Jesus Asking: Is Anyone Thirsty?

CONSECRATE Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  HEAR John 7:37–39 NIV On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 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. CONSIDER Is anyone thirsty? Is anyone seeing a theme emerging. We started this party with a bottomless well of the very best wine made at the very last minute (with no grapes). We shifted to Wonder Bread and the satisfaction of our deepest hunger. Now we are at a festival commemorating (among other things) the Israelites quest for water in the wilderness of endless wandering. And what does Jesus stand up and say: Is anyone thirsty? Of course, the first thought is water itself. Like how long can a person go with out water. Is anyone thirsty? Here's where my mind goes next. Has anyone noticed the booming alcohol industry these days with all its craft beers, boutique wines, and specialty whiskeys coming online. Alcohol is a $2.5 trillion market in 2025 and growing rapidly. This is not a slam on alcohol (after all, Jesus made about a thousand bottles of wine back there in Cana). Alcohol is not bad. It's just super dangerous. And I'm just saying alcohol will not quench the kind of thirst Jesus is talking about. And can we be honest here? Anyone drinking more than a glass or three socially is trying to do just that.  We could take an adjacent step from the thirst industry and talk about breath and breathing industry with the break-out vaping market and tobacco-less tobacco Zyn packet obsession capturing the young and the booming legalized marijuana industry with all its confectionery permutations and all the conscious-altering self-medicating dynamics therein.  And we could take another adjacent step into the Food Industrial Complex, which would lead us into a veritable hall of mirrors with all manner of obesity and disease and disordered eating and toxic dieting and . . .  And all I'm trying to point out is the human appetite for upgrading a sense of wellness with counterfeit solutions may be at an all-time high. Meanwhile, Jesus is asking . . . Is anyone thirsty? And then he offers the libation of miraculous proportions; the elixir of eternity . . .  “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink." Everything else under the sun is a substitute for this.  Eat Jesus. Drink Jesus. Live Jesus. And somehow we manage to turn that into dead religion on the one hand and disembodied spirituality on the other.  Are we seeing a theme? Here's what I'm seeing. Jesus is not religion. Jesus is not esoteric, disembodied, zen-like spirituality. Jesus is life; embodied life; real life.  Here's the kicker. With all these counterfeit substitutes for life, you have to spend enormous amounts of money to keep adding more and more substance to get the same effect. It's just the opposite with Jesus. "Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” When Jesus comes into your life he becomes the endless source of eternal life that actually springs up from within you and then flows out of you to others.  Can we just call a full-stop right there? I want us to meditate on these nine miraculous words until we marvel over them.   ". . . rivers of living water will flow from within them." One last time . . . Jesus asking . . .  Is anyone thirsty? PRAY Lord Jesus, I'll go first. I am thirsty. Yes, I am thirsty for more of you. And the more I drink of you, the more I am satisfied by you and the more I thirst for you. I am hungry. Yes, I am hungry for more of you. And the more I eat of you, the more I am satisfied by you, the more I hunger for you. And I find the more this happens, the more my life becomes an endless and endlessly satisfying source of you for others. Rivers. Yes, rivers of living water flowing from within me to others. Jesus, you are life. More of this life, Lord. More of this life. It will be for your glory, for others' gain, and for my good. Praying in your name, Jesus. Amen.