On the last day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a laud 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. (John 7:37-39)

The very first gift given to humanity after the resurrection of Jesus was the gift of the Holy Spirit. This passage is part of Jesus’ preparation of the people to enable them to accept the gift when it came. Even so, only some people accepted it when it did come. The gift of the Holy Spirit, breathed upon the disciples and later bestowed upon the gathering at Pentecost, signaled a new relationship between God and human beings. In this passage Jesus describes it as “rivers of living water” flowing from within them, a picture of God Himself in the lives of believers.

Before his death, Jesus told the disciples a great deal about the gift he would be giving them “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

(John 14:26) He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. . . the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.” (John 16:12)

Luci Shaw is a famous poet of Christian themes. In the poem Open she celebrates the life-giving power of the risen Christ on the evening of the day of Jesus’ resurrection.

Open

Doubt padlocked one door and

Memory put her back to the other.

Still the damp drought seeped in,

though Fear chinked all the cracks and

Blindness boarded up the window.

In the darkness that was left

Defeat crouched in his cold corner.

Then Jesus came

(all the doors being shut)

and stood among them. Luci Shaw

Christ is the one who gives the gift that changes each believer’s life with the arrival of living water.

Love in Him,

Prue