“As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’” (Jo. 7:38).
Ancient Israel had what is now called a “semi-arid” climate, which means that in many places things were pretty dry and dusty, though the coastal plain on the Mediterranean and the hill country were a bit greener. The country was perched on the edge of the Arabian desert: “A cloud gathers, the rain falls, men live; the cloud disperses without rain, and men and animals die.” That’s from Wilfred Thesiger’s book Arabian Sands, giving a sense of how tenuous life can be on the margins, even in Jesus’ day: a matter of life or death. Things were not quite as desperate in a semi-arid land, but close enough, then and now.
So, Jesus is conjuring with a powerful metaphor in our Gospel today when he likens the Holy Spirit to “living water” (Jo. 7:38). “Living water” is water that moves around, that stirs things up, and heads in a direction instead of just standing there. Standing water is something completely different from water that flows. It sounds like Jesus is quoting Scripture in our reading, and in a sense he is: not one particular verse, but a whole tradition of Old Testament reflection on God’s action that uses the same metaphor. “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground” (Is. 44:3), God says in the prophet Isaiah. Zechariah says, “On that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and iniquity” (Zech. 13:1). A prophetic vision of the power of living water.
But it’s Ezekiel’s vision of living water flowing from the temple in Jerusalem that best sums up this tradition. In the vision, water pours out the temple to the east and to the south, rising and becoming deeper and deeper, a river deep enough to swim in. Trees spring up as the water flows into the stagnant waters of the Dead Sea, turning the salt water to sweet. “Wherever the river goes,” the prophet says, “every living creature that swarms will live… It will become fresh, and everything will live where the river goes” (Ezek. 47:9). What a vision for people living on the margins, in the semi-arid lands of ancient Israel! According to the prophet, the dry turf of the promised land was to become a well-watered garden.
Jesus draws on this tradition as he speaks of the promised gift of the Holy Spirit, the living water foretold by the prophets. A little earlier, Jesus had told the Samaritan woman at the well that if she had asked him for it God would have given her “living water” (Jo. 4:10). “But those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty” (Jo. 4:14). How could they, in view of Ezekiel’s vision of the promised flood waters flowing from the temple? So Jesus cries out in our Gospel today, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink… Now he said this of the Spirit” (Jo. 7:37-39). Jesus himself is the source of the living water, the One who sends the Spirit.
Jesus, in our Gospel today, focuses not only on himself as the source of the Spirit, but on the Spirit who lives within each one of us. Again, Jesus foreshadows the theme in his earlier exchange with the Samaritan woman. For those who believe in him, Jesus tells her, “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (Jo. 4:12). So we hear in our Gospel today, as Jesus backtracks to the earlier saying, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water” (Jo. 7:38). The “living water” is given so that it can come forth within us and flow everywhere: north, south, east, and west.
The Holy Spirit is the source of every grace and gift that God gives. The Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of grace” (Heb. 10:29), as it says in the Letter to the Hebrews: the Spirit of God’s power and presence in our lives that transforms us, cleansing us from every sin. The Holy Spirit rests upon our hearts, making possible those things that go beyond our own powers: which in the Christian life is just about everything, from repentance onward! Through the water of baptism we are reborn by the power of the Spirit. An ancient prayer for this feast reminds us that at Pentecost God taught the hearts of his faithful people by sending to them the light of the Holy Spirit. It is this living water, this light and fire of love, that burns within us, refreshing us as we drink deeply of God’s grace.
Note carefully that the gift of the Spirit is given, not as an end in itself, or as an end in us, but so that it may flow out from within us to others. If there’s one thing to remember from this sermon this might be it. Let our baptismal candidates and our confirmands take note. Remember the nature of “living water”: it moves around, stirs things up, heads in a direction instead of just standing there. If the Holy Spirit now rests upon us and dwells within our hearts, digging down deep within them, then we ourselves are the temple where God makes his dwelling. The waters that flow from the temple in Ezekiel’s vision, turning the desert into a garden, now flow forth from within us. From our hearts come the rivers of living water that will transform the entire world.