Isaiah 43:16-21; John 7:37-38
Presented March 25th, 2007, by J.D. Kline
The Fifth Sunday in Lent
A character in the movie Notting Hill, a woman who because of an accident finds herself confined to a wheel chair, speaks words of comfort to a friend whose business must close. She says something to the effect, “The more I think about things, the more I see no rhyme or reason in life. No one knows why some things work out, and why some things don’t.” Indeed, human life is touched by random events over which you and I have little control, whether they be critical accidents, destructive tsunamis, failing businesses, serious illnesses, or intrusive death. And often, we little know why it is that some things seem to work out for us, and others do not.
Some assign responsibility for all this to a fickle God, a God who capriciously engineers difficulty, pain, and even tragedy into our lives. Others assume that God is disconnected from life, allowing events to unfold but powerless to intervene. Still others try their hardest to nail all this uncertainty down by labeling whatever happens to us, good or ill, as God’s will, God’s intention. All this raises the question, how do we make any sense out of a life that includes uncertainty and struggle, tragedy and loss, every bit as much as comfort, success, and blessing?
In the ancient days of the exile, when Jerusalem and its Temple were destroyed and many of the Israelites were forced to live in a strange and foreign land, the people experienced little else but uncertainty, tragedy and grief. It was a time of utter despair and disillusionment, as the very underpinnings of life were taken from the exiles. All that was familiar, all that had provided comfort, all that they had looked to for meaning and hope through the years—all this had vanished. In the midst of the people’s despair rises the voice of a new prophet, a Second Isaiah, who speaks words of promise. The prophet speaks not of a God who has abandoned them, but of a God who continues to create, a God who shall continue to speak and act and even intervene.
Chapters 40 through 55 have sometimes been labeled the Book of Comfort or the Book of Consolation. Written at a time when, with each passing year, it was becoming more and more difficult for the exiles to trust that their God would find a way to return them to their beloved homeland, Second Isaiah nevertheless offers words of deep and abiding hope. In this morning’s lesson from chapter 43 stands the promise that God will open the way for a new exodus, one even more remarkable than the initial deliverance of the people from slavery in Egypt. For this time, asserts the prophet, the very wilderness through which the people journey will be transformed.
Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea,
a path in the mighty waters …
Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? (vv. 16, 18-19).
Problem is, God’s ways are not always readily perceived, are they? Chapters later the prophet, speaking for God, reminds us, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts” (55:8-9).
In his book Cadences of Home: Preaching Among the Exiles, biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann suggests that the great danger of living in exile is “to become so pre-occupied with self that one cannot get outside one’s self to rethink, re-imagine, and redescribe larger reality.” When life is tough, when we find ourselves frayed to the limits, it’s hard to envision much beyond our own frustrations and pain. Yet that is precisely the challenge of faith, to draw us beyond ourselves, beyond our own struggles, just enough that we might be able to begin envisioning something new unfolding within us and around us.
All appearances to the contrary, asserts the prophet Isaiah, God is able to bring forth good out of that which appears to be hopeless. As the old African American spiritual puts it, God is able to make a way out of no way. But God seldom works according to our timetables. Another prophet during the exile, Jeremiah, urges the exiles in Babylon to settle into their new land, to raise families and embrace new careers, and even more, to pray for the very welfare of the enemy and conqueror, Babylon. Why? Because, says Jeremiah, speaking for God, “Surely I know the plans I have for you…plans for your welfare and not your harm, to give you a future with hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).
Both Jeremiah and Isaiah prod the exiles to begin to envision far more than they can now see. And that’s the power of the prophetic calling, to help us learn to think differently, act differently, speak differently, pray differently, perceive differently. In his book Ruthless Trust Brennan Manning has a chapter entitled “Artists, Mystics, and Clowns,” each of whom is able to look beyond the concrete and the literal, beyond what is presently seen, in order to envision something new. How desperately we need to listen to the prophets and the artists, the mystics and the clowns among us, all who may well perceive the new thing God is now doing, or shall be doing in the future. A prayer by Catholic theologian Karl Rahner refers to the message of the mystics and the prophets: “Eternal God, let them say what Your Spirit has given in their hearts, rather than that which would make pleasant hearing to those who represent the forces of all that is average.”
If we are to see and envision rivers of living water flowing forth out of the wilderness, we dare not remain content with that which is average in life. Instead, we must begin to think and pray and listen and act with the conviction that God is indeed able to do something new in our midst. Was that not the power of the modern-day prophet, Martin Luther King, Jr., who faced forthrightly the reality of injustice and economic disparity, the grip of racism and militarism, but who was convinced that all manner of brokenness need not have the final word in life. And so, in that powerful message delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial nearly 45 years ago, King could cry out,
This is our hope…. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope…. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
God is about to do a new thing; can you not perceive it? This ability to perceive something new—does it not stand at the heart of Jesus’ ministry as well? Indeed, when Jesus invites, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink… Out of the believers’ heart shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37-38), is he not challenging us to see with new eyes of faith, to act with new conviction of faith, to drink deeply from the rivers of living water with the heart of faith?
Jesus utters these words at the climax of the annual Feast of Tabernacles, one of three great festivals relived each year by the faithful. There was the Passover, recalling God’s deliverance of the people from slavery in Egypt; Pentecost, the Jewish festival celebrating the receiving of the law; and Tabernacles, recalling the people’s wanderings in the wilderness. As part of the Festival of Tabernacles, for seven consecutive days water was carried in a golden pitcher from the pool of Siloam to the Temple, recalling the water that came forth from a rock in the desert. Daily water from the pitcher was dramatically poured upon the altar, in thanksgiving to God for the gifts of water and life. Then, on the eighth and final day of the ceremony, the people would march seven times around the altar, recalling the seven-fold walk around the walls of Jericho, as the city walls fell and the city was taken.
It is against that backdrop that Jesus cries out, “Let all who thirst, come to me and drink.” In effect he is inviting the people to allow the memory of past events to find a new power, here and now. It is an invitation to trust that the God who is in the business of making all things new—this God would come, even now, as rivers of living water, satisfying the deep inner thirst of our souls. Even should we find ourselves walking through the sorrow and pain of events over which we have little control, even when random challenges threaten to undo us and we feel overwhelmed by the cares of life, the promise remains. As difficult as our times of sorrow and grief may be, they do not have the final word. New life remains possible. Hope is not simply an idle dream. Rivers of living water can indeed flow forth out of our desert experiences.
Biblical scholar N.T. Wright asserts of the Gospel of John that it is written to say something about Jesus and something to the readers. Those readers, suggests Wright,
are not just to be better informed; they are to be transformed. This story, says John, carries its own power; and the sign that the power is at work is that those who read the story find themselves caught up within it. They find themselves believing in Jesus. They find this new dimension and quality of life bubbling up inside them.
A new quality of life bubbling up inside of us. A new experience of hope empowering us to walk through our times of uncertainty and pain. A new song in our hearts, as the spirit of Jesus responds to our deepest thirst, not merely informing us, but transforming us. Transforming us and setting us free to live for the glory of God and our neighbors’ good.
This is the good news that sustains us this Lenten season, and all our days. There is a river in Judea—a ringing, singing river that our souls cry out to know; a river filled with living waters.