Context No. 4030 of 4322 · John
Context · Reflection
John 7:33-39: in context
33Then Jesus said, “I will be with you a little while longer, then I go to him who sent me. 34You will seek me and won’t find me. You can’t come where I am.” 35The Jews therefore said among themselves, “Where will this man go that we won’t find him? Will he go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? 36What is this word that he said, ‘You will seek me, and won’t find me;’ and ‘Where I am, you can’t come’?” 37Now on the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink! 38He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, from within him will flow rivers of living water.” 39But he said this about the Spirit, which those believing in him were to receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus wasn’t yet glorified.
On the last day of the great feast, Jesus stands and calls out with an open invitation: 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. And John explains that Jesus was speaking of the Spirit, whom believers would receive.
There is a deep truth about the human heart in this invitation. Jesus speaks to a thirst, a longing in the soul that all the things of this world cannot finally satisfy. And he offers himself as the answer: come to me and drink. He does not point to a doctrine or a religious practice but to himself; the thirst of the soul is satisfied by coming to Christ and receiving what he gives. And what he gives is not a mere sip but a river; those who come to him not only have their own thirst quenched but become channels through which living water, the Spirit, flows out to others. The longing we feel, the sense that something is missing, is a thirst that only Christ can satisfy.
Am I trying to satisfy the deep thirst of my soul with things that cannot fill it, or have I come to Christ, the only one who satisfies, and received the living water of his Spirit that quenches my thirst and overflows to others?