Let the Thirsty Come to Me

Sustaining Hope
Visions of Grandeur

A Transforming Stream

John 7:37-44 The Message

^37-39 On the final and climactic day of the Feast, Jesus took his stand. He cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Rivers of living water will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone who believes in me this way, just as the Scripture says.” (He said this in regard to the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were about to receive. The Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified.)
^40-44 Those in the crowd who heard these words were saying, “This has to be the Prophet.” Others said, “He is the Messiah!” But others were saying, “The Messiah doesn’t come from Galilee, does he? Don’t the Scriptures tell us that the Messiah comes from David’s line and from Bethlehem, David’s village?” So there was a split in the crowd over him. Some went so far as wanting to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him.

For Reflection
What was it that the people of Jesus time thirsted for?  The pain and suffering of the masses of people under the pressures of daily life were enormous. A new way of living that had the potential for relief from the prison of impoverishment, domination, and control.  The waters around which they lived were not their waters.  They were as children permitted only to look but not touch.  Rather, they lived or died at the pleasure of those who had control.

Jesus said if you can't drink from the waters which surround you drink the living waters of the Spirit.  Fill yourself with hope and adopt a new way of life.  Christ offered a way out of the bondage of political and religious empirical domination. Christ reminds them of the prophetic faith that sustained them in the past and calls for a renewed trust in who they were, God's chosen people.  Christ's call to return to hope that can be achieved only in service to God and the realization of God's Kingdom.

Pray
for all who suffer in the captivity of poverty and domination.  Pray for the Spirit to enter their lives and give them the hope brought by the living waters.  Pray for the triumph of good over evil.  Pray so that you escape the prison of a Godless world and find freedom in the Holy Spirit.