The promise…

Of the Spirit (part 4) 

The Father sent his Son so we’d come to see and understand the depth of love his Son has for us. So in the things he inspired his Son to say and do while he was here with us as a human being, they were all meant to demonstrate his Son’s love. 

Like the time Jesus stood up in front of hundreds and even thousands of people at the Temple on the final great day of their autumn festival celebration and he shouted out to them, “If you’re thirsty, come to me and drink” in John 7:37.  

Because imagine what it took for him to do that. His timing, for instance, had to be perfect. It wouldn’t be showing love, for example, if he disturbed a formal ritual going on at the time. He also had to choose the right spot where people could see him and hear him above the murmurings and shuffling of the crowd. And a place where the crowd wasn’t pressing in on him too. 

And then to stand up and start shouting – and the Greek for “speaking in a loud voice” in John 7:37 really does mean “shout” – well, who likes speaking in front of a crowd at any time, let alone suddenly start shouting in a crowd at the top of your voice, “Come to me,” too? 

But that’s what he did. With time and place sorted out, therefore, up he stood and yelled, “If any of you are thirsty, come to me.” It was the ultimate soap box sales pitch: “Hey, everyone, roll on up, I’ve got what you need to satisfy your deepest longings.” But he went much, much further than that, into territory where no salesman would dare go, by shouting, “It’s me, folks – I’m what you need.”

And it was love that compelled him to do that, because what he saw when looking out at the crowd was people his Father had designed to need him. His Father had given them a thirst that could only be satisfied by coming to him. Because in coming to him that’s when all those rituals and symbols and singing the predictions in Scripture of fountains of refreshing water pouring out from God that they’d all been celebrating during their festival – would become a reality. But not a physical reality in their nation. It would be a river of deeply refreshing water bubbling away inside them…(more on this tomorrow)