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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:1-2) The first day, God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light (Genesis 1:3). The second day, God created an expanse to separate the waters into those above and those below (Genesis 1:6-8). The third day, God gathered the waters below so that dry land appeared (Genesis 1:9-10). And, the sixth day, the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature, and the Lord God took from out of the man and made the woman—male and female created in the image of God (Genesis 2:7, 22-23; 1:26-31).
Tempted by the serpent, the man and the woman ate of the tree in the midst of the garden and brought on themselves and on their descendants death, as God had promised, but immediately God also promised that the woman’s Offspring would be victorious over the serpent’s offspring (Genesis 3:1‑24; confer 2:17), but that victory did not come immediately. Human wickedness was great in the earth, and every intention of the thoughts of human hearts was only evil continually, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord—Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation, walking with God (Genesis 6:5, 8-9; confer 8:21). A flood of waters upon the earth destroyed all flesh in which was the breath of life, except for Noah and his immediate family and for a male and female of every sort of living thing in the ark (Genesis 6:17, 18-19). After the fountains of the great deep had burst forth, and the windows of the heavens had been opened, and rain had fallen upon the earth for 40 days and 40 nights (Genesis 7:11-12), as the ark floated on the face of the waters (Genesis 7:18), God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark (Genesis 8:1). God closed the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens and restrained the rain from the heavens and made a wind blow over the earth and the waters subside (Genesis 8:1-2). Eventually, a dove sent from the ark brought back an olive leaf and, when sent again, did not return. After Noah’s family left the ark, which brought the eight souls safely through water and corresponds to Holy Baptism that now saves us (1 Peter 3:20-21), Noah’s family was fruitful and multiplied, increasing greatly on the earth and multiplying in it (Genesis 9:7).
Some of them settled on a plain in the land of Shinar and brought on a confusion of languages, so that they could not understand one another’s speech (Genesis 11:1-9), and later others filled the land of Egypt and there were enslaved (Exodus 1:1-14). In time, they were delivered by God at the hand of Moses through ten plagues, the first involving water and blood (Exodus 7:14-25) and the last involving the blood of a lamb (Exodus 12:1-32). After crossing a miraculously‑parted Red Sea (Exodus 14:1-31), they complained to Moses about a lack of food and water, which God provided them in the forms of bread from heaven (Exodus 16:1-36) and water from a rock (Exodus 17:1-7), and, with His Spirit, God even ordained 70 elders to assist Moses, as we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Numbers 11:24-30). Still the people refused to trust God and enter the Promised Land, instead rebelling (Numbers 14:1-4) and wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, until their bodies fell there and their children crossed a miraculously‑parted Jordan River to dwell in the Promised Land (Joshua 3:1-17).
Imperfect kingdoms came and went, with God prophesying that time would come when He would pour water on the thirsty land, streams on dry ground, His Spirit upon His people’s offspring, His blessing on their descendants (Isaiah 44:3). In that day, God said, the streambeds of Judah would flow with water, and a fountain would come forth from the house of the Lord (Joel 3:18); regardless of the season, water would flow out from Jerusalem to the east and to the west (Zechariah 14:8), increasing in depth and bringing life wherever it went (Ezekiel 47:1-12). So, “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because [we] are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba! [that is,] Father!’” (Galatians 4:4-6) God the Father identified His Son, Jesus, at His Baptism, and the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and came to rest on Him (Matthew 3:13-17).
In today’s Gospel Reading, that same Jesus is at the Feast of Tabernacles, at a celebration of which Solomon’s Temple was also dedicated. The Feast of Tabernacles recalled the people of Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness and such things as God’s providing water, with the observance’s ritual action pouring pitcher after pitcher of water and wine upon the altar, repeating God’s words spoken through Isaiah, “With joy you(-all) will draw water from the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3). After days of such a ritual, He Who had previously spoken of birth from above by water and the Spirit (John 3:3, 5) and of giving living water unto eternal life (John 4:4, 14) and of those who come to Him’s never hungering and those who believe in Him’s never thirsting (John 6:35)—that same Jesus, echoing the Lord’s call through Isaiah for everyone who thirsts to come to the water, Himself said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me, and let him drink, whoever believes in Me” (NEB; NIV and ESV margins).
We hear “let the thirsty come” and “let the believers drink”, and, if we are honest with ourselves, we must confess that we do not always repeatedly or continually thirst, come, believe, or drink. Like God’s unfaithful people of old, too often we forsake Him, the fountain of living waters, and we hew out for ourselves broken cisterns that can hold no water (Jeremiah 2:13). Of course, we cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ our Lord or come to Him, but, the Holy Spirit calls us by the Gospel (Small Catechism, II:6)—the Holy Spirit calls us to turn in sorrow from our sin and to trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake. For one to refuse the empowering call to come is to continue in sin and be excluded from eternal life (John 3:19-20; 5:40; Schneider, TDNT 2:672).
Jesus was crucified for us. His being lifted up on the cross and dying for us was His glorification; there He drew all people to Himself (John 12:23-36). There, after He Himself thirsted (John 19:28), He bowed His head and gave up His Spirit (John 19:30). Then, His side was pierced, and blood and water came out (John 19:34). Three days later, He was resurrected, and He stood among His disciples and sent them as the Father had sent Him, breathing on them and giving them the Holy Spirit to either forgive sins or withhold forgiveness (John 20:21-23), especially in individual Holy Absolution. In the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Lord did something new: He made rivers in the desert, water in the wilderness, for His chosen people to drink (Isaiah 43:19-20). Jesus fulfilled the Scripture that rivers from within Him would flow of living water, so He could cry out for the thirsty to come to Him and for believers to drink (Grundmann, TDNT 3:902 n.14). As the Divinely‑inspired St. John describes it, in Jesus’s glorifying crucifixion and resurrection, the promised Holy Spirit had come and lived with the disciples and was in them, teaching them all things, reminding them of everything Jesus said, testifying of Him, for their good (John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26; 16:7; confer 12:16).
As we heard in today’s Second Reading (Acts 2:1-21), the Old Testament harvest festival of Pentecost, which is said to have first occurred with the giving of the Law and so the founding of the Jewish Church, was transformed to a New Testament harvest festival of the giving of the Holy Spirit and so the founding of the Christian Church. Do not misunderstand: as you have heard, the Holy Spirit had been around and active since the beginning, but that day the Holy Spirit was given in a new way at least to (if not only to) the Twelve, so that they could transcend the confusion of languages in order to gather souls into the Church. You and I have benefitted from that first Pentecost, but that Pentecost is not the giving of the Holy Spirit to us! Rather, we have what might be called our own “personal Pentecosts” as God through His Gospel and Sacraments gives us the Holy Spirit, Who works faith, when and where He pleases, in those who hear the Gospel (Augsburg Confession V:2). The Gospel with water makes Holy Baptism and this Baptismal Font not a pool of stagnant or dead water but a fountain and spring of water that gives life. Here God forgives us our sins of failing to thirst, come, drink, and believe, or whatever our sins might be! In a sense, we have the same baptism as the people who passed through the Red Sea and likewise drink of the Rock that is Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4). Through the servants He has ordained with other gifts of His Spirit (confer 1 Corinthians 12:4), the Lord Himself here sprinkles us with clean water and cleanses us, giving us a new heart and a new spirit, causing us to walk in His statutes, be careful to obey His rules, and dwell in His Promised Land (Ezekiel 36:22-28). As we hunger and thirst for righteousness, we are satisfied and blessed (Matthew 5:6). The Gospel with bread and wine makes the Sacrament of the Altar Jesus’s Body and Blood, given and shed for you and for me, for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation (Matthew 26:26-28). Here is the living bread that comes down from heaven for us to eat and not die but to live forever (John 6:50-51). The Spirit, the water, and the blood all testify that God gives us eternal life in His Son (1 John 5:6-8, 11). So, we who labor and are heavy laden come to Jesus for rest for our souls (Matthew 11:28-29).
The Lord calls us out and feeds us along the way, so that we neither hunger or thirst, for He who has pity on us leads us, guiding us by springs of living water (Isaiah 49:9-10; Revelation 7:16-17). In turn, we give food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty (Matthew 25:35, 37, 42, 44), with ourselves ever thirsting and so praying for more and more of the Holy Spirit’s help and comfort. The Spirit and the Church echo Jesus’s call for the thirsty to come and take and drink from the springs of the water of life without payment or price (Revelation 21:6; 22:17). Ultimately, we join Him and all who have gone before us in the faith, for eternity in the Heavenly Jerusalem, where the rivers of living water that flow out of the temple of Jesus’s body (John 2:20-22) flow down from the throne of God and the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city, giving life as it goes (Revelation 22:1-2). In the beginning were the Spirit, water, and life. Now there are the Spirit, water, and life. And, forever there will be the Spirit, water, and life.
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +