Prepared for the Spirit

AM Psalm 78:1-39 • PM Psalm 78:40-72
Jer. 7:21-34 • Rom. 4:13-25 • John 7:37-52

Oh, how I love the quirky, poetic nature of John’s gospel. On the one hand, today’s reading from John offers yet another example of the Pharisees’ quibbling about whether Jesus is actually the Messiah. How can he be the Messiah, the people wonder. Isn’t the Messiah supposed to be from Bethlehem, the city of David? Do the people believe in him? Should we arrest him? Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch.

On the other hand, however, today’s passage from John exhibits a lovely and downright unusual depiction of the Holy Spirit. In most scripture, the Spirit is represented as a dove, a symbol of purity found in both the Old and New Testaments. Recall that Noah sends a dove out from the ark to determine whether the flood waters had receded; that doves and turtledoves in Mosaic law are the only acceptable birds to be offered in temple sacrifices; and that doves are consistently images of beauty and purity—in the Song of Solomon and the Psalms, for example. So when the Holy Spirit-as-a-dove descends on Jesus at his baptism, the Hebrew people would have recognized the symbolism.

But John relies on a different symbol for the Holy Spirit in today’s passage: a river of “living waters.” On the final day of the Feast of the Tabernacles, Jesus tells the assembled crowd, “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.” Commenting on this idea, the gospeller feels compelled to add, “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.”

This explanatory comment might give some readers pause. I don’t think it right to assume that Jesus was withholding the Spirit from the assembled audience. He was simply, and subtly, preparing his followers for his earthly end—a forecast that he shares regularly throughout John’s gospel—and he is hinting that impact and influence of the Spirit will be felt only when he has been “glorified” by his death, resurrection, and ascension.

And I say amen to that.

Written by David Jolliffe

At St. Paul’s, David sings in the choir, helps to distribute groceries (with friends at St. James Missionary Baptist Church), and assists with the coordination of the Morning Reflections program.