Thirst.
It’s funny how I don’t even realize I’m thirsty until I stop for a moment. I try to drink water throughout the day. But somehow, by the time dinner is ready, the table is set, and the last child has been seated, I sink into my chair exhausted and suddenly realize I’m parched. The moment we say “Amen,” I drain my glass of ice water and let out a sigh.
Few sensations are more universally familiar than thirst. When God colored Scripture with metaphor, he brought the spiritual into focus, showing us how spiritual things are like the most familiar things of our physical world. What could be more familiar than water?
Water is literally life-sustaining. Without a consistent supply of water, our bodies fail to function well. We are only about 3 days from death if we are cut off from water. We simply cannot live without it.
Do you remember the Samaritan woman at the well?
“A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ….Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:7-10, 13-14)
Jesus was offering more than just abundant water. He offered living water. Living water, mayim chaim (MY-eem KHY-eem) in Hebrew, is water from a natural and moving or flowing source. It is not stagnant, not carried by man, not held in cisterns or a pond.
Mayim chaim is water bubbling from a spring, flowing in a river, and falling rain. It is life-giving, clean water. It is water that washes.
In Jesus’s day, the water in the mikvah baths used for ritual cleansing before entering the temple was living water. In fact, mikvah’s used for ritual cleansing by Orthodox Jews today are still required to be sourced in part by living water. Living water is the flowing natural-sourced water that cleanses, and in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament, living water depicts the presence of God.
God’s Life-Giving Presence
Living water flowed from Eden, where the presence of God dwelt with man. “A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.” (Genesis 2:10).
The prophet Jeremiah describes the presence of God as living water,
“O Lord, the hope of Israel,
all who forsake you shall be put to shame;
those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth,
for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water.” (Jeremiah 17:13)
The prophets Ezekiel and Zechariah also describe the flowing waters of the presence of God. flowing from the Temple and Jerusalem, respectively. In the 47th chapter, Ezekiel describes a vision in which water flows out of the temple, growing deeper and deeper as it reaches farther out, forming a flowing river. On the banks of the river grow trees for food and leaves for healing. Zechariah equates the waters flowing from Jerusalem out to the seas with the rule of the Lord over all the earth:
“On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea.[e] It shall continue in summer as in winter. And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one. (Zechariah 14:8-9)
And so it was specifically living water, indicative of the presence of God, used by the Jews for ritual cleaning. On the last day of the feast in John 7, the crowds would have been immersing themselves in living water in preparation to enter the temple.
“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.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” (John 7:37-39).
Living water is the Spirit of God!
The living water is the Spirit of God, and, as Jesus described both to the Samaritan woman and in his declaration at the feast, the living water He gives flows from within the heart of a Believer. In the Old Testament, the Spirit of God came and went, rested upon some, but was also withdrawn (King Saul’s life is a clear depiction of this). But now, with Christ’s glorification, Jesus Christ has given the Holy Spirit to dwell within Believers.
Oh, what a gift. The life-sustaining, thirst-quenching, ever-cleansing, fully-healing, Holy Spirit dwells and bubbles up within us and flows out from us. THIS is the living water He offers.
I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me,
Makes the lame to walk and the blind to see
Opens prisons doors, sets the captives free
I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me.
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