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Story 115:
by jennygrace777
The great Feast of Tabernacles had begun in Jerusalem. Everyone
wondering when Jesus was going to come.
Rumors were swirling around that the Jewish leadership was
planning to have Him killed.
Yet many of the people who had travelled many miles to the Feast
had also travelled miles to listen to Jesus preach.
They saw His miracles and heard His Words of Truth that were
unlike anything they’d heard before.
The lines had been drawn in the sand: either the religious
leaders were on the side of God, or Jesus was exposing them to be frauds.
When Jesus finally came to the Feast, He spoke to the
crowds with boldness and clarity.
Everyone in the nation had heard rumors about this Man from
Nazareth who was travelling around the Sea of Galilee.
Now they had a chance to hear Him for themselves. The tensions
in the city over this radical young preacher were growing and growing.
The last day of the Feast arrived. It was the high point of the
celebration.
One of the traditions of the Feast was for the people to pour
out an offering of water.
It was in memory of the time when God provided the nation of
Israel with miraculous water as they journeyed through the wilderness on their
way to the Promised Land.
The Israelites had gone without water for days, and they cried
out to Moses. The Lord made an abundant flow of water pour out of a great rock.
It was a mighty miracle, enough to quench the thirst of over two
million people and all their cattle and sheep and goats!
It is hard for us to imagine how deeply significant those
memories were for the Jewish people.
When they thought of their own worth or value, they did not
think of themselves as individuals. They thought of themselves as a part of a
family.
Their first family was the one they were born into, and each
person had an important role. But they were also a part of a greater family.
They were Abraham’s children, the nation of Israel. They were a
part of the people of God.
The Lord had brought salvation to their own ancestors by
rescuing them from the cruel hands of Pharaoh.
It was the Lord who gave them their high and sacred Laws at
Mount Sinai, and that Law was part of their sacred contract with the Most High
God.
He was preparing them to be a holy nation. As they celebrated in
Jerusalem, they were celebrating that God continued to take His people under
His wing and watch over them.
They were all a part of that magnificent blessing and calling
together, standing apart from all the other nations of the world.
Their hope for the Messiah was deeply tied into these Old
Testament promises for the nation as a whole.
Were they ready to listen when the Messiah stood in the Temple
courts to reveal the next stage in God’s unfolding plan?
On the last day of the Feast, Jesus stood before the people and
cried out to them, calling to the nation of God’s covenant people.
“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.
Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will
flow from within him.”
The Feast had a tradition of pouring clear water as an offering,
but the Lord Jesus was talking about the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. He is
the true Living Water.
The water that poured out of the rock for the Israelites was a
beautiful image of what God was preparing to do, only this time the benefits
would be far more powerful.
Once Jesus died and rose again and ascended into Heaven,
He was going to send His Spirit in power to fill up all those who put
their faith in Him.
Jesus still had to die and pay the price for our sins in order
for the Spirit to come. But He offered this lavish promise to anyone in Israel
who would listen with ears of faith.
As the people listened, some said, “He is the Christ.”
Others thought He must be a prophet. Still more said that He
could not be the Messiah because there was no place in the Old Testament that
said the Christ would come from Galilee.
They knew that the Messiah was supposed to come from Bethlehem.
They didn’t know the story of Jesus’ birth as well as they should have!
The crowds were divided about who they thought Jesus was.
Some were furious that He would preach falsely and wanted to
seize Him and silence Him once and for all. They’d had enough of the tensions
and confusion.
But it as not His time, so no one was able to touch Him.
Imagine the different faces in the crowd… some filled with
wonder, some grateful for healing, others yearning for truth.
Imagine the scowling faces of angry men wishing to shut Jesus
down… the murmurs of the confused crowd whose religious leaders refused to
point them to their Savior.
Picture the religious leaders standing in watch, tense with fury
that this heretic could come and preach in the courts of their Temple. It must
have been maddening.
The Temple guards were finally sent to take Jesus, but they
ended up going back to the Pharisees and the chief priests.
When the religious leaders asked the guards why they didn’t
bring the Lord in, they said, “No one ever spoke the way this man does.”
“You mean He has deceived you also?” the Pharisees shot
back.
Imagine their rage that they couldn’t even get their own guards
to obey them against Jesus. That was the power and magnetism of His preaching!
Then the Pharisees pointed out that none of the Jewish rulers or
the Pharisees believed in Jesus.
Only the ignorant mob was foolish enough to believe the words of
this travelling preacher! They declared that the crowds were infected by a
curse.
But Nicodemus was there among the Pharisees, and he had come to
faith in Christ. He saw that the religious leadership was so enraged by Christ
that they were willing to do whatever it took to silence Him.
As they ranted and raved against Jesus, Nicodemus said, “Does
our law condemn anyone without first hearing Him to find out what He is doing?”
For you see, their plans to destroy Jesus violated the very Law
they were so proud of.
If these men were truly desiring the will of God, their hearts
would have been struck by what Nicodemus said.
They would have repented of their plans. Instead, they grew even
more angry and they turned on him with ridicule. “Are you from Galilee,
too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of
Galilee.”
This was the argument they were using to prove that Jesus was
false. You can see how they had spread this deception so that many in the
crowds were saying it, too.
On the great Feast when the Messiah had come to preach in the
courts of the Temple, the children of God were divided.
The religious leaders that were meant to welcome the Christ were
driving the people into silence.
They had been given the greatest gift, and they were rejecting
Him. The judgment of God was marching down upon them.
JENNYGRACE777
There
are many things about Christianity that are so arrestingly beautiful...a God
who came to die for His people, for example, that I have never been able to
move away from a love for Jesus. However, I had a number of years when many
parts of the Bible were terribly confusing, even angering to me. How could God
tell Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? How could God command the Israelites to commit
genocide against the Canaanites? At times I used these questions as a reason to
walk away from the faith entirely. Then I had the privilege of going to a
university with scholars who understood God's story. They helped me see His
goodness and justice as he has worked over thousands of years to reach a dark,
fallen, sinful race of humans with His plan of salvation. My deep desire is to
give others a chance to see God's glory in His story...the story that is our
story...as well.
http://hisgloryinourstory.com/2015/01/13/story-115-living-waters-of-life/
John
7:37-52 English Standard Version (ESV)
Rivers of Living Water
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. 38 Whoever believes in me, as[a] the Scripture has said, ‘Out
of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 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.
Division Among
the People
40 When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This
really is the Prophet.” 41 Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Is
the Christ to come from Galilee? 42 Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the
offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David
was?” 43 So there was a division among the people over him. 44 Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.
45 The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who
said to them, “Why did you not bring him?” 46 The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!” 47 The Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? 48 Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? 49 But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.” 50 Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them,
said to them, 51 “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing
and learning what he does?” 52 They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see
that no prophet arises from Galilee.”
Footnotes:
a.
John 7:38 Or let him come to me,
and let him who believes in me drink. As
English Standard
Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016.
Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles,
a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
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