Living Water: A Meditation on John 7 and Psalm 25 for the Day of Pentecost

In the last day, that great day of the feast,

Jesus stood and cried, saying,

If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said,

out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

 (But this spake he of the Spirit,

which they that believe on him should receive:

for the Holy Ghost was not yet given;

because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)

 

…

 

Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.

 O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed,

let not mine enemies triumph over me.

Yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed:

let them be ashamed which transgress without cause.

Shew me thy ways, O Lord; teach me thy paths.

 Lead me in thy truth, and teach me:

for thou art the God of my salvation;

on thee do I wait all the day.

 

Jesus’ teaching in Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles was significant, and His declaration on the last day of the feast was instructive.  While ancient Israel gathered on this feast to re-affirm the Covenant of Sinai, the God of our Salvation which David wrote about a thousand years earlier, was in the midst of the people that day.  The Word of the Lord Incarnate stood and spoke the Word of the Lord to the people, and taught them that life and salvation came by no other means than faith in the God who spoke to them.  The living water of which Jesus spoke, which would flow out of those who believed in Him, was that very Gospel Word which brings life and refreshment to all who will receive it.  It is also noteworthy that this pouring out of the Holy Spirit by the Word of the Lord came when the people of God were surrounded by their evil enemies, and when all hope in human strength was shown pointless:  as Noah saw salvation through the flood, Abraham in the giving of the Covenant, Moses before the Egyptian army or the wilderness wanderings, David living on the run in the desert, Elijah before the priests of Baal on Mt. Carmel, or the disciples huddled first in a dark room on Easter then only 120 huddled on Pentecost, Jesus standing in the midst of the Pharisees who sought to kill Him was a demonstration of divine power.  No matter how much evil people surround the people of God, when God is in their midst, His people are always preserved by His Gospel Word.

 

This principle is good for the Church to remember in our own times, as evil rises in every quarter of society.  It would be easy for Christian people to despair in the face of public schools corrupting youth, politicians selling out the nation for private gain, academics embracing the dreadful delusions of Marxism, celebrities advocating for nihilistic hedonism in every medium, and family structures crumbling under the encouragement of selfish ambition.  Indeed, who would think that human strength will prevail against the powers of wickedness in high places, who have now moved broad swathes of Western society to define Biblical Christians as terrorists, purveyors of hatred and intolerance for daring to resist homosexuality, transsexualism, adultery, fornication, the murder and mutilation of children, the freedom of individual conscience and mind expressed in word, speech, and worship, and the equal moral accountability of all people before their Maker.  The rising tide of evil in the world should make it clear that salvation will not come by human power or strength, but by the Word and power of God alone.  God’s people have never been their own saviors, as much as the devil might woo fallen minds to believe otherwise.  On the contrary, whether it is the life of His Word which He spoke into the void to bring forth Creation, or the Word of forgiveness and grace He speaks into the fallen world to bring forth Redemption, it is always God who saves.

 

And if it is God alone who saves by the power of His Word, then the fundamental principle by which we receive that salvation is faith.  Only faith can stand alone in the darkness, surrounded by evil and deadly machinations, and show forth the power of God unto salvation.  Only faith upheld Noah as he stood alone before his evil generation, he and his family saved through the flood which swept multitudes away; only faith upheld Moses before the mightiest empire of his time, so that the people of God might be rescued from slavery and death while Pharoah’s chariots sank into the sea; only faith upheld David before the pagan giant Goliath, the murderous psychosis of King Saul, and the nations which beset him with war from all sides; only faith upheld Elijah before the evil aspirations of Queen Jezebel and her army of pagan priests bent upon his destruction, even as the fire of the Lord came down upon Mt. Carmel to prove only Elijah’s God truly reigns; only faith upheld the Disciples of Jesus while He hung dead upon that Roman Cross, betrayed by the rulers of His own people, but revealed alive again that glorious Easter morning; only faith gathered them together on that first Pentecost, and received from the Lord His Holy Spirit to testify to the eternal life found only in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.  It is faith alone which receives the Word of God, and the Word of God alone which pours out upon His faithful people the grace and power of His Holy Spirit to drive back the darkness, putting all evil to flight.

 

Thus it is that salvation for mankind must be by grace alone, in Jesus Christ alone.  For there is no other Name given under heaven whereby men must be saved, and there is no other Champion who has stood in the midst of every gathered evil, of death, of hell, and of the all the power of the devil’s horde, and stood alone victorious.  Only Jesus conquered all the enemies of mankind, because only Jesus is the Divine Word of God made Flesh to dwell among us, that we might behold His glory as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.  Just as there is no other God through whom the whole universe has its existence, so there is no other God through whom the whole cosmos must be saved, and no other God to whom all creation is accountable.  Those who embrace evil have nowhere to run, for they cannot overthrow the Word of God anymore than they can overthrow God Himself, and they cannot escape the reality of their own nature as creatures in a created universe.  Those who stand with God by grace through faith in Christ alone, stand in the awesome power and presence of the King of the Universe, gathered into the yet unseen ranks of a countless and mighty host, all with tongues of flame upon their heads and rivers of living water flowing out from the midst of them.  The darkness of this little world might rise and fall in little times, but the glory of the Lord endures forever, across and beyond all time and space.  The evil in our land is dwarfed and doomed before the majesty of the Eternal King, and the more it rises in impudent arrogance upon our small globe, the more it calls forth the brilliance of Christ and His Spirit poured out upon His faithful people.

 

Be of good cheer, dear Christian, for you do not stand alone in this time of trial.  You are washed in the Blood of Jesus, baptized into His death so that you might rise into His eternal life.  You have been given His Word of Law and Gospel, that by faith in His Word you would receive His forgiveness, life, and salvation, even as you stand in His victory over sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil.  You are surrounded in this grace by a countless host of witnesses, who live forever in the company of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and who cheer you on in this day of valiant struggle.  You are the people saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ and His Word alone, and upon you has been poured out the omnipotent power of the Holy Spirit, that you might live forever, testify forever, sing forever, in the Name of Jesus.  Rise up, O People of God, for the strength that saves you is not your own, but that of the Almighty Lord of Hosts.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

Keep My Commandments: A Meditation on John 14 and Acts 17 for the 6th Sunday of Easter

 

If ye love me, keep my commandments.

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter,

that he may abide with you forever;

Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive,

because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him:

but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more;

but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.

At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father,

and ye in me, and I in you.

 He that hath my commandments,

and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me:

and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father,

and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

 

…

 

Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said,

Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.

 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions,

I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God.

Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

 

Jesus’ teaching to His disciples in John 14 continued with a theme of both faith and revelation:  to love Jesus is to keep His Word, and by that love will the Holy Spirit be given to reveal Jesus ever further.  As Jesus is the Eternal Word of the Father sent to us, so abiding in Jesus is to abide in His Word, and abiding in the Word of Jesus is to also abide in the Father who sent Him.  That restored relationship of mankind with God by faith in His Word creates all the renewal of life man had lost by his fall into sin and death, because in Jesus alone is the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation from the judgment all men earn by their evil.  Added to this, Jesus noted that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive in unbelief, would be not only given to those who believe in Jesus, but that Spirit would indwell all those who believe.  The economy of God’s salvation of man reunites him again in the fullness of his Maker, restored by the Word to the Father, and empowered by the Spirit to live forever in His Trinitarian fellowship.  The fullness and unity of God in His Holy Trinity, is brought forth to mankind that all people might be restored in Him, taught by Him, enlivened by Him, empowered by Him, and preserved in Him forever.

 

Yet if this inestimable gift is brought to man by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, what remains for those who are without faith?  St. Paul’s sojourn into Athens, recorded in Acts 17, is a fitting example:  superstition, misdirected religious piety, and esoteric philosophical speculation.  Paul started by debating with the Jews in Athens, where some believed, and many did not, despite having the testimony of the Old Testament Prophets which all pointed forward to the Christ.  Outside the Jewish synagogue, the majority population of Athens were devotees of the pagan gods of Greece and Rome, or of a philosophical school which gravitated either toward the lustful living of the Epicureans, or the rigorous discipline of the Stoics… or some blend of all three.  It was these Athenians who brought Paul before the Areopagus—a council of philosophical and religious judges who heard disputes and debates among the people for centuries prior to Paul’s arrival.  Educated and aware of the perils of Athenian debate, not the least of which were described in the trial of Socrates some four centuries earlier, Paul began his proclamation of Jesus and His Word.  Not lost on him was that he stood on Mar’s or Ares’ Hill, the gods of war to the Romans and Greeks respectively, in full site of the magnificent Acropolis not far away, with all its idols and statues to the Olympian deities.

 

Paul met them where he found them, which is to say, he engaged them in language they understood and the context in which they lived.  He identified among the vast number of idols one that was dedicated to the Unknown God, as if something in the back of the Athenian mind knew that for all their vaunted education and history, there was something very important they still could not see.  Paul declared that Unknown God to them, beginning with the Creation of the universe, the nature of man made in God’s image, and culminating with the redemption of all mankind through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  Paul’s witness to the Gospel was more than fanciful legend cast forth by poets, morality tales that supported a political or social order, or philosophical school that tortured logic and reason to justify a desired lifestyle.  Paul’s Gospel was one that happened in real time, with real people, and had real consequences for all mankind, because the God whom Paul proclaimed made it clear that He alone was the one and true God from whom all things came forth and to whom all things shall return.  Some of those Athenians received Paul’s Word of Jesus, and many did not… at least at first.  Dionysius the Areopagite, one of the judges gathered to hear Paul, followed him together with others.  Celebrated now as a saint in both eastern and western churches, Dionysius is often remembered as the first Bishop of Athens, in a country that would later become synonymous with eastern Christianity in the whole Greek speaking world.

 

Our world is not so unlike the first century AD, with rising tides of pagan religions and philosophical confusion bringing increasing darkness to many cities around the world.  But the Light of Jesus and His Word still shine forth, dispelling the demons who cloud men’s minds and enslave their souls.  Yet it does not come by speaking to pagan audiences as if they were well schooled in the Hebrew Prophets and the Apostolic faith set forth in Holy Scripture, because this is simply not where they are.  Neither does it come by watering down the Word of God until it is indistinguishable from the sophistic soup of modern intelligentsia, like one other path to therapeutic moralism or political utopia.  Rather, what cuts to the quick of our modern malaise is the reality of the world as God has made it, which testifies to the nature of the Creator and His creatures; the reality of good and evil, of truth and error, of life and death, of time and eternity; the reality of the only One who could conquer all darkness by His life, death, and resurrection, so that He might offer forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation to all who would trust in Him.  The inescapable reality of Jesus and His Gospel stands by the divine power of His Incarnate Word, and moves all people to either receive Him in faith or reject Him in unbelief.  Yet by that Word works the Holy Spirit, so that all who believe do so by the grace of God, and in that faith which itself is a gift of grace, receive grace in abundance together with the indwelling of God’s Spirit to lead, enlighten, empower, and preserve them in God’s fellowship forever.  The task of the Christian in evangelism is not to seek out new and crafty words to woo people into the church, but rather to present to Living and Eternal Word to all people, that all who might repent and believe in Jesus would live in Him by His Word.

 

We must not be daunted by the peculiarities of our age, nor the hills upon which we are called to testify.  The same Word which gave life to the world at creation, is speaking and breathing life into the world today, and shall continue to do so until it speaks in judgment on the Last Day.  That Word of Jesus is the Means by which He has sought and saved us, and the Means by which He continues to seek and save all who will put their trust in Him.  Have no fear to stand atop the war-god’s hill and proclaim the saving reality of Jesus, for there is nothing in all creation that can overthrow the Eternal Word of God, and that Word alone is the fellowship of life to all who will abide in it.  Solid Deo Gloria.  Amen.

 

 

The Way Through: A Meditation on John 14 for the 5th Sunday of Easter

Let not your heart be troubled:

 ye believe in God, believe also in me.

In my Father's house are many mansions:

if it were not so, I would have told you.

I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again,

and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.

Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest;

and how can we know the way?

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life:

no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

 

In John 14, Jesus was offering consolation and teaching prior to His betrayal.  Soon Jesus would be whisked away by an armed mob, and natural questions would arise among His disciples about whether or not Jesus really was who He claimed to be.  Knowing the darkness that would descend upon them, He gave His disciples clear guidance about how to navigate the ups and downs of the world.  Where the world would create confusion, Jesus would be the Way.  Where the world would spew lies and deceptions, Jesus would be the Truth.  Where the world would offer up only death and destruction, Jesus would be the Life.  And where the world would invent a myriad of ways for people to work in vain for God’s favor or present themselves as their own impotent gods, Jesus would remain the only means by which fallen men could be reconciled to the Father.  That Jesus would be leaving them through death, and after the resurrection by His ascension, was not to leave His disciples abandoned as orphans.  Rather, Jesus was going to prepare a place for all His people in the presence of His Father, and would be sending the Holy Spirit to abide with and empower His people for their lives of service in this world until He comes back at the End of Days.  No matter how crazy the world would become around them, the disciples were taught to follow Jesus.

 

To modern ears, this might sound ridiculous.  For all the complexity in the world still being unveiled, and for all the variations on evil that continue to surge forth in each new generation, one Man declaring Himself the solution to it all and for every person would be sheer folly—if that Man were not, in fact, fully God.  We have physicists today who think they have figured out the cosmos, and biologists who think they have figured out life; computer scientists who think they have created artificial intelligence, and politicians who think they have perfected the recipe for earthly utopia; gurus who think they can lead a select few to inner enlightenment, and philosophers who think that questions are better than answers.  We have rising terrors of Marxist dictators on the warpath, tyrants who murder their political adversaries, drug cartels that invade countries with deadly poisons, human traffickers who would bring forth a new age of slavery and oppression, and leaders who are traitors to their oaths of office and the people they were called to serve.  There are global economics with trans-national corporations and banks rising and falling, interwoven supply chains that bind adversaries and allies alike into tense relationships over critical resources, and there are academics and executives who promote themselves as luminaries while demonstrating themselves to be the worst synthesis of ignorance and greed.  Surely the solution to our problems is more than Jesus?

 

Yet for all the complexity of our times, the truth always remains radically simple.  There may be, and almost certainly is, a beautiful prism of variety in the Truth which reflects the grandeur of the world as it was fashioned, but that Truth is always united together in a harmony which cannot be broken.  Truth is fundamentally simple, because it forms a unity—just as God is one who cannot be divided, so is the reality which comes forth from Him.  It is only the lie which gives rise to complexity and incoherence, because it is divorced from the Truth and from reality.  Our generations are not confused today because the world is too complex, but because they no longer seek Truth which unites reality in the universe, preferring instead a cacophony of deceptions which pander to personal proclivities.  It is the Word of God which framed the cosmos, and the Word of God which continues to sustain its existence, so why should it be any surprise that the Word of God is the Way to navigate through it?  Jesus as the Incarnate Word spoke to His disciples and fulfilled the teaching of His Word to the Prophets whom He inspired before them.  His Word of Law, particularly summarized in the total love of God above all things and the love of neighbor as one’s self, eliminates all the confusion around the duty each person has in this life.  Where the Law teaches obligation, it also sends dark shadows of confusion to flight.  The world is not shades of grey ethics and moral quandaries, but one of light and love and truth.

 

But this Way and Truth of the Law are also complimented and fulfilled by the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a way nothing else can do.  Only Jesus could give His life as a ransom for the world, so that by His Vicarious Atonement upon His Holy Cross, all people might be absolved of their sins before the obligations of His Law.  The universe stands by Law and Grace, and so does every soul which would be reunited with God.  This is the Life which no evil can take away, and which no confusion can muddle.  There is no wicked machination of men or demons which can do away with the work Jesus accomplished on our behalf, nor make void the Promise of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.  The world of wicked ambitions and deceptions might try to hide Jesus from others, or obscure Him through false teachings, or declare Him irrelevant by the puny powers of their fallen minds, but Jesus still remains the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Apart from Him there is only the endless plurality of paths leading to destruction, where lies and deceit would steal even what little life people have in this world before guiding them into eternal perdition.  It is Jesus alone who seeks and saves us when we are lost, and Jesus alone who brings us through the maelstrom of this fallen world to be reconciled again with the Father.

 

And this reconciliation is the Way in which we approach God in Truth and receive eternal Life.  God cannot be divided, and neither can He be corrupted.  His perfect justice must be satisfied, and the penitent heart must be made whole again if it is to dwell in the presence of God.  It is true that the Kingdom of God holds many mansions in which the saints now live who went before us, and into which we shall one day press by the grace of Jesus Christ.  When Jesus went to prepare a place for us, He also went to prepare us for that place, taking all our sin upon Himself so that we might instead be given His righteousness.  It is not a perfection we have earned, but one we can only be given through the merit and work of the Son of God.  In Jesus there is no judgment, because Jesus has born all judgment so that we might be made free.  In Jesus there is no death for us, because He has conquered death to give us eternal life.  In Jesus there is no fear of being suddenly found unworthy, because He was laid bare for us.  There is no mystery or confusion left in the Promise of the Gospel, because where the forgiveness of sins flows out upon faithful and repentant hearts, there is grace and life and victory everlasting.

 

And so, dear Christian, when the world seems to be so complex as to be unnavigable, set your eyes once again on Jesus.  Hear Him speak to you the Law which guides you into virtuous action, and the Gospel which heals you of all your faults.  See Him ascend to the Cross for you, descend to the dead for you, and rise again for you, that you might live in Him forever.  Receive from Him the Holy Spirit to embolden and empower you in His service, that you might work the works He has ordained for you from before the foundation of the world.  And remember that He is coming back for you, that He will take you to be where He is, in the fellowship of God the Father forevermore.  Let the darkness clear away from your eyes and your mind, that you might trust now and always in the One who alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life for us all.  Soli Deo Gloria—Amen.