Eureka Presbyterian Church | 3-5-2017
Good morning,
It is great being back here in the pulpit in Eureka.
Today’s sermon is titled “Thirsty” based on Exodus 17 and John 4: 5-15. The journey this morning will take us from being thirsty for water as a basic need of life, to morphing into a thirst of our inner soul.
Growing up in a flat country like Holland virtually everybody rides bicycles. The only rise in elevation in the area where I grew up, were the local dunes along the seashore. Watching the Tour the France as a youngster, we admired those riders climbing these huge mountains in the Alps.
One summer two friends and I loaded up the car and went to visit the Tour the France. And we actually climbed Alp d’huez, this famous mountain top finish in the Tour. We had trained in those dunes, but soon realized how ill prepared we were.
There are 21 switch backs on this epic climb to Alp d’huez, they are numbered starting with 21 on the bottom and finally number one close to the top. By the time we passed the first switch back (#21) we fell off our bikes and needed water. Eventually we made the top, hours later.
The next day, we saw the professional riders who had been on their bikes for 6 hours already, climb the slopes of Alp d’huez, and it was quite a sight watching these guys with no color on their faces completely exhausted, thirsting as they struggled those last few miles to the finish line.
After immigrating to US in 1983, I bought an old 10 speed bike for less than $100 and started climbing the local hills around Arcata. I vividly remember one Sunday afternoon, I had only been in town for 2 months, hopped on that old bike, and started climbing Fickle Hill, which is a real work out even with a good bike.
Once the terrain levelled out on top of the ridge, I just kept going and going for nearly 10 miles. It one point the road ended and there was a sign, Eureka to the right 16 miles, or Maple Creek to the left 7 miles. Not knowing the area very well, 16 miles to Eureka seemed far away, and knowing it took another 6 miles back to Arcata. I made the silly decision to take the road to the left to Maple Creek, all the way downhill for 7 miles, feeling good.
Once I got to Maple creek, I realized the mistake I had made. Here I was driving this old crappy bicycle, no food and more importantly nothing to drink anymore. I had few dollars in my pocket, but there was no place to buy anything.
Here I was in the middle of nowhere, with unquenchable thirst. Crossing the Mad River Bridge, there was another sign: Blue Lake 17 miles, now going back uphill again, crossing two mountain ranges, climbing a total elevation of nearly 2200 ft. This bicycle trip, brought me close to hallucination, totally dehydrated and nothing to drink, being thirsty was an understatement. More than two hours later I finally made it to Blue Lake, ready for a drink……
Thirst can leave vivid memories even 33 years later. Speaking of thirst and memories, there are 54 references in the bible about thirst and being thirsty. 40 in the Old testament alone, and the most notable passage in the OT comes from Exodus 17, where Moses finds himself in the desert with 2 million fellow Israelites, it is hot and dry and there is no water.
This account in Exodus is so significant in Jewish history that the books of Deuteronomy, Numbers, Psalms, Nehemiah and Isaiah all refer to this amazing event. The people complained and were overcome with incredible thirst and they said to Moses, “Give us water to drink. Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” It brings Moses to near despair. He cries out to the Lord ”, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
The Lord said to Moses, take in your hand the staff, with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you, on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, and the water came rushing out.
There is compelling evidence that the rock that provided water to the Israelites may still be there today, we talked about this in sermon #13 last year, which it could possibly be located at the base of a mountain that today is called Jebel el Lawz in Saudi Arabia.
This miracle ultimately saved the 12 tribes of Israel, the 2 million Israelites from thirst and starvation. Water is a fundamental need to life and in the fourth chapter in the Gospel of John, Jesus takes this to a whole new dimension in the story of the woman at the well with something very special and this brings us to today’s reading on page ………….of your pew bible
John 4:5-42
5So 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.” 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.”…
Folks, this famous passage in John 4, highlights that Jesus was traveling from Jerusalem to Galilee. John’s Gospel is unique in recording multiple trips between Jerusalem in the south and Galilee in the north. He traveled through Samaria on one of these trips and he is thirsty and exhausted.
He stops at this well, runs into a Samaritan woman, but then Jesus offers a special type of living water to a Samaritan, a non-Jew, a gentile, essentially opening the door to anyone who asks.
He says, had you asked, I would have given you “Living water”. But what does he mean with Living water?
Just like the water from these bottles in front here, quenches our thirsty tongues, when we are dehydrated and getting weak and exhausted, so Living water quenches the soul, our inner being…..
We all know folks around us, family, friends, neighbors or coworkers that at some point, for some reason became disillusioned with Religion, with the Church, with legalism and hypocrisy….
In the book “Jesus Inside” author Will Schmit quotes: if there is a problem with Christianity it were always the Christians but never Christ. Jesus actually despised the legalism of the Pharisees.
But for many of our friends the scars of the past are deep.
Yet…. Souls…. are still…. thirsting.
Last month I talked to a wonderful lady, she does a lot good works for the poor around the World, she told me: I grew up in the Catholic Church attending Catholic nun school and I got burnt out of the disparities I saw in every aspect of the religion. Not sure what I am now – I do believe there is an infinite being that guides us regardless of the tittle of our religion.
Just last week I heard from a listener in Arcata, she wrote: I have had some philosophical issues with “organized” religion….but love exploring most forms of theology and spirituality.
Dear friends, I empathize and can relate to folks who turned away from the Church and organized religion, I even did so myself for a while, but ultimately I became thirsty.
A few months ago I talked to someone in Eureka who told me she was an atheist. She loves to hang out with this Italian family and engage in deep conversations, she was drawn to something that she couldn’t describe, she witnessed this gushing spring of peace and joy in that family.
Then I saw her in church awhile back, and she said she enjoyed being around folks in the church community. Deep down I sensed a thirst in her for deeper purpose, a thirst of the inner self, a thirst of the soul.
Jesus said, 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.”
At 5.30 in the morning on my way to work on Saturday mornings, I enjoy listening to a program called “First person interviews”, last fall they interviewed Lee Strobel, the legal editor of The Chicago Tribune, he was an unwavering atheist who used his skills, as an award-winning journalist to try to disprove Christianity.
His investigation to demonstrate that there was no resurrection and that Christianity was hoax, began when his wife Leslie, became a Christian.
Strobel said he was disappointed but also amazed by the changes he saw in his wife. He said, “I was pleasantly surprised — even fascinated by the fundamental changes in her character, her integrity, and her personal confidence, like this gushing spring from within.
He was so impacted by these changes that he felt compelled to search the Bible, to figure out, how these positive differences came about. He launched an all-out examination into the facts surrounding the case for Christianity.”
His findings, led him to become a believer in Christ himself.
He wrote a bestselling book: The Case for Christ that has been made into a big screen movie to be released On April 7
The more Strobel read, and researched in his quest for the truth, the more his thirsty soul was drawn to Jesus drenching it with living water.
Jesus said drink from this living water and you will never thirst
In John 7:37, Jesus is back in Jerusalem attending a festival of the booth (equivalent of Thanksgiving), and while he is there, he cries out: Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and let the one who believes in me, drink, As the scripture have said: Out of the believer’s heart shall flow, rivers of living water.
Isn’t this interesting, we move from a gushing spring in John 4 to rivers of living water in John 7.
17 years ago we started growing in Willow creek, crops like Ilex, Rosehips, Cotinus and Snowball Viburnum. The farm had a small spring, but inadequate to provide water for plants getting thirsty with 90+ degree conditions in summer.
We tried drilling a well, as we went deeper we got into bedrock and at one point even encountered some natural gas, but very little water , at least not enough to support a 20 acre farm. The prospects for water were not good.
Then someone pointed to the Trinity River flowing right through the property. We got a riparian permit from the State and have been blessed to grow some of the most beautiful crops at this ranch ever since. While the spring didn’t suffice, the river of water giving life to those plants did.
God gave Moses and the Israelites water as a basic need to live. In the Gospel of John, Jesus asked the woman at the well for the same, but in an interesting twist he turns the table and suggests: if you would have just asked me, I would have given you living water.”
See these beautiful Iris here this morning. Iris love water, I tell the agronomists all the time, Iris are water plants. If we don’t give Iris enough water, the plant looks the same but inside the bud dries up and they will not bloom. But with ample water, they grow into these beautiful flowers, like fruits of a well-nourished soul.
So it is with us, if we don’t ask or seek we will not receive, but when we open our hearts to the Lord, he will drench us with living water.
That living water that is gushing up from inside of the Samaritan woman, spilling out of her like a flowing fountain,
That living Water bubbling up and pouring out through her saturated spirit so that everyone she came in contact with, couldn’t help but to get soaked as well.
Just like Lee Strobel and his wife Leslie, this kind of drenching genuine transformation that comes from accepting Jesus as Lord, is the kind that waters everything in its path.
Lee Strobel is now an evangelist, speaking around the World, the living water that drenched his soul is now working to transform others …
In the last few weeks we have seen the images of the dam at Lake Oroville with 100,000 cubic feet of water per second barreling down that spillway into the “Feather River”.
Imagine all that, as a river of living water.
The power of the water coming that spill way is like the power of the Holy spirit.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we ask our Lord Jesus to give us living water.
Living water to quench our thirsty souls
Living water bringing the love of God
Living water healing our souls
Living water bringing peace to the world,
Living water providing joy into our hearts
Living water offering salvation and the promise of eternal life
My friends, Jesus is seeking to flood the thirstiest parts of us with water that will forever change us.
Jesus is at the well, offering each of us transformation… and you don’t need any of these water bottles to capture it…
This water is continuously pouring out, like that spillway at the Oroville dam, or the 50 inches of rain in the last 5 months.
Lift our heads and open our mouths… and let that living water soak our souls…
Amen
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