“I’ve Got a River of Life Flowing out of Me”: Stories of Water

For the past several years, we have used a ritual of light and flame: “We light a light in the name of God who creates life, the Son who loves life, and the Spirit who is the fire of life. Thanks be to God, who unites us in our hope, faith, and life.” Life is full of symbols and rituals, things on the surface that point beyond themselves to deeper realities. Light is one such symbol. Fire is another. So also is water.

We are introducing a water ritual today. If you’re uncomfortable with “ritual”, call it a repeated practice that reminds us what is true. There is no magic in repeating actions: Power lies in our relationship with God, who gives us life. Nonetheless, ritual is helpful. It reminds us to look beneath the surface of life and remember who made us and who sustains us in this life.

This morning then, I note several Scripture passages that use the image of water to symbolize something about who we are as God’s people. I won’t try to synthesize these into one coherent picture; instead, we have layers of meaning that we hold within the symbol. I follow the Scripture passages with three stories about water, so that you could subtitle the sermon, “stories of water”.

Some Scriptures

Psalm 93: We read Psalm 93 earlier. You note that in this Psalm, water points to God. A flood, roaring down a canyon, is impressive in its power; God is even more impressive. The tide rolling in from another continent awes us; God is even more awesome.

Genesis 7: The greatest flood of all is recorded in Genesis 7, a flood that covered the earth. You know the story, and it reminds us that water can be destructive. Behind the destruction of the Great Flood lay God’s judgment on human sin. When we think of water, there are also uncomfortable memories and messages. We are reminded that God has given us our very lives in trust, and we are to live our lives for God alone.

Exodus 17: In Exodus 17, we have the first time that Moses struck a rock with his staff at God’s command, bringing forth water. The deeper point of the story is to make clear that the Children of Israel depended on God for life as they travelled through the wilderness in search of the Promised Land. At a simpler level, we are reminded that water is life. The Israelites could not continue travelling if they had no water. They needed water to live.

Isaiah 55: Isaiah 55 begins with a well-known and simple verse: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” “Come to the waters.” The call is an invitation to life, and water here represents life. This passage sets up the gospel reading for this morning.

John 4: This story is one we know well. Jesus and his disciples are travelling from Judea to Galilee. Samaria lay between the two. Commentators differ on the significance of verse 4: “He had to go through Samaria.” C.K. Barrett says that this was the natural route and that there is no theological significance in these words. Raymond Brown notes that the phrase “had to do this” sometimes means that this is God’s doing. Since the whole story appears to be God at work, it makes sense to see this compulsion as God at work. We can say that God sent Jesus and his disciples through Samaria for a purpose.

In Samaria there is a village, Sychar. Sychar was close to Shechem, a centre of early Jewish spirituality, and to Mount Gerizim. Stopping there, Jesus and his disciples were close to the heart of the Samaritan identity. Samaritans were close cousins to the Jews. In Israel today, there is still a small Samaritan community. Jews see them as part of Judaism – even if a bit odd, and Samaritans see themselves as representing the true faith that never went into exile.

It is not an exact analogy, but you might think of Samaritans as being to Jews something like Jehovah’s Witnesses are to Christians. Many JWs would say they are the true Christians, and many Christians would say that JWs are not Christian at all. There by a well, Jesus waited outside the village while the disciples went to buy food. When a woman comes out to fetch water from the well, Jesus asks her for a drink of water. Given the tensions between Jews and Samaritans and given her own status as a woman who was marginalized in her community, she was surprised at his request.

Then comes the verses that illuminate our theme of water, verses 13-15:

¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

The water of life! In other Scriptures, water symbolizes everything from God’s judgment to God’s care, but here the image is clear: Jesus is life. Knowing Jesus is essential to spiritual life, just as water is essential to physical life.

A Story

In 2003, our family learned how essential water is to our physical lives. Lois and I were on sabbatical in South Africa, with our sons, Vaughn and Nevin. We spent two months in South Africa, two months in Zimbabwe, and one month in Namibia, with a brief side trip to Zambia.

We spent the month of October in Namibia, and my story concerns the drive from Johannesburg to Windhoek – about 1400 kilometres. We planned to take two days, seven hours to a rest stop on Kang, in the middle of the Kalahari Desert, and seven more hours to Windhoek in Namibia. About two hours before Kang, we had two flat tires. A passing motorist gave us a ride to the rest stop, where we ordered a tire to be sent up the next day from Gaborone on a country bus. On the third day, with our new tire on, we continued on our way to Windhoek.

An hour out of Kang, I stopped to check our tires. They were fine, but when I got back in the car and turned the key, there was nothing. General electrical failure. [This car looked wonderful, a 1988 white Mercedes Benz, but it was a real lemon. Worst car ever, but it did mean that we had lots of opportunities to experience God’s presence through the help of strangers.] A passing motorist again took me back to Kang.

The owner of the rest stop saw me come in and asked, “What are you doing here?!” He knew I was trouble. He rounded up an electrician in the nearby village of Kang and loaned us his own vehicle to go back to our car. There the electrician found that four fuses were burned out. He showed me what kind to get when we reached a place with auto supplies again, and then he bridged the burned-out fuses with copper wire.

While I was headed for help, Lois and the boys waited in the hot sun in the middle of the desert. They had no shade, so they spread all our sleeping bags on top of the car to create some shade. The people who took me back to Kang had left all their water with Lois and Vaughn and Nevin. They spent about three hours baking in the sun until I got back. Once the car was running again, we drove on our way, stopping just inside the Namibian border at another rest stop.

We had used up all our water by the time we got to our rest stop, where we could fill up again. We need the help of passing motorists to survive in the desert. That night, as we sat around a fire at the rest stop, cooking some meat over the fire, Nevin commented, “You know, when Jesus said, ‘I am the water of life,’ I think I understand better now what he meant.” Water is life. Without water, we die. Without Jesus, we die.

Another Story

This was not the first time we had experienced the shortage of water in Africa. In 1992, we were the host family at the Brethren in Christ Youngways Guest House in Bulawayo. That year there was a drought that culminated 10 years of low rainfall in Zimbabwe. We were placed under severe water restrictions to keep the city from running out of water.

I remember how we took showers. I would step into the shower and turn the water on just long enough to get wet. Then I would lather up. Then I turned the shower on again just long enough to rinse the soap off, and I was done! The shortage was so bad that the city turned off the water for anyone who used over their monthly allotment before the month was over. One hotel was shut down on the 20^th day of the month and only allowed to reopen on the first day of the next month.

Living with such water shortages made it very clear to us that water is life. Those of us who have lived in semi-arid countries know this truth from personal experience. This is a basic reason that Jesus used this image in John 4, and that we use water as a symbol of life for the coming year.

One Last Scripture: Romans 6

In Romans 6, Paul uses baptism as an image of the way we die to self and live for Christ: “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”

We use water in baptism, following the example of Jesus’ baptism. Water baptism symbolized repentance in the New Testament. Adding a specifically Christian dimension means that water now symbolizes both repentance and the filling of the Holy Spirit. I could have read from Matthew 3 to make this same point. For now, it is enough to remind us that water is a symbol of physical and spiritual life, filled with God’s Spirit.

One More Story

I thought of this use of water partly because of my own baptism. I was baptized into the Brethren in Christ Church in Zimbabwe in 1964. We (the BICs) use a form of immersion in which the candidate kneels in the water and the minister pushes him/her forward, under the water three times. In my case, my father was the baptizing minister, and the service was held on a Saturday afternoon in the Mpopoma BIC Church. I had a problem as we anticipated that baptismal service. I am afraid of water. Not just a bit, but a lot afraid. So Dad took me to the church on Thursday evening. The baptistry had already been filled, and we went there to practise. I got in the water and kneeled down. Dad put one hand behind my head and the other on my chest, and pushed me forward into the water. I immediately stood up! Then we tried again. This time, I went under twice before standing up. We tried a third time, and I managed to stay down until the third immersion and then stood up again.

My Dad said, “That’s enough for now. But on Saturday, if you try to stand up, I’ll just lean on you and hold you still. I’ll have all the leverage. I’ve done it before, and I will do it again.” He meant of course that at six-foot-tall and 200 pounds, he could stop me from standing up just by leaning on me. He wasn’t threatening to hold me under the water!

Saturday came, and I was baptized without any trouble. Dad told me later that I was shining as I came out of the water. In truth, I had been baptised into the death of Christ so that I could rise with the life of Christ. We finished the baptismal service with the church members standing around the outside wall of the church and the newly baptised members walking past as the members shook our hands and welcomed us into the church. It was a profoundly moving experience.

Closing Thoughts

Water is a symbol that carries many meanings – from a sign of physical life to a sign of spiritual life, from a sign of our choice to follow Jesus to the life of Christ living within us. There are many more levels that I have not mentioned this morning. I close with two thoughts.

One, there is no power in the water itself. Even as an image of baptism, the power is in Christ and the cross, not in the water. That is why the form of baptism varies so much – whether it is by immersion, or by sprinkling or pouring, or (like the Salvation Army) a dry baptism with no water at all. The important think is our choice to follow Jesus, just as the woman at the well followed Jesus. We use water this year to remind us that Jesus is essential, not the water itself.

Two, we will use this symbol throughout the church’s year during what we call “ordinary time”. Some times of the year already have their own special symbols – such as advent and Christmas, or Lent and Easter. In between, we use water to remind ourselves that we follow Jesus, our source of life, the one without whom we have nothing. We follow Jesus, always.

I’ve asked for a song to say this: “I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me; makes the lame to walk and the blind to see; opens prison doors, set the captives free. I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me.” [Sing together]

 

Texts: Psalm 93 and John 4:1-15 (NRSV)

Psalm 93

The Majesty of God’s Rule

¹ The Lord is king, he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed, he is girded with strength. He has established the world; it shall never be moved; ² your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting.

³ The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their roaring. ⁴ More majestic than the thunders of mighty waters, more majestic than the waves of the sea, majestic on high is the Lord!

⁵ Your decrees are very sure; holiness befits your house, O Lord, forevermore.

John 4:1-15

Jesus and the Woman of Samaria

4 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” ² —although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— ³ he left Judea and started back to Galilee. ⁴ But he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

⁷ A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸ (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” ¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Talking About Jesus

Over the past summer, we have spent “moments with the master” each Sunday morning. Intuitively, we recognize that as Christians we want to know about Jesus. I want to take that intuition deeper and ask why it is important for us to learn from Jesus today.

Many people in Canada would acknowledge that Jesus was a great teacher, but they would suggest that studying his life and teachings is more appropriate for the classroom than for anyone to use to orient their own lives. Why do we believe that Jesus makes a difference for us today, and not just for the people who were alive two thousand years ago?

The “Trilemma”

The people of Jesus’ day asked the same question, if we believe the Gospel records. “Who is this man,” they asked, “that the wind and the waves obey him?” Jesus was aware of the speculation that swirled around him. He asked the disciples, “Who do people say I am?” They reported the general speculation that they had heard on the street: “Some say you are Elijah. Some say you are ‘the prophet’.” Jesus asked them directly, “Who do you say I am?” Peter responded, “You are the Messiah, the Son of God.”

Jesus’ own words and actions were designed to force the question. In John’s Gospel, John records a series of teachings that made clear who Jesus saw himself to be. We did a series here at SMC some years ago on the “I am” passages in John, culminating in the provocative statement, “Before Abraham was, I am!” “I am that I am” – or more briefly “I am” – is the most common translation of Yahweh, the Hebrew name for God. No wonder that the religious leaders were clear that Jesus had committed blasphemy. If he was not telling the truth, he deserved to be punished with death!

Jesus’ claims about himself – that he was the Messiah, the Chosen One of God, One with the Father, the Son of God – these claims presented the Jewish people with a problem. They were strict monotheists, and they saw immediately that Jesus was claiming to be one with God. C.S. Lewis has described the problem they faced as a “trilemma”, that is, as a problem with only one of three possible solutions. Either he was lying – and therefore an evil man, or he was like someone who thinks he is a poached egg – and therefore clinically insane, or he was telling the truth. His contemporaries gave all three responses.

We also face the same question. Jesus claimed to be one with God. If he was right, then the very basis of all reality is found in him. We should pay attention to him! If we say he was wrong, we have to show that he was out of his mind or lying. How do we answer this trilemma? One way is by reading the Bible and taking the text seriously, but many people have not read the Gospels or researched the Scriptures – either to learn about Jesus or to determine if they are credible sources for us today.  They would probably say that Jesus was a great moral teacher – like Mohammed or Confucius or the Buddha or any other great religious teacher from the past. They would add that he was certainly not God.

It is important that we notice how Jesus’ contemporaries actually responded to him. Mark 3 records the response of Jesus’ contemporaries when he burst on the scene:

Then he went home; ²⁰ and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. ²¹ When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” ²² And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.”

You see that the religious leaders said he was demonically-inspired, and other people said he was mentally unbalanced. What his family thought we don’t know, but they tried to get him out of the spotlight, perhaps to give him time to be healed of whatever was wrong with him.

As we read the Gospels, however, it becomes clear that he was not possessed by the devil. As he hung on the cross, the thief dying alongside him said, “And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” The common view today – that he was a great teacher – speaks against the possibility that he was an evil man. Whatever else he was, we know that Jesus was good.

It is also clear that Jesus was not insane or mentally unbalanced. The Sermon on the Mount, with its repeated “You have heard that it was said of old, but I say to you”, shows how well he carried authority and sanity within himself. At the end of Matthew 7, we see this response to his teaching: “²⁸ Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, ²⁹ for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.” He was good, and he was sane.

 That leaves only the third option: Jesus was telling the truth about himself. C.S. Lewis summarizes the argument in this way:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. … Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God. (In Mere Christianity)

Lewis’ argument has been described as saying that Jesus was a “liar, lunatic, or Lord”.  It is not proof that Jesus is divine, but it makes clear the logical force of the claim that Jesus is truly the Son of God. If this argument is correct, then all of reality derives its shape from Jesus

If reality derives its shape from Jesus, we should take what he said and did really seriously. We should spend as much time with Jesus as possible – “moments with the Master”.

People of the first centuries could read the Scriptures and find them relevant. What about us today? Does this still hold true today for us, two thousand years later? If most people do not read the Scriptures and do not know anything about Jesus, on what grounds will they decide that this “trilemma” has any meaning in their lives?

The Trilemma in our Lives

The trilemma has power if people read the Bible and accept its authority. People around us may not read the Bible, but they do read our lives. You and I are the only Scripture that many people will ever read. If they see Jesus in us, and if the Jesus they see is attractive, they may stop and pay attention to who Jesus really is.

Unfortunately, some Christians show a picture of Jesus in their lives that is profoundly unattractive. If you ask some people what they think of God – based on what they see in Christians around them – they might say that God must be ready to judge everyone who doesn’t agree with him and send  them straight to hell. We have said often in this church that God is love and that the heart of our faith is to love God and love others. Lee’s sermon last week reminded us again that we live out a costly and difficult love, made possible only by God’s Spirit living within us. Many people around us would laugh at what we say, because they don’t see it in Christians’ lives. I say again, you and I are the only Bible many people will ever read.

For many, the claims of Jesus, then, rest on the way we show Jesus in our lives. What could be more important, then, for us to spend “moments with the Master”, that is, time with Jesus? If people see Jesus in us, then we can lay his claims before them. If what they see in us is not good, people will not turn to God because we are not showing the reality of God.

Psalm 110; Hebrews 1

This brings us finally to the Scriptures we read this morning. Jesus and the first Christians used the first verse of Psalm 110 to point to Jesus as the Messiah. “The Lord says to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.’” Jesus himself quoted this verse (recorded in Matthew 22) to suggest that “the Son of David” was he himself. Peter used in (recorded in Acts 2) to argue that Jesus fulfills the messianic prophecies. The writer to the Hebrews used it in the chapter we read as part of his argument that Jesus reveals God fully. Psalm 110:4 also appears in Hebrews 1 and is picked up later in the letter to the Hebrews as evidence that Jesus is the Messiah.

The key point is that Jesus reveals God fully. Here how Hebrews 1 says it:

1 Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, ² but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. ³ He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact representation of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word.

Jesus is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact representation of God’s being. When you see Jesus, you see God. That’s why it is so important for us to spend time with Jesus. That’s why it is so important for us to spend “moments with the Master”.

Moments with the Master

We had 11 different moments with Jesus this past summer.

A Thrilling Moment: Jesus Cooks Breakfast for the Disciples. Jesus brings life into the worst moments of our lives. We also are people who bring life to each other.

A Trusting Moment: Jesus and the Leper. Jesus rewards those who trust him with healing and self-worth. We also are people who inspire trust in those who know us.

A Teaching Moment: Jesus Washes the Disciples Feet. Jesus taught his disciples to serve each other. We also are people who model service in every area of life.

A Touching Moment: Jesus and the Bleeding Woman. Jesus was open to a woman seen as unworthy. We also are people who recognize people on the margins as “images of God”.

A Terrifying Moment: Jesus and the Woman Caught in Adultery. Jesus replaced the fear of judgment with the transformation of forgiveness. We also are people who extend forgiveness and life to those our world condemns.

A Tempting Moment: Jesus and the Rich Man. Jesus presents us with a choice – follow God or follow wealth. We also are people who choose Jesus before anything else in life.

A Tender Moment: Jesus and Thomas. Jesus accepted Thomas’ doubts as evidence of his authenticity. We also grow through questions rather than trying to shut them down.

A Terrific Moment: Jesus and Zacchaeus. Jesus saw beneath the surface and extended grace to a sinner. We also are people to whom and through whom God’s grace flows.

A Tearful Moment: Jesus and the Sleeping Child. Jesus responded to the end of life by bringing new life. We also are people who embrace the new life that endings bring.

A Telling Moment: Jesus and Peter Walking on Water. Jesus gave Peter a clear vision of strength in the storms of his life, transforming impetuous Peter into a steady rock. We also are people who discern the presence of God in the storms that we face.

A Tenacious Moment: Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman. Jesus healed the woman’s daughter when she clung to her faith although he had rebuked her. We also are people who break the categories of our society to embrace and follow our Master, Jesus.

These moments reveal God’s nature to us, and we in turn show who God in Christ is to the world. Remember: You are the only Bible most people will ever read. It’s vital that you and I know Jesus intimately so that we can be God’s people in this world fully. There’s an old song that says it in the chorus: “Be like Jesus, this my song, In the home and in the throng; Be like Jesus, all day long! I would be like Jesus.”

Steinbach Mennonite Church 

6 September 2020

Texts: Psalms 110; Hebrews 1

Psalm 110

Assurance of Victory for God’s Priest-King. Of David. A Psalm.

¹ The Lord says to my lord, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” ² The Lord sends out from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your foes. ³ Your people will offer themselves willingly on the day you lead your forces on the holy mountains. From the womb of the morning, like dew, your youth will come to you.

⁴ The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” ⁵ The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.

⁶ He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter heads over the wide earth. ⁷ He will drink from the stream by the path; therefore he will lift up his head.

Hebrews 1

God Has Spoken by His Son

1 Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, ² but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. ³ He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, ⁴ having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

The Son Is Superior to Angels

⁵ For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you”? Or again,

“I will be his Father, and he will be my Son”? ⁶ And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.”

⁷ Of the angels he says, “He makes his angels winds, and his servants flames of fire.” ⁸ But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of your kingdom. ⁹ You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”

¹⁰ And, “In the beginning, Lord, you founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands; ¹¹ they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like clothing; ¹² like a cloak you will roll them up, and like clothing they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will never end.” 

¹³ But to which of the angels has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”? ¹⁴ Are not all angels spirits in the divine service, sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?