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John 7 is the conclusion of the seven day Feast of Tabernacles culminating in a visual procession of the priest carrying water in a golden pitcher to the Water Gate, marching around the altar seven times and then pouring it out. This act symbolized among other things, Yahweh’s provision of water in a dry place reminiscent of the water that flowed miraculously from the rock in the desert during the Exodus from Egypt (Numbers 20:8). It is at this apex of Jewish celebrations that Jesus makes his announcement in John 7:37,38 and invites anyone who is truly thirsty to come and if they believe to drink. With this, he makes the promise that out of their bellies would flow rivers of living water. Year after year their festivals were purely
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SHARE|MAGAZINE
April - June 2020
symbolic and would evaporate from the Jewish consciousness as quickly as the water being poured out on the altar. Jesus stands up, and with no pitcher in his hand unceremoniously pitches to the crowds a bizarre idea. He interrupts the status quo by asking “believers” if they truly believed to come and drink.
of the feast but not its theology. As the prophet Jeremiah lamented;
No longer would they need to wait for the waters to be stirred by an angel as in John 5:4; the stirring would come from within.
Jeremiah 2:13 (NLT)
Up until that point, everything was an outward show, a spectacle that the Jewish Diaspora located themselves in Jerusalem to witness and enjoy; but it lacked substance. Like the disciples in Mark 13:1 who were enamoured by the stonework of the temple and not the purpose for which it was built, so the people came away excited by the theatrics
“For my people have done two evil things: They have abandoned me — the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all!
They were dying of thirst as a nation while the true fountain stood right in their midst. The Jews sought to kill Him 7:1, while His own brothers ridiculed Him 7:3-5. Their cracked religious practices were the very reason they rejected Jesus as a true prophet. In John 6:51, He declared Himself as bread, a concept that greatly offended even Jesus’s followers. But in chapter 7 we see He is also the life-giving stream.
