Sunday’s Readings: Pentecost

Acts 2.1-21; Psalm 104.26-36,37b; 1 Corinthians 12.3b-13; John 20.19-23/7.37-39

THIS Gospel made me wonder: what if there have been eight “I’m” sayings of Jesus? The Gospel includes seven of those sayings, all in the identical form: “I’m”, plus something standing for Jesus. “I’m the bread of life / the sunshine of the world / the door / the great shepherd / the resurrection and the life / the best way, the reality, and the life / the true vine”. There are also two stand-alone “I’m” sayings, which don’t have any symbolic “something” standing for Jesus (8.58; 18.5). In this Gospel, in contrast, the symbolic something — water — has no “I’m” attached.

What is that this “scripture” referred to at 7.38? It will not be in my Bible. It will not be in anyone’s Bible. Commentators rummage through the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible for references to water, especially water with some miraculous aspect to it. Exodus 17.6 refers to miraculous water that’s life-giving, however it will not be called “living water”, and there isn’t any trace of the “believer’s heart” that Jesus refers to. Zechariah 14.8 is one other possible allusion, for it does mention “living waters”. But it will not be even a paraphrase, never mind a quotation.

Yet what Jesus says here is of fundamental importance, not only to those listening to him as he speaks, but additionally to generations of the faithful yet to return. In verse 39, the Evangelist offers his own interpretation of the meaning: that this “living water” is a reference to the Holy Spirit. But we only must press the wording a little bit, and his interpretation slips. The bond between symbol and referent begins to fray.

Imagine someone thirsty coming and drinking. Jesus is the symbolic water that the believer drinks; so the meaning needs to be that we take Jesus into ourselves, and this offers us life because Jesus himself is life. So far, so orthodox. But the “quotation” refers to water coming forth from the believer — and we cannot easily see a believer because the source of either Jesus or the Holy Spirit.

It is reasonably confusing. Amid the confusion, though, there are details that stand out clearly, and may be embraced without exegetical gymnastics. We may be reasonably confident, I feel, that “living water”, as a physical phenomenon, refers to running or flowing water. That is, water in movement, not still or standing water. The water “lives” since it moves.

Living water was the popular option for baptism within the Early Church, though still water might be used if needed. There is a really early witness to this within the text called the Didache (“Teaching”), which was probably written at in regards to the same time as John’s Gospel: “Baptise like this: within the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. If you’ve no living water, use other water. If you can not baptise in cold water, use warm. If you’ve neither, pour water upon the top thrice within the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit.”

In ancient literature, the spring of water is an emblem for desirable characteristics. The poet who drank from such a spring can be inspired, fresh, original — all infinitely preferable to the slow, muddy, mainstream waters of a broad river. “Living waters” are the mark of something fresh and latest.

If rivers of living water flow out of a believer’s heart, they surely accomplish that because Jesus has first generated them there. How? By the identical implies that makes him as energetic in our hearts as within the hearts of his first disciples: the Holy Spirit. His first impact on us is to quench our thirst. From having our own thirst for God quenched, we’re enabled to change into a vehicle of that grace for others.

Another early Christian text (not quite as old because the Didache) refers to Christ as “a spring of living water gushing from God in a land which didn’t know God, the land of Gentiles”. I feel its writer, Justin Martyr, is on the precise track in making Christ the source of living water. His words are evocative of baptism, though not as explicitly because the Didache. What we will safely conclude is that Jesus’s words about “living water” in John’s Gospel should not an “I’m” saying, but an “It is” saying. The Pentecost gift, through baptism, becomes each symbol (living water) and referent (the Holy Spirit) in a single.