Today’s Scripture

Psalm 28:1-3, 6-9       Isaiah 43:16-21           Philippians 3:8-14       Luke 20:9-19

 

 

            During the Eisenhower years when I was in 4^th or 5^th grade, our health and science curriculum compared human blood to seawater.  Blood keeps the body alive and nourished just as seawater keeps its environment alive by carrying nourishment and oxygen and cleansing to sustain life.

 

            In scientific studies of the solar system and throughout all of creation, man is looking first for evidence of water because only water can and does sustain life as we know it.  Where there is water, there can be life.  Without water, there cannot be life.  Just because there is water there does not mean that there is life, only that it is now possible to exist because of water.

 

            We know from our day-to-day living we need water for two reasons.  It sustains life and it cleanses.  We also know that water, when uncontrolled or not respected, causes destruction and death.

 

            In this chapter (43) Isaiah points to himself who is Israel’s only Savior.  In this section he speaks of his mercy and Israel’s unfaithfulness.  And water has a big part.

 

            At creation, God separated the water from the dry land.  It was through water that God destroyed the overwhelming sinfulness at Noah’s time and restored a people faithful to him.  It was through water that he delivered his people from Egypt.  It was through water that he destroyed Pharaoh and all of his armies who were poised to overtake the freed but defenseless nation.  As Israel lived in the wilderness for the next forty years, it was through a miraculous water supply that God kept his people not only alive, but satisfied their thirst the entire time.  They did not need to look for water as the rock continually provided for them.

 

            God calls on his people to remember his faithfulness through those waters, but not to depend on things of the past to save them now.  He points ahead to a land where waters will flow in the desert providing for man and beast.  It is in this way he points ahead to our Savior.  Jesus came into our world where we were thirsting for good news.  He came into our world that was parched with nothing but the corruption of sin and the unsatisfying condition we are in due to our sin.  And think of this that in our earthly life, are we ever really satisfied?  No, we are not.  There is always the next thing, the better health, the removal of this replaced with that.  If only so-and-so would not do that but do this.  We move from thing to thing, relationship to relationship, always looking for the oasis in this world where everything is perfect.

 

            There was a lady who went to draw her water for the day.  Her life was like that, always searching for the better thing, not satisfied or sure of what she had.  She had gone from one husband to other husbands to a companion to live with for the time.  She was thirsting all right.  And Jesus offered her water that she would never thirst.  It was different than the water from the well.  It was a life-giving and life-sustaining and life-satisfying water that she could not find on her own or naturally springing up in this world. 

 

            Whether the nation of Israel in 700 BC, the woman at the well with Jesus, or in our application today, there are a couple of things about this special water that is abundantly available everywhere and at all times, that always provides, that always sustains life, that always quenches the thirst and that always cleanses. 

 

Conviction & Salvation

 

            Water is the source of life and also can bring destruction.  Jesus is that life-giving water.  He is perfect and satisfies all things.  But turning away from him is turning away from God, and turning away from God is turning away from Jesus.  Jesus is God, and is God in the person of God’s son – our brother and Savior. 

 

In Jesus are God’s commands, to love God with all of our heart, mind and soul, and to love our neighbor as ourselves and as God first loved us.  Jesus lived that life in perfect obedience and submission to his father in all things.  When we look at that perfection that God commands, we are drowned in the flood of our incompetence to keep those commands.  We are overwhelmed, overtaken and destroyed.  We are left outside of that life-sustaining water in his commands to perish in the desolation of sin and all of its nastiness.  In God’s law and commands is nothing but the overwhelming flood as at the time of Noah.  Without God, no one can stand, no one can swim, no one can survive.

 

In Jesus is the life-giving water of God’s love and promise.  In Jesus is the forgiveness of sins, the washing away of all that we have done and left undone.  In Jesus is God’s love and mercy.  He loves you so much that he wants to make you pure and holy in his presence again.  He does not want you to suffer or thirst any more.  In Jesus is the source of life.  It is a life far beyond the life we know on earth.  No matter what the living thing is, it is going to die here on earth.  But Jesus brings eternal life.  Just as the fruit of a plant dies, it rots and is no good, but its seed springs forth in new life.  Our sinful bodies, upon earthly life’s end, will be raised not perishable as they are today, but imperishable as Christ when he arose from the dead.  Note that he was no longer bound by walls and distance, but lived outside the parameters of this earth?  You too will be restored to be just like him in all heavenly splendor to praise God as he did with his entire life.

 

God wants you to know full well that you have that gift of life.  He gives it to you through holy water.  It is not simple water alone, but water connected with God’s word in baptism, a washing and renewal that happens only through and by him.  That water is connected with God’s word in the name of the Father who created you and breathed in you the breath of life, in the name of the Son whose blood paid the price for your sins, and in the name of the Holy Spirit who works the miracle of saving faith in your heart and sustains that faith in you and all believers. 

 

It is a water that needs to be applied only once, but lasts for all eternity.  It is a water that is beyond our comprehension yet gives everything we need.  It is a water that eliminates our old and sinful self and replaces with a life of the spirit, striving for God’s gifts given in that water and in his word.  His word is power.  His word is love.  His word is Jesus.  His word is eternal life to all who believe in that word.  His word is truth.  His word never fails.  His word is in your mind, in your heart, and in your life, now and forever.  Amen.