The Climax & The Christ

John 7:^37-38 “On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’”

What do you think the high priests were thinking? ‘We should come to You?’ Some people in the crowds were probably thinking, ‘You from Galilee? There is no single prophet from Galilee! And You are saying we should come to You and You will give us living waters?’ Jesus shouted and the whole place was silent, Jesus held them spellbound. It is either this Jesus is the Messiah, or He is completely crazy because no one in his right mind will try that with the Jews. They can stone the person to death. Jesus said, ‘if you thirst, come and drink. Not the water that Moses gave you. You thirsted again when you drank that water.’ ‘Not the water that Jacob gave you’, as He said to the Samaritan woman, ‘…you will thirst again. But anyone that drinks of the water I will give will not thirst again.’ I can imagine people coming to meet Him afterward, ‘Master, please give me this water. Pay no attention to those high priests, please just give me enough of this water so I can drink and give some to my wife and children.’

Jesus was standing in the middle of the crowd; He was practically standing in the valley of the shadow of death because they could mob Him. In fact, the person that stones Him would be decorated, do you know that? The person that kills Him would have been celebrated. Yet in the shadow of death, Jesus shouts the Word of life and that is a lesson for all of us. Sometimes we go through tough times and we say, ‘this thing is too hard, this phase of life is too difficult. How can I sing the Lord’s song in a slave land? I am in captivity, God, deliver me first then I will rejoice.’ God says, ‘rejoice while you are there, then I will deliver you.’ Jesus was in a very difficult place, yet He spoke the Words of life clearly. If you check scriptures, Jesus never calls Himself the water. He always says, ‘I will give you the water’, why? It is because the water is a symbol reserved for the Holy Spirit. You have to know that as a Bible student. You have to know that the water in scriptures symbolizes the Holy Spirit.

John 7:^40-42 “When the crowds heard him say this, some of them declared, “Surely this man is the Prophet we’ve been expecting.” Others said, “He is the Messiah.” Still others said, “But he can’t be! Will the Messiah come from Galilee? For the Scriptures clearly state that the Messiah will be born of the royal line of David, in Bethlehem, the village where King David was born.” Nobody could try what Jesus did; it is either He is crazy, or He is the Prophet. And as usual, there will always be ignorant sceptics in the crowd. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but they did not do their homework, so they did not know. What criticism does for critics is that it gives them a cheap sense of relevance and hinders them from doing their homework because they think they know. When they actually know nothing. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but did Jesus bring out His birth certificates and argue with them? No, He ignored the critics and focused on the work.

Prayer:  Father, I ask for the grace to stand and take risks for God, in Jesus Name. Amen!