Drinking Deeply from Jesus
Are you thirsty? Are you spiritually thirsty? Do you look for water to quench your thirst when you are thirsty? Where do you go to drink when you are spiritually thirsty? When you drink deeply in your thirst, what is it like to be quenched of our thirst?
We all thirst and desire to be hydrated to live. Just like there is physical water that quenches our thirst, there is also spiritual water that quenches our thirst for the life God intends for us.
When the Israelites were delivered from slavery in Egypt, and were wandering in the desert toward the promised land, they thirsted and “the people quarreled with Moses and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ And Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?’” (Exodus 17:2-3, ESV).
The people thirsted for water and life. They doubted Moses and they doubted God’s plan and they assumed their needs would not be met. The people grumbled and complained and cried out. God heard the people’s cry and instructed Moses to take his staff and to take the elders with him and strike the rock at Horeb with his staff and provide water for the people from the rock.
God said to Moses, “‘Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.’ And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.” (Exodus 17:6, ESV).
God provided water for his people in the wilderness. God quenched the people’s thirst and sustained their lives.
In the Prophet Isaiah God told his people not to fear. God made a promise to Israel, saying, “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants” (Isaiah 44:3).
Later in the scriptures, in the Gospel of John, Jesus would tell a Samaritan woman at the well “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” (John 4:10, ESV).
In his Epistle to the church in Corinth, the Apostle Paul linked the water from the rock in the wilderness with Jesus, the living water found in John 4, saying, “all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” (1 Corinthians 10:2-4, ESV).
When we are spiritually thirsty, there is only one person through whom we can be satisfied, and that is the person of Jesus who is the Living Water. When we are thirsty, we can be quenched of our spiritual thirst by drinking deeply from the living water found flowing from the rock of Jesus.
May we drink deeply of the living water from Jesus, which we so desperately desire in the wilderness of this life. May we have our spiritual thirst quenched as we drink deeply from the never-ending flow of the Living Water of Jesus, as Jesus promised, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:37-38, ESV).
A Collect for the Third Sunday in Lent: “Heavenly Father, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you: Look with compassion upon the heartfelt desires of your servants, and purify our disordered affections, that we may behold your eternal glory in the face of Christ Jesus; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” (Book of Common Prayer, 2019).
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