JOHN 7
Again, there is a big ‘gap’ in John’s gospel narrative – filled in by the synoptic writers – and then Jesus travels incognito to Jerusalem to appear publicly half-way through the Tabernacles festival week and to teach in the temple courts. It was on the last and greatest day of the festival that the most important action began. First, a short geography lesson: at the foothills of Mount Moriah, down below in the City of David, flows a natural spring called Shiloach. This spring is ancient, and as it is located literally in the shadow of the Holy Temple, it has always had spiritual significance for Israel. It is the original source of Jerusalem’s water. Every day of the festival, the priests descended down to the Shiloach, accompanied by all the congregation assembled in the Temple. There, they filled a golden flask of the pure water. Ascending back up, carrying the flask with song, the gathering entered back into the Temple through the Water Gate. As they entered the gate, their steps were greeted by the sound of trumpets and shofar-blasts. This flask of water was then ceremoniously poured out upon the main altar of the Temple.
That year, seizing the moment, Jesus cried out: “’Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them’”.
John explains: 39” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified”.
We are in John 7:37-9. What Scripture or Scriptures is Jesus talking about? There is no direct quotation, so I think that the reference to ‘drinking’ perhaps relates back to Isaiah 12:3 and 55:1, whilst the reference to ‘rivers of living water’ alludes to Ezekiel 47, which speaks of a river from the Temple, moving from the altar and getting deeper and deeper as it travelled further towards the Jordan valley – becoming eventually a great river that no-one could cross. It watered fruit trees on either side – the Tree of Life – and emptied into the Dead Sea, where it miraculously made the salt water fresh and an environment for fish to live in and thrive again. In short: the waters from the Temple brought life to the surrounding world. The Apostle John (v39) also interprets this river as representing the Holy Spirit within each believer.
Jesus says to us that if we drink of him, we become that Temple through which the waters of life flow; too abundant just for our needs, they overflow into a thirsty world and bring miraculous life to every place and every creature they come into contact with. As we thirst and drink of him, the abundance of life that he creates in us overflows to others who thirst, producing superabundant life. We all know from experience that it is very hard to convince others of what you are barely convinced about yourself. So we go to Jesus and drink – both for our own needs and for the needs of others.
This key passage on ‘water’ is also an echo of John 4, the encounter with the woman at the well in Samaria. “Whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never thirst. Indeed the water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life”. In the UK, the population has been described medically as ‘chronically’ dehydrated – we just don’t drink enough – and this causes many unwanted problems, including obesity (we eat because we think we are hungry when, in reality, we are thirsty). I wonder whether, in Christian circles, we are spiritually dehydrated and have become so used to it that we no longer notice the difference. Perhaps a programme of spiritual re-hydration is called for!
Before and after the ‘water’ section of this chapter, there is widespread debate about who Jesus was and whether his teaching was true. Jesus actually gave a simple answer: “Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own” (v17). Theology is best tested by being practised, rather than debated!
Verse 52: “Look into it” – the Jews mocked – “and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee”. Well, actually Jonah did! And, of course, the Messiah did too. But apparently the crowd did not know that he had also come from Bethlehem, the town of his birth. It is easy to judge without being in full possession of the facts.
JUDGES 14, and 15
Like every Israelite man, Samson was forbidden to marry a foreign woman from outside the tribes of Israel.
However, the now grown man spotted a very attractive young Philistine woman and was instantly attracted to her. “Get me her for me as my wife” he ordered his parents, much to their disgust. It was absolutely forbidden to marry a foreigner who would have worshiped the gods of Canaan. But Samson thought he knew best, and, on this occasion, God was overruling in the situation, looking for an opportunity to provoke a conflict between Samson and the Philistines. This is actually a fascinating practical example of God’s revealed will (his Word) being in conflict with his sovereign determinate will. It even goes beyond the Lord simply making the best of a bad situation (Romans 8:28).
Samson then gets opportunities to demonstrate the power of God through his superhuman physical strength in battle. Given that his enemies often asked Samson the secret of his great strength, it is obvious that he didn’t have a muscular appearance and he didn’t ‘work out’! Killing a young lion with his bare hands was impressive; later, eating honey from the dead carcass was less so! At the wedding feast, he thought that a cryptic riddle would break the ice – for a small wager, of course. Evidently the Philistines took riddles very seriously indeed and threatened to burn the wife and father-in-law to death if they couldn’t extract the answer to this one. (Not nearly as gentlemanly as Daily Telegraph Crossword readers!) This rather put a cloud over the nuptials for the week and eventually Samson told his wife the answer, just to keep her quiet. Faced with being burned alive or being disloyal to hubby, she took the logical course of action and so Samson was left needing a quick trip to the nearest clothes store! Fortunately, he chanced across thirty guys who weren’t too bothered about hanging on to their clothes when faced with the famous lion-killer!
Oddly enough, Samson’s father-in-law decided to ditch his son-in-law and marry off his daughter to a local man. Surprised, later on, to see Samson on the doorstep, he hastily offered the even-more-stunning younger sister as a replacement; but Samson’s pride was wounded, and he left in a mighty rage, seeking revenge. Pausing only to catch three hundred foxes – how long would it actually take to accumulate that many?! – he used them as mobile firelighters amongst the Philistine grain, destroying it all. This was also a great insult to their god, ‘Dagon’, which means ‘grain’. In retaliation, the Philistines burned wife and father-in-law to death after all! This had the dubious effect of worsening Samson’s temper.
This episode finally ends with Samson grabbing a convenient donkey’s jawbone (I imagine that the donkey was grateful to be dead!) and killing a thousand Philistine warriors. Do you remember Shamgar, who could only manage to kill six hundred of them by swinging an ox-goad (Judges 3:31)? It seems that there was a period of respite for up to 20 years whilst Samson was generally in charge, and perhaps the Philistines wisely decided to ‘back off’ for a while – if only to build up their numbers again!
The Big Picture 