8 March 2015 - spring in our step

You come to the well in the heat of the day LORD Jesus. It is about noon and the sun beats down upon our lives. We are dry and thirsty. This isn't the best time to come to the well. The morning hour is more pleasant. The world prefers to gather then. But you come now to meet those people whom the world will not welcome. Their water, perhaps, is too easily attained. Their thirst, perhaps, too easily quenched. Even though "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again" they may not realize it if they can quickly attain the next hit to satisfy their cravings. But here at noon the outcasts can harbor no such illusions.

The heat is intense O LORD. Even if the weather is winter outside of our walls this morning our spirits still suffer. They are dry. They are unresponsive and lifeless. You draw near and they don't rejoice. Your body suffers and they don't weep or grieve. We doubt your ability to change us, LORD. We say "Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep" because we think you want to give us worldly fulfillment. But the water you give is from an entirely different source. 

Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; 
but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; 
the water I shall give will become in him
a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

It is because it is from a different source that it can satisfy. The wells of the world are arduous, tedious, and ultimately unsatisfying. The water you give is the only water which truly quenches thirst. From whence does this water come?

Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it 
for the people to drink.

And Paul tells us, "They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ" (cf 1 Cor. 10:3-4).

You indeed are the rock. Your side is struck and you pour out this living water (cf. Joh. 19:34).

On the cross, just as to the Samaritan woman you say that you thirst (cf. Joh. 19:28). But your thirst is that not that you yourself drink but that we do. You say to us, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink" (cf. Joh. 7:37).

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 (cf. Joh. 7:39)

If we hope in the wells of this world for fulfillment we are inevitably disappointed. But if we hope in your promise we not.

And hope does not disappoint, 
because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts 
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

And so, again, we hear you say, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink." Let us respond:

Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.

Let us drink deeply from the fountain of life which we find in you alone (cf. Psa. 36:9).