Sermon text: John 7:37-39
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Today is the feast of Pentecost, a major, major festival in the Christian church calendar. Today we’re celebrating the giving of the Holy Spirit, whom our ascended Lord Jesus Christ poured out on his church on Pentecost Day. As we read in the second chapter of the book of Acts, the events recorded there were the beginning of a worldwide effort to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. You and I are largely here because of what began on that first Pentecost Sunday. Actually, no, it wasn’t the very first Pentecost. For the Christian, the feast of Pentecost has its roots in the Jewish festival of Pentecost. That’s why people were in Jerusalem to start with. They were there to celebrate one of the three great festivals of the religious year. They had come to observe the Jewish feast of Pentecost. There were three main festivals in the Jewish calendar, in the Hebrew calendar, when all pious Jews from all over the world were to travel to Jerusalem, to go to the temple to fulfill their religious duty. The three festivals were the Feast of Passover, which took place in early spring; the Feast of Weeks, also called Pentecost, which occurred seven weeks, or fifty days, later in spring; and then the Feast of Tabernacles, or Booths, that took place in the fall. All three of these feasts are called pilgrimage festivals, because they called upon Jews from all over the world to come to Jerusalem to offer their prayers and their sacrifices in the temple.
Now, you’re probably wondering why we even care about Old Testament festivals. It’s ancient history, and we’re not even Jewish. What does all of that have to do with you and with me? We’re about to find out, because all three of these Old Testament feasts are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The Feast of Tabernacles and the Feast of Passover come to fruition in the Feast of Pentecost. Our text today comes from the gospel reading in John 7:37-39. It consists of words that Jesus spoke while at the Feast of Tabernacles. One might wonder why this reading was selected for a Feast of Pentecost church service. The reason is this: in John 7:37-39, Jesus is predicting what is going to take place on that very first Pentecost Sunday. So, this morning we’re going on a pilgrimage from the Tabernacles to the Feast of Pentecost, with a stop at Passover on the way.
But our starting point this morning is the Feast of Tabernacles. It’s called Tabernacles because it commemorated the time when the Israelites traveled through the wilderness, lived in tents or tabernacles while on their way to the promised land. During those years of wilderness wandering, the Lord God graciously provided for his people by giving them food and drink, even in a dry and desolate land. God miraculously supplied them with bread from heaven and with water from a rock. Now, you might recall the incident from the time of Moses with the water in the rock. The Israelites were out in the wilderness. It was a desert. They didn’t have water. They were thirsty, and they began to grumble against both Moses and against God. They wanted something to drink. So the Lord God told Moses to strike his staff against a rock, and water would come out flowing, and the people could drink. And that’s exactly what happened. Moses struck the rock, water came out, and people drank in abundance. It even happened a second time later on, when once again the Lord supplied them with water and Moses struck another rock. God provided for his people as they wandered throughout the wilderness. The Feast of Tabernacles, then, is a time when the Jews gather in Jerusalem to commemorate the miraculous gift of water from the rock. The Feast of Tabernacles was a week-long festival with various ceremonies and rituals taking place throughout the week. One of those rituals involved water. Each morning water was drawn from the Pool of Siloam and carried in a golden pitcher to the temple. The water was poured out, trumpets would sound, and the people would sing the words of Isaiah, “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
That’s where we meet Jesus in the gospel reading this morning. He’s in Jerusalem for the Feast of the Tabernacles. The water ceremony is vivid, and it’s fresh in the people’s minds, when Jesus seizes upon the opportunity to make the connection between him and the festival of Tabernacles. That’s where we pick up the story, verse 37: “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'” Jesus is saying, “If you think that the way in which the Lord provided natural water for you in the wilderness was something spectacular, you haven’t seen anything yet. There’s something even greater in store for those who believe.” That water satisfied the thirst for a short time. But Jesus is telling them that he has a water that will quench their thirst for all of eternity. “Come to me and drink,” he bids the people. Our lives can be likened to wandering in a wilderness. This world, apart from God’s grace, is a dry and desolate place. We see sin and death all around us. We see sin and death in our own bodies as we age, grow older, and move toward our ascension into the heavenly realm. We are one of the thirsty ones, and we’re ready to drink. You’re ready to drink what God gives you to receive, the living water; then you too will become a well of everlasting life. And when you come to Jesus and you drink and you believe in him, that water will spring up in you and flow out from you and through you to others. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit, and that’s fundamentally what the festival of Pentecost was all about. That’s why John 7:37-39 is chosen as the gospel lesson for the feast of Pentecost. As the gospel writer adds, “Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
We’re heading toward Pentecost, but we’re not there yet. We have one more feast to stop at before we get there. It’s the Feast of Passover. It’s hinted at in the words, “Because Jesus was not yet glorified.” Jesus will be glorified in an unexpected way at Passover. But when he spoke these words, he was not yet being crucified. He was not yet being glorified. You probably don’t need it, but I’ll remind you nonetheless. Like Tabernacles, Passover was associated with the Lord’s deliverance of his people at the time of Moses. The Israelites were in Egypt in bondage as slaves. Through Moses, the Lord God acted to bring them out of their bondage in Egypt and set them free in their own promised land. The Lord brought a series of plagues upon Egypt to convince Pharaoh to let his people go. The last plague was the death of the firstborn child. The plague would have struck the homes of the Israelites, except the Lord instructed Moses to have the people take a lamb without blemish, to take its blood, and to paint it on the lintel of the doors and on the frame of the door. And in that way, the angel of death would pass over their houses, and their family would be saved. The Feast of Passover, then, was how the Jews remembered the great deliverance from slavery and death. And it was at Passover, many years later, that the feast was fulfilled in an even greater feast. Jesus was with his disciples. And at the end of the Passover meal, he instituted something new and greater. He said, “Take, this is my body. This is my blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of all of your sins.” Then he went out. He was betrayed, arrested, tried, convicted, handed over to death on a cross. The only-begotten Son became the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world. Because his blood marks us as the Lord God’s children, we have been spared. Death shall pass over us, too. In John 11:25 and 26, Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet he shall live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” In John 12:23, Jesus said to his disciples in reference to his crucifixion, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Strangely enough, that’s how Jesus is glorified: the crucifixion brings glory to Jesus, to die for the sins of the world and to die in shame, even though the sin and the shame belong to us, for he was without sin in his own person. For the Lord God is glorified chiefly in showing mercy. And this is the greatest act of mercy: giving his only-begotten Son into death for your salvation. No greater glory is there than the revelation of God’s divine mercy there in the cross of Jesus Christ. And when Jesus died on that cross for your salvation, he gave up his spirit. And a soldier pierced his side with a spear, and out of his side came a sudden flow of both blood and water. Truly, of Christ it can be said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” His death and his pierced side became the source of your eternal life. The Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, proceeds from the Son, flows out from Christ the crucified, and gives you true Christian life.
At the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus was not yet glorified, but there at Passover, Jesus is glorified by his death and his resurrection, which was followed by his ascension into the heavenly realm forty days later. Ten days after the end of the forty days, for a total of fifty days later, we finally come to Pentecost, when Jesus pours out the Spirit on his church. But again, we have to go back to find out the Old Testament background for this feast. Pentecost was also called the Feast of Weeks, coming as it did seven weeks after Passover. It fell in mid-to-late spring, the time for the early harvest. The Feast of Weeks, or the Feast of Pentecost — the same thing — therefore celebrated the abundance of the blessings that the Lord God bestowed on Israel when they settled in the promised land. For when they settled, it was truly a land flowing with both milk and honey, with abundant crops, and Pentecost, or Weeks, rejoiced in that great abundance from God. People came to the temple and gave a thank offering of grain out of the early harvest, and this was called the firstfruits offering, since the firstfruits signaled that there was much, much more to come.
So, that’s where we stand on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. We’re in Jerusalem with the multitudes of Jews who had come on a pilgrimage from nations from all over the world. Now, there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, Egypt, and parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs. And what does all that mean? It means God is now going to have the firstfruits offered from among all these nations. The harvest is ready. It’s about to start. The Spirit is poured out on the disciples, and Peter starts preaching. This is how the harvest will be gathered: by preaching his word. And Peter begins telling them of the mighty works of God. And he will make known to them what God has done for them in Christ Jesus, so that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. This is what the feast of Pentecost is about. It’s about the gospel going out into the world, calling people to repentance and faith in Christ, calling you to the very same. From the Tabernacle through Pentecost, with Passover along the way, the message remains the same: the rivers of living water are flowing out from Christ to you.
So, hear this Sunday, at the day of the festival of Pentecost: come to Jesus and drink. Amen.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.