Pentecost
I am just beginning to understand the Northern Irish Summer. I have noticed that the sun is definitely shy and evasive; the rain is not! In a place where water from the sky is greeted with stony glares and angry muttering, it is difficult to get excited about “Living Water”. Not when it drips on us throughout the year, flows from our taps, wets our gardens, dampens our dogs, and soaks our lives.
In fact water is so boring that we have invented a variety of ways to drink it. Our kitchen cupboard has a variety of stuff by which we disguise water: fruit teas, green teas, Ordinary tea. People drink a variety of coffees (americanos, lattes, cappachino, frappachinos), and a vast selection of cold drinks. The recent winter freeze and failure of the water supply may have given us a sense of what life without water is like, a glimpse of how fundamental it really is.
People still do not have the luxury of running water on tap in some parts of our world, and may walk miles for even contaminated water. In New Testament days, water came from a public well or pool, often far away. In the blazing sun it was no easy drive in an air conditioned car to the well or the leisure centre for a shower. It was a sweaty trek in the heat, on two weary legs (four legs if you had a donkey or camel). Drought was feared, and the source of water was always a fundamental consideration. People were often thirsty, and offering a stranger a glass of water, or washing their dusty feet, was an act of enormous generosity. In this context, thirst was real and water was of enormous value and significance.
Living Water is the focus of the passage we just read. Jesus at the Feast of the Tabernacles, cries out “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38).
This is a statement of two parts. The first is Jesus’ offer to the thirsty to come to Him and drink – He offers to quench their “thirst” (an offer similar to the one made to the Samaritan woman at the well). The second is a statement about “rivers of living water” flowing out of those who believe in Him, a reference to Pentecost, the passage we heard read from Acts.
Ever since Pentecost, those who believe in Jesus receive the Holy Spirit, and rivers of living water flow out of them.
To understand the power and significance of Jesus’ words, a journey through time and space with Dr Who will be useful. For those who do not know the Doctor, he is a Time Lord, travelling in his time machine – the Tardis. We take a whirlwind tour back to the Feast of the Tabernacles where Jesus was speaking these words, then to the Feast of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit, before returning to the 21st century.
We now travel back twenty centuries and arrive at the week-long Feast of the Tabernacles. People have pitched tents and are camping here as a vivid re-enactment of the nomadic journey through the wilderness, when Moses led their ancestors out of slavery in Egypt. We pitch camp here.
Central to the feast is a ritual with water. Each morning the priest processes from the Temple to the Pool of Siloam. There he fills a golden vase with water. He carries it back to the temple and pours it into the basin beneath the altar. This image of water gushing out of the vase is at the centre of the Feast, and the thoughts of the people there are on God’s deliverance and the promise of rain on thirsty ground.
This year we find that the Feast is charged with tension because of Jesus. He is the focus of heated discussion. He had already become a figure of deep controversy, so much so that He goes to the Feast in secret, not openly. People have been confused about Him and are arguing about who He is: “He is good,” some say. Others say, “He deceives the people.” Some marvel at how he knew things while others say he has a “demon”. Some wonder if He is the Christ.
Around the middle of the week of the Feast, Jesus goes up to the Temple to teach, walking straight into the feverish atmosphere and raging turmoil. At first He makes enigmatic statements about Himself and the One who sent Him. People are even more confused. But, on the last day of the Feast, Jesus gets to His feet and cries out a declaration. And this time He is clear: “If anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me… out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.“
It is an astounding claim that is made when those around are immersed in the significance of the rituals – rain on thirsty ground and God’s deliverance. The people understand – Jesus was pointing from the ritual of the previous days to Himself. He is saying clearly and loudly. “Look at Me” – “I can give you Living Water”. His words are electrifying and at this point some do conclude that He is the Christ. The leaders are outraged by what they think are blasphemous claims made by Jesus and want to arrest him.
Many of the people there understand, with joy, Jesus’ offer to quench their thirst for meaning in life. But His promise – that Living water will flow out of their hearts – is not quite clear yet. It will only be understood at Pentecost. Our Tardis must take us a few weeks forward, past the events of Good Friday, Easter, and Jesus’ ascension to heaven, to another Jewish festival.
Pentecost was the Feast of the Harvest or First Fruits and was one of the largest gatherings of people from all over the known world – as the list in Acts tells us. This ensured that the message about Jesus would be given to the biggest gathering of people, and taken back to as much of the world as possible.
When we arrive we find the disciples gathered together in one place. They have been through the nightmare of Jesus’ arrest, torture and crucifixion. They have been in hiding, terrified and confused, until Jesus appeared to them. Alive! Risen from the dead! Jesus had spent time with them and then been taken up into heaven. The truth was now slowly sinking in – the resurrected Jesus was the Son of God. The fear was dissipating, replaced by a slow return of hope. The scattered believers and disciples have come back together and at Pentecost are gathered – still discreetly – to pray. They are waiting for the Holy Spirit, the Comforter and Counsellor that Jesus had promised to send.
And then the Holy Spirit comes. A mighty rushing wind, the same Mighty Breath of God that breathed life into the world at the beginning of Time, fills the house. Tongues of flames settle on those gathered, and it is as if a thousand volts is shot through the disciples. They are filled with God’s Power. Gone are the undertones and whispered conversations as the disciples burst into loud and jubilant celebration. The river of living water overflows as Jesus had promised and spills over. Like a dam that has been breached, a rushing river it flows out in jubilant praise.
The crowd gathered outside are bewildered. Are the disciples drunk? How was it that these Galileans spoke in a multitude of languages? What was happening here?
The transformation is incredible: a bunch of uneducated, diffident men and women suddenly explode into the world with Rivers of Living Water flowing out of them. They had lost all fear. Peter – who had resorted to violence, run away, deserted and betrayed Jesus – is no longer a frightened fisherman. He is bold and confident as he declares that Jesus is alive and explains to the questioning people that God’s Spirit had been poured out on them and would continue to be poured out on all believers in the future. The Holy Spirit was and is available to everyone.
Two things happened at Pentecost: the first was that the Holy Spirit, who had always been in the world, now came to dwell with and in humans and empower them. The second was that as the Living Water flowed from the hearts of the disciples, the church was born.
We see how this Feast of the Harvest is a fitting day for the establishment of the church as it gathered in 3000 new believers. This celebration of the coming of God’s law to Moses and His people, the Israelites, is a fitting day for the coming of God’s Spirit to the believers. This celebration of the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt is echoed by Jesus’ promises to deliver us from our bondage to sin and death.
The transformation of the first Apostles and believers is evident throughout Acts. Despite being threatened, arrested, and imprisoned they continue to proclaim the good news about Jesus. History records how they were brutally tortured and killed, but nothing stops them. Later in Acts we find people angry because the Christians were “turning the world upside down”.
It is hard for us to imagine the powerful impact of Pentecost. But think of this. Within a few years – as the New Testament shows – in a time without radio, TV, easy travel, or internet, churches emerged across the known world and grew exponentially. The passage from 1 Corinthians tells us that a few years later, Paul was writing to the church in Corinth about the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the life of the church. Many of the international converts from among the first 3000, at Pentecost, had taken the message back to their countries, and it had spread even further from there.
The River of Living Water was a flood, overturning the ancient religious beliefs of Greece and Rome for good. We have watched the images of the tsunamis of Asia and Japan, and understand the force of water when it flows. The River of Living water is powerful and unstoppable. The River still flows in the 21st century, 2000 years later. We are here today because the message preached by Peter on the first day of Pentecost is still being passed on. The Nicene Creed that we affirm on Sunday contains much of Peter’s first declaration on that day of Pentecost.
Let me close by sharing an image that has stuck in my mind from a series by James May, one of the Top Gear lads. His series on the 20th Century explores the changes that made the century distinctive. The coming of electricity changed our world. The earth viewed from space now is a glowing globe. Our habits, our interests, and our occupations have all undergone a transformation. Without electricity our world was a very different place. Let me quote James May:
In previous centuries… if aliens had flown past our planet at night, they would have detected no signs of life …we would have blown out our dim candles and gone to bed. But now our planet glows in the dark. For the first time in 4.5 billion years, intergalactic travellers now know that the earth is worth visiting.
Our world was transformed by the coming of Christ and the giving of His Spirit. Without Pentecost, our world would have been a dark place once Jesus was taken into heaven. But now, there is Light in the darkness. Jesus, through His Spirit, still meets the needs and the emptiness of our lives; he still offers water to quench our thirst and our search for meaning. The Spirit of God who electrified the disciples can electrify us today and light up the world. It is the same power and the same flowing River of Living Water!