Saved by the Well – Jesus at the Feast in the Temple

Saved by the Well – Jesus at the Feast in the Temple

“On the last day, the great day of the Festival, Jesus stood and cried out, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me! Let anyone who believes in me come and drink!’”  (John 7:37-38, NJB)

SAVED: The Hebrew word for save is “Yasha,” which means to be set free into the wide open; to be delivered in a time of desperate need; to be saved from destruction and certain death. “Salvation” literally means to become spacious, and refers to “the sense of deliverance from an existence that had become confined, compressed, or cramped.” (Eugene Peterson). When Jesus delivers us from our inner spiritual confinement, we are liberated into a wide open, broad, expansive place. The word for “wide open space” is the opposite of a straitjacket. Without Jesus, our soul will never be freed from our spiritual straitjacket. There are three passages in Psalms that describe this freedom deliverance beautifully:

1. “From my distress, I called upon the Lord. He answered me and set me on a large place. After being in a tight spot, the Lord placed me into a broad space. Because I was hemmed in, I called on Lord Yahweh. He answered me and gave me room.” (Ps. 118:5);
2. “Lord, you have not given me over into the hands of the Enemy; You have liberated me and set my feet in a wide expanse, a good and spacious land. You have given me the freedom to roam at large, where I can freely move. You have given me room to breathe.” (Ps. 31:8);
3. “The Lord rescued me because He delighted in me. He brought me out to freedom into a wide-open space. My soul has been delivered because of God’s love for me, and my soul finally has some elbow room!” (Ps. 18:19).

THE WELL: There are four Hebrew words used in the Jewish Bible to describe the different kinds of ancient wells. There was the traditional well that was a deep hole dug in the ground to tap into an underground source of water. Another type of well was a fountain spring that had naturally broken through the earth’s surface on its own without man’s help. The wellspring is another version of well in Scripture in which fresh water flowed out of the ground in any number of ways to become available for cleansing, nourishment, refreshment, for survival itself. Life-giving wells of water have always been a powerful picture of our dependence upon God for spiritual survival. Just as Creator God has designed the human body to completely depend on water to live, our spiritual life totally relies on His presence in us to not just survive but to flourish. God is our spiritual well of fresh water, the only stable source of nourishment and purity. He is our fountain of life that gushes forth to replenish and cleanse us. God is our eternal wellspring of living water that will never run dry. Each of us is born spiritually dehydrated, and God alone is the constant, reliable water source to bring us back to life. As the silly joke goes, wells are a deep subject, and the biblical wells involve such stalwarts as Hagar and Abraham; Isaac and Moses; Samson and Solomon; the psalmists and the prophets. And of course, the glorious fulfillment of all these ancient stories of wells… Messiah Jesus and the woman at the well.

Water at the Feast of Tabernacles. This is biblical theater at its best, so the scene deserves to be set. There are tens of thousands of faithful Jews in Jerusalem, on the last and most important day of the 7-day Feast of Tabernacles. And what’s the one thing on everyone’s mind as they gather to celebrate this festival? WATER. It seems that Jesus couldn’t let this opportunity pass.

• They are literally praying for water. If God didn’t bring the “early rains” of October and November, there would be no spring crops, which is crucial to their livelihood. Without the rains, the fields will be thirsty with less irrigation, and the people will be thirsty too with less fresh water.
• The gathered faithful were excited to witness the Water-Libation ceremony, in which the high priest walks from the Temple to the pool of Siloam carrying a golden pitcher, the crowd following him as he walks. He then dips the pitcher into the burbling pool for some “living water,” and then proceeds to return to the Temple, leading the people once again, where he pours the water onto the altar. This is an ancient tradition, and is a popular part of the public service in the Temple.
• This water ceremony is intended to commemorate the famous Mosaic water miracle of Exodus 17, in which Moses strikes the rock chosen by God, and out from the rock pours fresh water for the thirsty wanderers to drink… An historic example of God providing fresh water for the faithful.
• During the water ceremony at the Temple, the people, led by the priests, chanted various scripture passages foretelling life-giving water, passages from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah and other books from the Hebrew Bible. In their chants they always included Isaiah 12:3:  “And you shall draw water with rejoicing from the spring of salvation.”
• Once the water is poured onto the altar, a Temple choir begins to sing the messianic Psalm 118. Messianic fervor was at a fever pitch during this most important day, because scripture tells over and over again of an abundance of water during the messianic era. All the people could think about was the coming of the Messiah and the water that would surely accompany his arrival, providing life and blessing for all people and living creatures and crops.

The Chutzpah of Jesus. It was just as the water ceremony was reaching a climax on this last day of the Feast when a young man from Galilee stood up, got everybody’s attention as he interrupted the water ritual, and shouted for all to hear something suspiciously like Isaiah 55:1, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me! Let anyone who believes in me come and drink! For as scripture says, ‘From his heart shall flow streams of living water!” All eyes were on this man Jesus, everyone present turning their attention from the priests officiating the Temple service. Who does this young man think he is, disrupting this important ceremony. Is he claiming to be the Messiah, our source of living water? Is he really claiming to be the rock out of which gushes fresh water?

Being Dramatic. If Jesus wanted to make a scene, if he wanted to create some drama, he certainly succeeded. The people weren’t sure what to make of this, they were divided about who this man was. But the priests were of one mind. They were furious, offended, their authority challenged by this man who claims to be the source of life and blessing, the one who will send his Spirit out, in fulfillment of Isaiah 44:3-4. Could Jesus have made this any clearer? At the most dramatic moment of the Feast, he pronounces himself to be the only one who can satisfy our yearning for God, the only one who can quench our spiritual thirst. Jesus states here that he is the one who is the source of living water that will flow through eternity. He is claiming here that streams of living water gush from him, the only spiritual Rock providing fresh water to replenish our spirits, providing the Holy Spirit to renew our souls.

The Living Fountain. Jesus clearly fulfilled Jeremiah’s word that God was a “fountain of living water” (Jer. 2:13 and 17:13). With much kindness, Jesus repeats that thought to the woman at the well in John 4: “No one who drinks the water that I shall give him will ever be thirsty again; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up for eternal life.” Jesus flatly offered that woman “the drink that conquers time” (Kenneth Bailey). If you are looking to satisfy your thirst for God, you need look no further than the Spirit of Jesus, the living fountain.