COME AND DRINK
Rev. Bernt P. Tweit
Epistle Lesson; Acts 2:22-36
Old Testament Lesson; Ezekiel 37:1-14
Sermon Text; John 7:37-39
I don’t know if you realize it or not, but before I became a pastor here at Holy Cross, I painted houses and apartments for a living. I can recall one hot summer, a number of years back, when I was painting on the rooftops of one of those apartment buildings. Along with my painting supplies, I had with me a gallon of water. I would drink a lot of water and then go to work, sweating profusely. While I was on that rooftop, a very strange thing (or maybe normal) happened. I stopped sweating, completely! At that moment, I knew how critical and important that water was for me. So, I would drink a lot of water and get back to work, sweating profusely. Only to then have that same strange thing happen again. I stopped sweating! This happened over and over, during the course of that day. I knew that the water was very important for me. It was very valuable to me. Often times now, I look back at that day and imagine the jug of water having a sign on it that said, "Come and Drink".
Jesus, in our text for today, uses that same word picture, involving water, thirst and drinking. He too says, "Come and Drink."
Today is the Festival of Pentecost. It is on this Sunday that we celebrate the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit, into the life of the New Testament Church. The verses prior to our reading, from the Book of Acts, describes that.
Our text begins by saying, "On the last and greatest day of the feast". Here, it is not talking about Pentecost, but the Feast of Tabernacles. But the authors of our scripture readings are not confused. They do it for a specific reason, to make a connection between what occurred at Pentecost and what occurred at the Feast of Tabernacles. Let me explain.
The Festival of Tabernacles was a festival that took place each year, in the fall. God wanted the Children of Israel to celebrate that festival for two good reasons. First of all, being the harvest festival, they celebrated the corn being brought into the barns. They celebrated the grapes that were harvested and later to be turned into wine. Also, God wanted them to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles to remember what their forefathers had gone through. He wanted them to remember the forty years of wandering in the desert. He wanted them to remember that the people lived in tents for those forty years. (Deuteronomy 16:13)
Every fall, outside the city walls of Jerusalem, hundreds of thousands of tents would be set up. The people would leave the comforts of their own home, and live in tents, in remembrance of how God had provided for their forefathers.
At the Feast of Tabernacles, our text tells us that Jesus stood up and said in a loud voice,
"If anyone is thirsty,
let him come to me and drink."
He used a word picture involving thirst and drinking. Jesus’ use of water fits the custom followed at the Feast of Tabernacles. On each of the seven days of the festival, the officiating priest took a golden vessel at the morning service, and filled it with water from the fountain of Siloam, in the Kidron Valley. He mixed the water with the wine of the drink offering. He then poured it into two perforated silver bowls on the west of the altar, for the burnt offering. The trumpets were sounded and praise was sung. The people chanted the verse from Isaiah 12:3,
"Therefore with joy
shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation."
How fitting that, ‘On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice,
"If anyone is thirsty,
let him come to me and drink."’
Jesus invited the spiritually thirsty people at the Feast of Tabernacles to look to Him, as the one who could spiritually satisfy their needs, as their Savior.
At the first Pentecost Festival, after Jesus had ascended into Heaven, Peter did the same thing. In fulfillment of Jesus’ promise, the apostles received power, when the Holy Spirit came on them. When the day of Pentecost came, there was a sound like the blowing of a violent wind, and then what seemed to be tongues of fire came to rest on the disciples. The sound of the wind caused a crowd to gather in amazement. At such a time, Peter stood up and raised his voice, addressing the crowd.
The message of Peter at the Feast of Pentecost was the same as the message of Jesus, at the Feast of Tabernacles, and it is our message today:
Come
and Drink
from the wells of
SALVATION!
Come to Jesus,
if you are thirsty for salvation.
Today, we have gathered here together, because we are spiritually thirsty. Jesus said, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink." Are we, by nature, thirsty? Yes, but for what?
A man’s truck broke down crossing the Sahara desert. He nearly died of thirst, during the three weeks he waited, before being rescued. As his body dehydrated, he became willing to drink anything, in hopes of quenching his terrible thirst. The sun forced him into the shade under the truck, where he dug a shallow trench. Day after day, he laid there. When the good drinking water was gone, do you know what he was willing to drink? Rusty radiator water! He wanted to find anything that would quench his thirst. And yet, what he was taking into his body was poison. He was willing to drink poison, to quench his thirst!
Just as that rusty radiator water couldn’t satisfy him, there are many things in the world that can’t satisfy our spiritual thirst. And yet, how often in life don’t we try to satisfy ourselves with them? Ask the drug addict, the alcoholic, the gambler, the person who is materialist and always looking for more new things, the money hungry, and the power hungry. These are just some examples of the things that we may spiritually thirst after. But, we can’t find complete refreshment in them. I know that we sometimes try to find satisfaction, try to quench our thirst, in the wrong places. I think that we are often times the victims of our passions. We try to quench our thirst with earthly pleasures. But those things were empty. The author of the book of Ecclesiastes calls it a chasing after the wind. Foolishness!
Just a couple of chapters before our text, in John, Chapter 4, the woman at the well serves as an example for us. She was trying to quench her thirst at the wrong well. She came to Jesus and wanted the water He talked about, that was a spring, welling up inside a person. Jesus told her that the well she had been going to – one of five different husbands, a life of looking for a true relationship – was the wrong well! She was thirsting for love, and had struck out five times. This woman suddenly had hope, because she finally came to the real source of Living Water – Jesus!
Again, Jesus said,
"If anyone is thirsty,
let him come to me and drink."
By nature, we enter life like the dead and dry bones that Ezekiel saw in our Old Testament lesson. "If a man is thirsty." Jesus knows that we are thirsty. He tells us to come and drink. He invites us, who are thirsty, to come to Him for forgiveness of sins, life and salvation! That is what Jesus preached at the Festival of Tabernacles.
And, that is what Peter preached, at Pentecost. The Pentecost people initially were not thirsting for Jesus. But Peter stood up and made many thirsty saying,
"Therefore let all Israel be assured of this:
God has made this Jesus,
whom you crucified,
both Lord and Christ."
When the people heard this, it was like he held up a mirror before them, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "What shall we do?"
Like Jesus, Peter cut through the outward religious piety of the Pentecost crowd, by setting a mirror (their evil works) before them, and revealed to them their parched, bone-dry dead condition before God. Peter then directed those who were thirsty, to God’s salvation in Jesus, in the Means of Grace,
"Repent and be baptized,
every one of you,
in the name of Jesus Christ
for the forgiveness of your sins."
Point the Spiritually Dry, to Jesus.
Our thirst should lead us to Jesus for our own salvation, but it should also make us willing to point the spiritually dry, to Jesus.
How can we, who are spiritually dry and dead, respond to Jesus’ calling, "Come and Drink"? Martin Luther is quick to point out that we cannot do this by ourselves, when he says, "The Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel."
Our text for today has taught us that the Holy Spirit not only brings the water of salvation to us, but He also uses us to reach others, showing them their spiritually parched condition, and pointing the thirsty to Jesus.
I viewed this yesterday, when I was at the park with a number of children, and thought that we should be, as Christians and believers, just like those children, who were there in the park, playing on that hot summer day. One of those children found a water fountain. The child took in that cool, refreshing water. However, the child did not keep that water a secret, but told everybody else in the park, "I found the fountain!!! Come and drink!!!" All of the other children then came and found refreshment in that water, thanks to the one child!
There are times, when I feel just like I did as a painter, on that apartment rooftop years ago. On that roof, I stopped sweating and knew I needed water. It reminds me how, on a daily and weekly basis, I spiritually become parched. I need to look to Jesus, in God’s Word, to find refreshment for my soul. Now, during the week, when I stop "sweating", I know that I need to come to church and receive the spiritual water to quench my thirsty soul. Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection does all of that. He gives us salvation.
And, I need to not keep that spiritual water for myself, but take that same spiritual water to other people, leading those who are spiritually dry, to their salvation. Let us also point the spiritually dry to Jesus, as well.
The last verse of our text is the one that ties in with the Pentecost Festival. God’s Word says about Jesus, "By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive." That was fulfilled on Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the New Testament Church and the disciples were able to speak in languages they had never learned! And then were able to point people, who were spiritually parched, to their salvation.
Come and drink from the wells of salvation!
Amen.
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