping on to him. He just says that the child will live. 

Even more unusual - this man who is used to demanding things - simply takes Jesus at his word -  leaves to go home and finds out from his servants that at the exact hour that Jesus had spoken - that’s when his child began to be renewed and healed, as his fever broke. 

This man came to Jesus and he was at rock bottom. He thought that he was about to lose that which was most dear to him. Not his title. Not his power. But his child. The one whom he loved. So he came to Jesus in this posture of humility, asking that he heal his son. 

He came asking for one thing and received something different. He came begging for the preservation of life and Jesus ended up offering him the true meaning of life. 

Notice the words that Jesus spoke over the boy - that he will live. Future tense. 

Jesus was offering this boy a future with hope. 

And to do that, he didn’t need the royal official to believe. Or say the right words. He just accepted him as he was - grieving heart and all. He didn’t go. He didn’t command. He simply spoke - and it was enough for the royal official. 

At first glance, we could misunderstand the meaning of the word belief, it we think its only about the official saying the right words or reciting what he believed when Jesus was talking about signs and wonders. But the royal official lived into the truest meaning of the word belief - for when he believed, he trusted Jesus at his word.

There are a lot of folks who say that they believe in Jesus, but they don’t have the level of trust in him that this father did with his child. How many of us would be tugging Jesus by the hand to make sure that he came back to heal our child? When this royal official was able to recognize the power in Jesus’s words. 

Henri Nouwen was a catholic priest and spiritual teacher. He once explained trust this way. Imagine that you are at a circus and there are trapeze artiest who are singing from one small swing to the next. One has their legs hooked over the bar of the swing, arms extended to catch the next artist as they let go and fly through the air. Trust is that moment of letting go of the bar. Trust is believing that the person will catch you. 

If we see that type of trust at the circus, amongst performers who trust each other with their lives, do we have the same level of trust of our Lord and Savior?

Now, this doesn’t mean that we are to test Jesus to prove that he is trustworthy - life will bring us enough of that on its own. Nor do we manufacture circumstances to show to others that we have belief in Jesus. No. But we trust Jesus with what comes and we cry out to him because of our belief in our times of need. 

This, my friends, is our testimony. This is the witness we bear. 

We aren’t told of the religious affiliation of the royal official before he came to Jesus, but we are told that after this encounter that he and his entire family believe. Because of Jesus. 

This royal official was by no means the only person in need of healing and wholeness. In fact, we all stand in need of healing and wholeness every single day. Yet, even more important than the healing that comes in ways big and small, is the power in that word live. For when we live, we grow, and when we grow we trust and when we trust we believe. Not in ourselves, but in the power of Jesus. 

So let us take time this day to pray to the one who is the giver of life, that belief takes root in our hearts and is lived out in trust with our lives….

Amen.