Come to the Water

Come to the Water

Good Morning Friends,

Today we roll out the Taste of Immokalee product line created by the youth in Immokalee at the Stone Crab Festival on Naples Bay. I reminds me how creation itself emulates the life of Christ as it flows in and through us as one environment transitions into another. Here the animals, they teach us and the fish of the sea inform us. Soon the faucet will be turned on for the restoration of the Everglades. The life that abounds here in South Florida may well increase with the expansion of the flowing waters of the Everglades and as tourists from around the world flow here in even greater numbers. Life abounds here because the change in the tides helps the water in the creeks, rivers and streams. So too it is with the flow of people here from everywhere. But it is the flow of Christ in our spirit that offers us the best opportunity to interact in new ways with new people as we all Come to the Water.

Scripture: The King will say to those on his right, ” . . . I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.”

Matthew 25:34-35 (NIV)

Freely you have received, freely give.

Matthew 10:8 (NIV)

On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.'”

John 7:37-38 (NRSV)

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’— although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘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.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’ 

John 4:1-15 (NRSV)

Message: Today’s scripture demonstrates the emotion and heart of the battle between Jesus and the Pharisees…between God and those that would control Him. The Pharisees were pitting Jesus against John in a battle of baptisms trying to dam up the natural flow of emotions. Into this setting and situation Jesus took some pretty amazing action that opened the door for the Hebrew God to become our God…that opened up new tributaries of Holy History. I would have loved to hear the discussion of the Pharisees on whether they should include the baptisms of the Samaritans in the count totals. Maybe they would count the Samaritans as half or two thirds. Jesus did not miss a thing. Jesus goes to a people that the Jewish religious leaders despised. They were called pretty discussing things, especially the women. They were outcasts. And to these people separated/ divided from what would become “the church,” Jesus enters into a leisurely conversation that turns into an intimate personal relationship with a compassionate response… ultimately His death on the cross opening up the flow of the Spirit everywhere.   Today’s scripture brings us into a conversation with Jesus where the words spoken bring dignity and gravity, where Jesus speaks a word that calls salvation into being.  It demonstrates that God, not the church leaders are in charge. It is done at that place, that deep well in us all where God provides for our needs, seeing into our hearts, into the deep wounds that have divided and brings the refreshing realization that we have a need for each other.  I have need of you. You have a need for me and we all have a deep need for Jesus as He calls us even now to Come to the Water.

Pray that you Lord would give us an overwhelming thirst for Jesus. Pray Lord that you make our lives like well-watered gardens with springs of water that never fail. Pray that our spirit overflow with your pure water of love for the unloved. Pray there be a great harvest of souls for the kingdom. Pray we have the wisdom to know when the season of harvest has come. Pray that out of our hearts flow rivers of living water. Pray we read and share God’s word each day so we do not become drought stressed. Pray we drink freely of God’s grace and forgiveness in the joy and satisfaction only Jesus can provide. Pray we drink of the Jesus water and share it. Pray we drink to those in need in remembrance of the only One who can satisfy that need.
Pray we drink deep of the life giving relationship with Jesus. Pray the Spirit’s cleansing flow of dignity and acceptance take dried up shriveled souls and bring them to life.

Blessings,

John Lawson