Are You Ready to Venture Out into Deeper Waters?
Good Morning Friends,
When we consider the waters of chaos in Genesis, and the River of Life in the last chapter of Revelation, where chaos is no more….When we consider the role water plays in the stories of creation, the delivery of God’s people, and judgment of a people weak in faith…When we consider the role of baptism as a sacrament of our faith and all the possible symbolism in the 800 of so references to water in the Bible there seems to be too much to unpack. One solution is to ignore it and remain in the shallow waters. Another is to dive into the Word seeking to be born anew. Are You Ready to Venture Out into Deeper Waters?
Scripture: 5Once while Jesus* was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, 2he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. 4When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’ 5Simon answered, ‘Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.’ 6When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. 7So they signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. 8But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ 9For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; 10and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ 11When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
Luke 5:1-11 (NRSV)
5Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.
John 3:5 (NRSV)
55Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Isaiah 55:1 (NRSV)
4Now when Jesus* learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’— 2 although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— 3he left Judea and started back to Galilee. 4But he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The 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.)*
10Jesus 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.’ 11The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ 13Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but 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.’ 15The 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)
15’I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. 2He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes* to make it bear more fruit. 3You have already been cleansed* by the word that I have spoken to you. 4Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. 6Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become* my disciples.
John 15: 1-8 (NRSV)
5Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.
John 13:5 (NRSV)
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3With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
Isaiah 12:3 (NRSV)
Message: In today’s scriptures Jesus takes us from our shallow faith into the deeper waters.
In today’s scriptures each word, each phrase offers more and more and more. The parable of the vine, for example, draws on the delivery of water and in many ways is some of the most fruitful scripture written because it is tied to the life of Jesus and His passion, to His garden, to His vine of Israel, His Water of salvation. We begin to see that Jesus not only speaks the word of God to His disciples and to us, but that He is the Word of God. So it is not just a drop of water on a towel cleaning the feet of a disciple, a cup of water shared with a woman at the well of Jacob or a shallow river you can touch bottom as you are baptized, but a mighty ocean with great waves breaking on the shoreline that extends beyond the horizon connected, connected and joined in the deep, deep waters. All you can do is to fall into its flow of eternity saying, “I believe.” So dive into this unfathomable scripture and be swept into its cleansing waters. It is in this moment we share in the processes at work as we mature as Disciples of Christ, we see an unfolding story of the power of the passion. We read that the Father prunes and the Son has cleansed and how His intimate relation with us, joins us together like the waters of the world so we might have an abundant harvest. Friends, we are to make ourselves at home in His deep, deep love and in His Words and Spirit so we too can begin bearing fruit.
Pray we drink deep of the life giving relationship with Jesus. Pray we are connected to the water of life…the true vine that produces fruit.
Pray we trust Jesus to satisfy our deep thirst. Pray we respond to his desire that we drink freely of His grace and forgiveness. Pray we respond to Jesus’ offer of the Water and the Word renewing the spirit and the flesh in us. Pray we realize that Jesus is the source in Holy History and in the lives of faithful believers. Pray we drink of the promise. Pray we are nourished by the Word made flesh in the eternal life of Christ. Pray we produce fruit that glorifies Jesus. Pray we have an overwhelming thirst for Jesus. Pray we realize that Jesus is the thirst quencher. Pray we have life and we have it in great abundance.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 