 |
|
|
|
|
 |
Pentecost year A
2008
John 7:37-39
“Mom!” My mom would say she wished she had a quarter for every time she heard that. One thing you don’t have to teach children is how to call for their mothers. It comes instinctively, ringing through the house, at any hour, from one end to the other, sometimes from all the children at once. And as much as we might wistfully imagine a world in which the kids to walk up to mother quietly, and, waiting for her attention, address her with the respectful words, “Dear mother, I am so sorry to intrude, but may I please have I have your help?” what we’re going to get is “Mooooom!” And who can blame them? The call gets its response and soon enough help is on the way. Mothers even learn to discern the types of call. When there’s real trouble, when there’s pain in the voice, she can hear it and she’s on her way without delay. This Mother’s Day, our Lord doesn’t send us off to Mom for help. It’s Pentecost and He invites us to himself for the help of the His Holy Spirit. “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ Now he said this about the Spirit.” He gives us His Holy Spirit as our Helper and with that help the bounty of living water, that is, rich and abundant life with God. But it would be wrong to oppose the inner help of God’s Spirit given us by faith with the outer help given us by our mothers. Mothers are mighty helpers indeed, and they are also God-given helpers, instruments of the Spirit to raise us, giving us physical life, nurturing us, bringing us up, disciplining us, caring for us. Everything that a good mother does for her child is a God-given task and the relationship between mother and child is by divine design. Each aspect of the mother-child relationship teaches us something about how God deals with us, particularly through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. It’s because God loves us that he has given us mothers. By experiencing their love we come to understand something of God’s love. Although no mother is perfect, a mother’s love is still powerful, perhaps the most powerful love on earth we’ll ever know. So God describes his love for his people in these terms [Is. 66(:13)], “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you." Once, too, the Lord Jesus described his love for his enemies in a most motherly way, saying, “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings” (Matt 23:37). But in at least one other passage, the Lord God makes the point that as powerful as a mother’s love may be, his is even stronger and more faithful. He tells us in Isaiah 49: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” (Isaiah 49:15). And so the Psalmist prays to God as the one sure refuge for life in Psalm 27: “Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me” (Psalm 27:10). Every godly mother would agree: As great as a mother’s love is in our lives, God’s love is greater. From the greatness of his love, Christ grants his Holy Spirit to all who believe in Him. And what a gift this is! “Out of your heart will flows rivers over living waters.” This is no dropper sized gift from God. This isn’t even a swimming pool. These are rivers, like the 4 rivers that flowed out from the Garden of Eden, like the river of life described in the Book of Revelation, or, as the Psalmist says, “There is a river which makes glad the city of our God” (Ps 46). Or as another Psalm describes the experience: “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life.” (Psalm 42:7-8) This promise of inner rivers is nothing short of Christ promising us the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit in the center of our spiritual lives. We have become temples of the Spirit, holy Sanctuaries, with all his life and power present within us. That’s why it says rivers: Because the Spirit is big and powerful and active and abundant within us with the very Life of God, a constant, unstoppable, inexhaustible rush of life. God’s prophets predicted that God’s Temple would become the source of life-giving headwaters. Zechariah foretold, “On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem” (14:8). Ezekiel too had a vision of a man to took him to the temple where he saw water coming out from under the threshold. That spring became a stream and then a river. The further you walked, the bigger it was, until it was an enormous river which no one could cross and along its banks stood trees of life (Ez 47). Both of these prophecies have their fulfillment in us, the Church of Christ. It seems we’re reaching a point again in civilization where the importance of water is going to make more and more sense to us. For the later half of the 20th century, water seemed to be a luxury which we – at least we in the U.S. – could take for granted. Now, not so much anymore. Georgia has a drought and sprawling Atlanta is thirsty. There’s rationing and controlled usage. There’s even legal skirmishing over the border with Tennessee. Due to a mapmaker’s mistake in 1818, it appears that the Georgia border belongs 1.1 miles further north and some Georgians now want rights to part of the Tennessee River to quench their thirst. All that’s happening in the southeast of our country. In the southwest, the Colorado River is so used up that it hardly even reaches the sea anymore. People in Michigan are worried that other states will look at our lakes as a opportunity to pump water to thirsty cities or irrigate their desserts. Rivers are life for the world. Imagine, our Lord is promising our own personal rivers flowing right within us. As He said to the woman at the well, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” There he says, “ask him”; in our reading today, he invites, “come to me...believe in me.” It all comes down to this. To have the living water within, you need to go out to Jesus. Just like if you want the warmth of mom’s chicken soup inside you, you need to ask her for it, you need to sit at the table and spoon it in. If a child want the warmth of her mother’s love within, she needs to go out, find her, and then snuggle in her lap. If a boy wants the wisdom of his mother’s advise within, he needs to go out and ask her and draw it in through his ears. All the goodness that ever gets inside us doesn’t just appear there—it comes from the outside in. So too the inner life of the Spirit depends on our taking advantage of the outer opportunities. We have to come to Jesus and let His Spirit do His work in us. If you want the promise of the Spirit, there is the gift of Baptism which seals us with Spirit, as Peter said in his Pentecost sermon: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” And if you’ve been Baptized, then the Spirit is as close as your claiming that promise – remember that gift and draw from its strength, pray to God and ask him to give you more of the Spirit, to make his rivers run deep and strong in your life. Make these prayers boldly on the basis of Baptism and this very word of promise given us today. As children running to their mother from their hot summer play, looking for the lemonade they hear stirring in the pitcher, Christians run to their baptism and draw again from the refreshing, thirst-quenching water of Christ. As those who have been baptized, we keep coming to Christ through His Word to be strengthened in the life of the Spirit. You’re going to talk to your mom on Mother’s Day, right? Either you’ll be with her or you’ll phone her. And in that talking you’ll listen and in that listening, you’ll be blessed, too. So it is with our relationship with Christ. We talk in prayer; we listen to the Word in response. We present our needs to the Lord, we confess our sins; we receive in turn his forgiveness, his encouragement, his counsel through the Holy Scriptures. Many families suppose the nicest way to spend Mother’s Day is to take mom out for a meal. It’s a time for her to pick her favorite restaurant. Again, with our Lord, His invitation includes a dinner invitation – a call to Supper, where we can take him in through our mouths and have his life planted in our spirits. In all these things, we’ve got to go out to Jesus to have the Spirit of Jesus within. The Spirit doesn’t naturally spring up within the human. Speaking of the human heart in its natural condition, Jesus said that it naturally emits all kinds of sins and evil. So when he here tells us that believers will have rivers of living water flowing from their hearts, that’s no credit to our hearts – it’s the glory of Jesus’ generosity in giving the gift of the Spirit, which He injects within those who come to His Holy Word and Sacraments. Growing up, we come to call out less and less, “Mom!” The roles ofparent and child change over the years and Mom goes from being a benevolent dictator to a friendly counselor. Her help shifts from being the daily essential we couldn’t live without to an extra blessing. Good parents work themselves out their jobs; they bring their children to stand on their own two feet. On the other hand, as we grow as Christians, we learn to call on God more and more, depend on him more and more, trust in him more and more. But there’s no use in calling out to God for help, if you don’t go to the places where God gives His help. So many Christians feel spiritually dry, like they’re in a river-less dessert with little strength or sense of God in their lives – but they have no one to blames but themselves if they have no time for Bible reading, come infrequently to the House of God, attend services without paying any attention, rarely appear at the Lord’s Table, and don’t ever reflect on the meaning and power of Baptism in their lives. God has streams of spiritual life he wants running through your soul – and those streams enter in through those channels which we call the means of grace: the Scripture read and proclaimed, Holy Baptism, and the Holy Supper. With Mother’s Day, we stand now in the heart of spring. Looking ahead to summer, your plans probably don’t include any yelling out, “Mom!” But do plan to call on the Name of the Lord. Even if you’re traveling, you can likely still find a church open on a Sunday. You wouldn’t forget to call Mom on Mother’s Day – and every Sunday is the Lord’s Day. Every day is a day which the Lord has made and every day has its time to come to Jesus through Scripture and prayer. Coming to His House, His Word, and His Sacraments, you’ll find His help. He’ll pour out his Spirit into your heart in streams rich, full and overflowing.
|
