Jesus stood up and exclaimed, “Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. As Scripture says: Rivers of living water will flow from within him who believes in me.” He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive. There was, of course, no Spirit yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. (John 7.37-39)
In the southwest corner of the Grand Canyon, overall a barren and forbidding landscape, hidden away on the Havasupai tribal lands, is Havasu Falls, one of the most famous waterfalls in the United States. Nestled among the high cliffs of the rugged terrain, no roads anywhere around, the falls are accessible only by way of a ten mile hike on foot.
Fed by the Havasu Creek, a tributary to the Colorado River, the main chute of the falls drops a hundred feet down a vertical cliff into a pool of blue-green waters. Today, the water over the cliff flows as one stream, although a century ago it consisted of multiple streams, a flood in 1910 changing the the appearance of the falls. It is a breathtaking sight, this gushing flow of water in the desert lands.
Living in this harsh climate for the last 800 years, the Havasupai–the word meaning the people of the blue green water–survived by way of an irrigation system from the Havasu Creek that allowed them to grow sufficient food, especially vegetables, for their survival. When Spanish conquistadores visited the area in the late 18th century, providing the first historical record, they recorded seeing about three hundred tribal people living there.
If we are to understand the Spirit of God as Rabbi Jesus understood and spoke of it, then we must think in terms of Havasu Falls, an image that comes closest to capturing his words that we hear today when he speaks of the Spirit as “rivers of flowing water that flow from within the person who believes in him.” Like the falls, the Spirit gushes water into the desert that is this world, bringing life and vegetation into an otherwise empty and sterile environment.
It is that image that we are to contemplate on this Feast of Pentecost when we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit that was promised and given to the first followers of the resurrected leader called Rabbi or Teacher by his disciples on that day when the same Spirit of the Most High God that flowed from the heart of the Rabbi while he was upon the earth now flowed into the hearts of his followers.
Filled with this Spirit, now they could continue his works, bringing water to quench the thirst of those who live in the desolate and desert lands of our world. As the Most High God filled their hearts with the overflowing waters of love gushing forth from his own heart, now they could fill the hearts of others with the same waters of love that flow from their hearts, reviving, restoring, renewing life where none could be found before, shriveled, suffocated and strangled in a world without love like a desert without water.
Whereas the Spirit is traditionally seen through the lens of the evangelist Luke, with his portrayal of Pentecost as wild winds crashing through the windows of the room where the disciples were hidden away and flames of fire dancing upon the stooped heads of these saddened and crestfallen followers of the Crucified Lord, it is important that we allow another image–that of the evangelist John–to speak to us of the Spirit, an equally potent and persuasive image, an image with roots deep in the terrain of the lived experience of the Hebrew slaves as found in their ancient scriptures.
As told, their tribe wandered through the deserts of Sinai for forty years, as desolate and as deserted as any place on earth, their lives and livelihood dependent entirely on the benevolence of the God who freed them from slavery, who promised them a land flowing with milk and honey, and whose Spirit led them across the barren terrain to their new homeland.
When they cried out to the Most High God, their bodies athirst for water, the Spirit commanded Moses the prophet to strike a rock with a rod, a force so strong that the rock split apart and water gushed forth, providing the freedmen with an abundance of water to satisfy their thirst and to restore their fallen spirits.
That event was permanently etched into the souls of these people as they entered the Promised Land, remembering it forever after in an annual celebration called the Feast of Tabernacles, a week-long celebration during which the people returned to makeshift booths in their backyards to recall their days in the desert when they were without shelter and without supplies.
It was during this Feast of Booths that Rabbi Jesus spoke the words that we hear today from the Gospel of John, speaking to his followers of “rivers of living water,” reminding them of the origins of the celebration and the source of the waters that allowed the Hebrew slaves to survive in the Sinai.
As background and as backdrop to the celebration, the rich symbol of water was put at the forefront of the event each year in the Temple of Jerusalem, as pilgrims from far and wide traveled to the city to recall their history and their heritage. The Temple priest would process on each of the first six days to the Pool of Siloam, where he would fill a vessel with water, and return back to the Temple while the assembly recited the ancient words, “With joy you will draw water out of the wells of salvation.”
Once inside the Temple, the priest would pour out the water as an offering to the Most High God, a visual reenactment of the water gushing forth from the rock that had saved the lives of the slaves in the desert as well as a prayer to the same God to send forth rains to provide for the plants that fed the people in the present times in the same way he had provided showers from the skies in ancient times.
It is this rich and varied history that Rabbi Jesus evokes when he speaks to his followers in this teaching now called the Bread of Life discourse, our selection but a small part of the greater whole of that discourse that followed the feeding of the multitude, itself an evocation of the feeding of the starving slaves in the desert during their sojourn to the Promised Land, food provided them from the heavens in the form of manna and quail.
Aside from history, important as it is, what does the feast say to us today, separated as we are from that time and that place, living, as we do, in homes with indoor plumbing and slacking our thirst with everything from sparkling water to shot glasses? Scratch beneath the surface of our lives and we find the same message, our lives little different from the wandering slaves in the desert, at least when it comes to the matters of spirit and life.
For, truth be told, we also are a people in search, looking for a fullness of life and a renewal of spirit, so often lost in a world that appears to many of us to be a wasteland more akin to a desert than to a land flowing with milk and honey. We cry out to the high heavens for remedy, even if our cries come not in the form of tears, but in addictions, in soul-grinding desperation, in cheap gratifications.
As the scholar and writer Richard Lischer once said, “The whole world needs the promise of Pentecost, because desolation is everywhere.” Pinpointing the ethos of our times, he writes, “Online banking, online education, online shopping–all such transactions have one thing in common: no one will occupy your life space to smile at you and say, ‘It’s good to be with you again. How have you been?’”
In other words, we have created our own deserts, isolating ourselves from others, insulating ourselves from our neighbors, segregating ourselves from anyone different in any way, until we are marooned on a small patch of land surrounded by a vast emptiness where we fear the day and lock the door at night. The only difference between ourselves and the Hebrew slaves is that they knew they were in a desert. We walk through the sands in blissful ignorance, bragging of our suntans, building sandcastles at the beach, but oblivious to the parched thirst in our souls.
Hence, the words of Rabbi Jesus that stand in bold relief today like a lighted billboard sign in the night–If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink! With those words, he informs his followers that as the Most High God provides water for their physical sustenance, he also provides for their spiritual thirst, an overflowing stream of his Spirit entering into the dehydrated and despairing souls of those who know there has to be more to life than a paycheck or day at the beach.
In his book, Just Tell the Truth, Professor Lischer tells of a priest who was assigned to the eastern part of North Carolina to provide services for the Latino community that worked in agriculture or in the chicken-processing plants of the area. Unsure of how to make contact with the people, the priest took a card table, a hand-stitched quilt, some bread and a cruet of wine, and walked into the local laundromat where he set up shop.
As the people washed their clothes, the priest said Mass. The patrons in the washateria waited for a break in the Mass to switch their clothing from the washers to the dryers. Outsiders called him the “Landromat Priest,” but a newspaper reporter pointed out that the people inside “stand respectfully toward the rear of the washerette, as if occupying holy ground.” Lischer, reflecting on the story, concludes, “Pentecost happens.”
He is right, of course. And Pentecost happens, not on this one day of the year, but everyday and in every place, because, as the Most High God brought water from the split rock for the people in the desert, his Spirit continues to provide drink to thirsty souls in this world, not so much from a rock, but from his broken heart that overflows with love for a people lost and alone, still searching for a land flowing with milk and honey, their thirst unsatisfied and unquenched until they dip their heads and drink from his stream of living waters, his Spirit found in every sweet sip, reviving, refreshing, reinvigorating parched souls always desperate for and dependent on the waterfalls of God’s grace.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 