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Joh Overview: Living Water

About This Episode

Water shows up in nearly every chapter of John's Gospel, and it's almost never simple—sometimes death, sometimes life, sometimes the boundary between them. Having spent the last episode tracing the theme of water through the Old Testament, David and Christine return to John to watch all those waves crash together into one story.

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Living Water: How the Gospel of John Reveals Jesus in Every Wave

Show Notes

In this episode of the Spoken Gospel podcast, hosts David and Christine continue their walk through the Gospel of John. Having spent the previous episode tracing the theme of water across the Old Testament, they return to John to watch all of those waves crash into one story—the story of how John shows us that Jesus is the living water who has come to make a dead and thirsty world new.

The Word Over the Waters: New Creation in John 1

In the Hebrew Scriptures, water is rarely simple. It is sometimes death and sometimes life. It is the thing the world most needs, the place where God's presence creates life in dead places, the boundary that separates the righteous from the wicked, and the well where husbands meet their brides. John saw all of this and built his Gospel on top of it, because water shows up in nearly every chapter he writes. He begins by returning us to Genesis 1, where God's Spirit hovers over the waters of Chaos and brings order and life. John tells us that this life and light is Jesus himself, and that this same Word who once brooded over the deep has now pitched his tent in human flesh (John 1:1-5, 14).

The first place John shows us Jesus meeting his people is in water. Jesus comes to John the Baptizer at the Jordan, the boundary marker between the wilderness and the Promised Land, between death and life. When he steps into the river, Genesis 1 happens again: God's Spirit descends and remains on him (John 1:32-33). This raises a striking question—is the water cleansing Jesus, or is Jesus cleansing the water? Because God himself enters the Jordan, the river becomes a clean place where we are now able to meet him.

That is what baptism means for those who follow Jesus. We go down into the waters of Death, leave our rebellion buried there, and rise into a new life that is no longer our own but his (Galatians 2:20). John frames this from both ends of his Gospel. When Jesus' side is pierced, water and blood flow out together (John 19:34). Just as Eve was drawn from the side of a sleeping Adam, the church is brought out of the opened side of the new Husband as he sleeps the sleep of death (Genesis 2). His tomb becomes a kind of bridal chamber, the place from which resurrection life bursts forth. From the very first chapter, John roots the whole ministry of Jesus in the waters of new creation.

Water Becomes Wine: The Wedding at Cana

The very next chapter takes us to a wedding, and the wedding runs out of wine. Standing nearby are six stone jars used for the Jewish rites of cleansing—the same purifying water that separates the unclean from the clean. The guests have already washed, so the jars sit empty until Jesus tells the servants to fill them again (John 2:1-11). Before any miracle occurs, this alone echoes the wilderness, where Yahweh promised to stand on the rock that Moses struck so that water would gush out for his thirsty people. Paul later tells us that the rock was the Messiah (Exodus 17; 1 Corinthians 10:4).

Filling stone jars with water at his word would itself have been a prophetic sign of who Jesus is. But he does more. The water becomes wine, and a substance for cleansing takes on an entirely new character. This would have called to mind the day the mountains drip with new wine, a picture of the coming messianic reign (Joel 3:18). Jesus is announcing that God has visited his people and his Kingdom has begun. The wine also points ahead to his own wedding banquet—when his mother says there is no wine, he speaks of his "hour," and the wine becomes bound up with his blood, the life his people will one day take into themselves.

Read in order, the opening chapters of John track like a wedding service. There is the baptism and purification, the cleansing of bride and groom. Then water becomes wine at a wedding feast. Then comes the language of new birth. Jesus invites his people into a union so deep that he takes humanity into himself and gives his own life back to us, so that we might become one with God.

Born From Above: Nicodemus and the Bridegroom's Friend

Nicodemus arrives wanting to know who Jesus is, since no one could do such signs unless God were with him (John 3:2). Jesus answers that no one can even see the Kingdom of God unless they are born "again"—a phrase that also means "born from above," a double meaning that survives in English when we say "take it from the top." Nicodemus hears only the first meaning and protests that he cannot climb back into his mother's womb. Jesus presses deeper: one must be born of water and God's Spirit (John 3:5). Under the water everything chaotic and broken is buried; God's Spirit hovers over the deep; and a person rises alive, no longer by human will but in union with Jesus. This is the same pattern Peter preaches at Pentecost—"repent and be baptized," and so be rescued from a corrupt generation, just as Noah was carried safely through the flood (Acts 2:38-40).

The chapter then shows John the Baptizer's followers worried that the crowds are draining away to Jesus. John could not be more delighted. He declares that the bride belongs to the bridegroom, and that the friend of the bridegroom is filled with joy simply to hear the groom's voice. "He must become greater," John says, "I must become less" (John 3:29-30). His baptism was always preparatory, a cleansing for repentance, while Jesus' baptism both cleanses and fills with God's Spirit. The best man is not jealous when the wedding finally arrives; rejoicing is the whole point of his work. Like the six water jars at Cana, John prepared the space—but the one who brings the wine has now come.

The Seventh Husband: The Samaritan Woman at the Well

In John 4, Jesus sits down at Jacob's well in Samaria, and the location is anything but accidental. Shechem is the first place Abraham built an altar after God promised him the land—a place where God met man (Genesis 12). It was given to Joseph's blended sons, Ephraim, whose name means "fruitful," and Manasseh, an early hint that Israel's water was meant to flow outward to the nations. Yet it is also where Jeroboam later set up golden calves, making it a place of idolatry, adultery, and broken cisterns. Into this compromised ground, the living water comes.

Jesus asks the woman for a drink, an act that should remind us of Rebekah found at the well and of Elijah meeting the foreign widow (Genesis 24). Then he turns the request around and offers her water that becomes "a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:14). When he reveals that she has had five husbands and that the man she is now with is not her husband, the conversation moves seamlessly into worship, because idolatry and adultery are the same thing when God is the Husband (John 4:18). True worship, he says, will no longer be tied to this mountain or that temple, but to him: "I, the one speaking to you—I am he" (John 4:26).

There is a quiet arithmetic at work. Cana had six water jars, and John is a man of sevens. Five former husbands plus the man she is with makes six, which makes Jesus her seventh. The final marriage is offered not in Jerusalem but in adulterous Samaria, at the very well haunted by golden calves. This is the same mercy seen when the golden calf was ground into the water at Sinai and Israel failed the test of adultery, and God still forgave, cleansed, and married his unfaithful people (Exodus 32). Jesus goes to the margins of religious faithfulness and draws the compromised into his messianic Kingdom.

From Chaos Waters to Miracle Fish

At the pool of Bethesda in John 5, a man has waited years to reach the healing water and never can. He cannot make himself whole, cannot become truly human on his own. So Jesus, the living water, comes down to him and restores him on the Sabbath. This reveals something essential about the way God works: living water is moving water. The sick are never told to climb the mountain to the river. The river comes down to them.

In John 6 the water turns dangerous. A storm tosses the disciples on the sea, the only place in John where we meet the death-dealing Chaos of Genesis 1. Jesus, the Word, treads on the head of the waters and tells his terrified friends, "It is I; don't be afraid," echoing the great "I am" of Yahweh (John 6:20). As in Genesis 1 and in the days of Noah, he brings his people safely to land. This happens near Passover, just after he has fed the multitude with bread from heaven, re-enacting the Exodus and the gift of manna (John 6:4). The disciples themselves are fishermen, people who draw life up out of the waters of death every day—which is part of why the early church loved the fish as a symbol of Jesus, a life pulled out of death and then given to give life to others.

The pattern reaches its climax after the resurrection. John appears to finish his book with a clear purpose statement, and then returns once more to water and fish (John 20:30-31). The scene tracks Ezekiel, where water flows out of the restored temple and brings even the Dead Sea to life, suddenly teeming with fish (Ezekiel 47). The disciples fish all night and catch nothing, as if casting their nets into a dead sea, until the risen Jesus calls from the shore and the nets overflow. The living water has turned dead water into a place bursting with life. And Peter, who had denied him, throws himself into the water to reach him—a picture of baptism, reconciliation, and a boundary crossed to be with God.

Living Water Poured Out for the World

By the Feast of Tabernacles, Israel was pouring water down the temple steps each year, remembering the wilderness tents and longing for Ezekiel's river to flow. Into that ritual Jesus stands and cries out, "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" (John 7:37-38). Whoever receives him becomes a channel of his life—a riverbank through which God's healing reaches the world.

In John 8 water is never mentioned, yet Jesus is the water in the room. A woman is dragged before him, caught in adultery, and the old test of the unfaithful wife reappears, where holy dust and holy water exposed guilt or innocence (Numbers 5). The living water bends down and writes in the dust, then says, "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone" (John 8:7). The test now falls on everyone present, and one by one they walk away guilty. The only sinless person remains—and he does not condemn but cleanses: "Go and leave your life of sin." Here is mercy that truly removes Sin without destroying the sinner.

A chapter later, Jesus makes mud from dust and his own saliva and sends a blind man to wash in the pool of Siloam, a name that means "Sent" (John 9:7). It is a re-enactment of humanity's creation from the ground, God remaking a person and giving him eyes to see. This is exactly what Jesus told Nicodemus: no one can see the Kingdom unless they are remade from above. The light of the world gives new sight through water. And in John 13 the living water finally takes up actual water, laying aside his garments to wash his disciples' feet before taking them up again—a miniature of the whole Gospel, from incarnation to cleansing to ascension. "Unless I wash you," he tells Peter, "you have no part with me." He cleanses his people, even the ones who will betray him, so that he can dwell in and with them.

Which makes his final words over water the most astonishing of all. The living water thirsts—twice in John. He asks the Samaritan woman for a drink and receives nothing, then offers her water instead (John 4:7). On the cross he says, "I am thirsty," and again receives nothing but sour wine, and then his pierced side gushes water for the world (John 19:28, 34). The thirsty fountain has water to spare. He thirsts to be thirsted after—the Husband aching for the love of a bride who has given him only rejection. He says "I thirst" to awaken our thirst and to pour himself out for us. This is the good news the Gospel of John tells through every wave: God himself has come as living water to cleanse an unfaithful people, to join himself to us in death, and to make us fountains through whom his life flows to a dying world. Come to him and drink.

Transcript

David: [upbeat music] Well, welcome everyone to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. We are continuing our walk through the Book of John. In the last episode, we traced the theme of water through the Hebrew scriptures of the Old Testament because almost every passage of John has water in it, and we wanted to understand why water was so important to John and to Jesus and to the Biblical story. And so to that end, hopefully we were helpful to set that up last time, showing that from the beginning, water is sometimes death. It's sometimes life. It is what the world needs, which is the presence of God through the living water to create life in dead places. It is a place where God is and where His kingdom spreads out from and creating a global Garden of Eden. It's a place where husbands meet their wives at well-watered places. Anything else I'm missing there, [laughs] Christine?

Christine: It separates the righteous from the unrighteous.

David: Right. Yes.

Christine: We saw that in the flood. And-

David: It cleans

Christine: ... it cleans, yeah, which is kind of what separating righteous from unrighteous does.

David: That's right.

Christine: And yeah, the themes just stack on top of each other and appears in very surprising ways sometimes, and it was really fun to-

David: It was fun

Christine: ... go through the whole Bible just in search of water and how it functions in stories. I had never done that that concisely before.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And so that was really fun.

David: And we even, even after the episode, realized how many parts of the Old Testament we left out that reference water in really beautiful ways, 'cause it's just everywhere.

Christine: Yeah.

David: So go on a, a water hunt if you so fancy to in your Old Testament. But today we are coming back to the Gospel of John and letting all of the waves of the Old Testament crash in to [laughs] this beautiful story of how John shows us Jesus.

Christine: Hopefully we've created some helpful channels to understand-

David: Ooh

Christine: ... what John is doing with water and how Jesus is using water and talking about water because especially after going through that journey with you on how water appears in the Bible, I'm just looking at all the ways that water appears in John, and now I'm like, yeah, this is very consistent with how John was hearing and processing his Old Testament or his Bible.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And it's really fun to see that come to new life-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... in Jesus.

David: So we're gonna walk through John and see the places where water crops up. We might not touch every single place that there's water, 'cause it's everywhere, but we'll do our best to spend the time wisely in doing that and unpacking what we can. To begin with, I think it's important to revisit a bit of the prologue episode that we did that talks about the first 18 verses of John because again, the Bible begins with water in the beginning and how the spirit hovers over the face of the water when water's the problem, water is death, and the spirit, life itself, comes and brings order and fills it with life. And John introduces us to that scene again, but we're told that this word of God, this spirit of God, this life of God and light of God that brought order into chaos and life into death is Jesus himself, and that now this life has not only hovered over the waters but has now come and indwelt a new tabernacle, the flesh of humanity, and is going to bring a well-watered garden to the people that he meets, like the rivers of priests were meant to, like we talked about last time.

Christine: He is the moving temple.

David: Yeah.

Christine: The new tabernacle. He is the source of life. He is the living water. These are all things that Jesus does and says, and we see him heal next to water a lot or with water. There's just a lot to unpack.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And I'm really excited.

David: And, and so John is rooting the ministry of Jesus in the new creation water motif from the beginning.

Christine: Yes, that's right.

David: And he's showing that Jesus is going to be the location of the new creation water that's going to gush forth into the world, and so which is like we talked about at the end of the last episode, this top of the mountain where God is and from which water flows to heal the world. John is trying to show us that that is who Jesus is.

Christine: Yes, 'cause Jesus is God and man in the same place, sharing one tabernacle, one flesh.

David: Yes.

Christine: And that is Jesus, and so wherever he goes, life springs up. He is the life-giving river that Isaiah foretold and John repeats and calls out to, "Make way in the dry desert, and come into the Jordan, O people of God. Prepare yourselves to meet your God." And Jesus comes to his people in a-

David: He does

Christine: ... God-man temple way.

David: And one of the first places John shows us meeting his people is in water.

Christine: That's right. Yeah.

David: He goes to John the Baptizer-

Christine: Yes

David: ... at the Jordan River, the boundary marker of water that will separate the righteous from the wicked, life from death, the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of chaos. [laughs]

Christine: Yeah.

David: And Jesus enters into the water and is baptized by John, and what happens? Genesis 1 happens again, and he is the one over whom the spirit descends and remains, abides. He is the one that is hovered over [laughs] with the Spirit of God, and this new creation moment is signaled to us in water as Jesus goes into that water to make it a place where we can meet him.

Christine: Yeah. He cleanses the water, and he is the God in the water, over the water.

David: Mm.

Christine: So- And we know the Jordan wasn't the most sanitary of bodies of water, and a Syrian complains about that in another story [laughs] that we can't get to now, but he's like, "Why should I go get cleansed in the Jordan?"

David: Oh, Naaman?

Christine: Yes.

David: Oh, yeah. [laughs]

Christine: Yes.

David: Okay.

Christine: And the Jordan is closely connected to, again, purification, repentance throughout, you know, the whole Hebrew world. And so the fact that Jesus as God comes and enters the water, it kind of begs the question, is the water cleaning Jesus, or did Jesus just clean the water?

David: [laughs] That's right.

Christine: That is a pure river now 'cause God entered into it.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yeah.

David: So as we think about even just here, so many of the categories we set up in the last episode invade and start to take on flesh in a new way. Um-

Christine: Fascinating.

David: So we talked about the boundary marker.

Christine: Yeah.

David: Like, this is now the place if you wanna cross out of the realm of the wilderness and death and into the new Eden of life and God's kingdom, you have to come through the water of Jesus.

Christine: Yes. Yeah.

David: He is the pathway into the Promised Land.

Christine: Yeah. Come and meet your God in the water-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... is a way that you could phrase what John is inviting God's people into, and this is chapter one. So we see water appear in chapter one-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... right there with John calling people and saying who Jesus is in the water.

David: We also see water as cleansing.

Christine: Yep.

David: And so again, not cleaning Jesus, [laughs] he is clean, but he's making the water clean so it can clean us.

Christine: Yes.

David: And so we see that when we enter into the water with him, all the death that would cover us and would hand us over to water and make it our grave instead makes it salvation-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... for us.

Christine: Yes. We leave our sin in the water, waters of death, and we leave it behind and rise to meet our God in the-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... newness of life.

David: That's beautiful. I might have to back off this one. I've not thought of this before, and if you haven't listened to the last episode, I'm so sorry, but the ground beef water.

Christine: [laughs] That-

David: And if that, if you don't know what I mean, go listen to the last episode, but this is where the golden calf gets ground up-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... and put into the water that Moses makes them drink, or in Numbers 19, the red heifer, its ashes are ground up and put into water, and the first one leads to death, and the second one leads to life.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: And these are two images, one dead, one living-

Christine: Yes

David: ... that are put into water, and one has life in it, and one has death in it.

Christine: Correct.

David: And I'm just interested in this meditation to see how the image of God, the actual picture of God in the flesh, the idol of God-

Christine: What the heifer was pointing to, the living heifer.

David: That's right.

Christine: Yeah.

David: He goes and puts life in the water. [laughs]

Christine: That's right.

David: And-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... makes it something that now we can enter into and be cleaned with and take his life into ourselves.

Christine: I mean, I think that's right on track.

David: Okay.

Christine: And it's not just a water that cleanses our bodies, but like you said, it's water we ingest 'cause-

David: Mm

Christine: ... Jesus says, you know, "Everyone who thirsts, let him come to me and drink."

David: Mm.

Christine: He is the living water, the fountain that will leave you satisfied, and you will not thirst again. So long as you're there with Jesus drinking of him, you will never want for another source. And so it's, it's really beautiful.

David: Yeah. And as we're talking about baptism, it's almost impossible just to know we don't have to loop all the way back around, but to go ahead and talk about the end of John, where we see water coming out of Jesus again.

Christine: Yes.

David: And when Jesus's side is pierced, water and blood come out together-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... um, which the church has understood from the beginning.

Christine: That's communion with Jesus 'cause he said to drink his blood.

David: That's right.

Christine: And it is in baptism with him, the water-

David: That's right

Christine: ... that we are joined to him.

David: And so the water that Jesus is entering into and cleaning in his baptism is his life gushing out of his side that we actually enter into and are cleansed by.

Christine: Yes.

David: And his life covers our death, washes away our sin, and puts to death our death. We die with him on the cross, and all the death that would have put us under the flood-

Christine: Yes

David: ... is gone.

Christine: Yes.

David: And it's cleansed and washed away.

Christine: Yeah, 'cause he is also the new Adam who cleanses his bride, who comes out of his side. [laughs]

David: Oh, wow.

Christine: And it's that same idea that the new Adam, now on another tree that brings death, actually brings life 'cause it's in that death on the cross that Jesus, church is cleansed, is born, is brought to him, and it's so beautiful.

David: Okay, so we talked in the last episode [laughs] about how the waters of Eden were separated-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... and became four rivers flowing down the mountain to water the earth.

Christine: That's right.

David: And that was a prefigurement of Adam being separated and, uh, Eve being drawn out of his side.

Christine: Exactly.

David: And they then become these new, this new fount-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... that are fruitful and multiply and water the world.

Christine: Yeah, 'cause Adam is in a deep sleep when that happens. Remember?

David: Almost like death.

Christine: Yes.

David: Yes.

Christine: It's a-

David: And so-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... Jesus is the new husband, the bridegroom, which John calls him that all the time, who enters into this sleep of death and opens up his side so that though his bride might be separated and, like, created, cleansed, birthed-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... through this baptismal water-

Christine: Yes

David: ... in order to join him-

Christine: Yes

David: ... in union with him and his spirit and create life that gushes out of them in multiplication that heals the world.

Christine: Yes, and that multiplication, that, that chamber in which that happens is the tomb, but life bursts out of that.

David: Mm.

Christine: Jesus's bridal chamber is the tomb that he's then carried into, and from that comes life, resurrection from the dead, the life of the church, and your brain is breaking. [laughs]

David: I've never heard of the tomb being the bridal chamber.

Christine: You haven't? Oh, my dear friend.

David: But that follows the Jewish tradition of a wedding.

Christine: Yes, absolutely. 100%

David: This isn't a wedding episode [laughs]

Christine: [laughs]

David: But that is so-

Christine: Well, it is now

David: ... fascinating.

Christine: The, yes. Oh, it's, it's beautiful.

David: And the, and the-

Christine: It's the procession where he's laid in there, and this is why, again, like we quoted Genesis... Sorry, we are completely on a different topic.

David: Go for it.

Christine: That's related, but still, Paul points out, quoting Genesis 2, that a man leaving his father and mother and being united to his wife is a shadow of the reality-

David: Yes

Christine: ... which is Christ and His church. And this shadow is a covenant that is binding until death do us part.

David: That's right.

Christine: Which is a sh- a shadow of the reality of the true marriage, where until death do us unite.

David: Mm.

Christine: It's the eternal marriage that isn't terminated by a death, but that is consummated in that we go to be with the Lord in-

David: It's a love stronger than death.

Christine: Exactly, yes.

David: To-

Christine: Yes

David: ... quote from the Psalms.

Christine: And so Jesus goes and He takes on our flesh so that we can be one flesh with Him, and that happens at His death.

David: Wow.

Christine: And, "It is finished," is very pointed in there, and three days later, He comes out of His bridal chamber triumphant. And so all of that is packed in there-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... and very, very, very beautiful.

David: Well, and-

Christine: And who does He meet? Sorry.

David: Well, and-

Christine: I'm getting ahead of myself.

David: Well, yeah. And it's not, it's not un-foreign to the, the concept of water, the theme of water, and we're gonna get there because like we talked about in the last episode, water, well-watered places, wells, are the places where husbands, especially the patriarchs, meet their wives.

Christine: Exactly, yes.

David: And so it's all connected. It is a marriage episode. Water m-

Christine: It is

David: ... water episode is marriage episode.

Christine: Excellent segue to chapter two-

David: Let's go

Christine: ... where there is water at a wedding.

David: We're going to a wedding. See-

Christine: And Jesus is there, the bridegroom of humanity.

David: This is a wedding episode.

Christine: There we go.

David: [laughs]

Christine: Water, wedding, same thing.

David: Yes.

Christine: So-

David: Wedding of Cana, chapter two.

Christine: Exactly. That's the next time. So we're in, just in the next chapter of John, and we see water crop up again in a very powerful way because, again, we're at a wedding. Jesus is there, his mother is there, his disciples are there, and they run out of wine, which is very awkward at a wedding. But this is also the first sign that Jesus does when he turns the water into wine, and filling up water jars of purification, no less, to do it.

David: That's right. There's these six jars of water, and they're used for the Jewish rites of cleansing, which is what we talked about in the last episode, how water is for cleansing. It separates the unclean from the clean, the righteous from the unrighteous, dead things from living things. And, like, imagine having dirty hands, and all that pollution is on them.

Christine: Yeah.

David: You put them under the water. It separates-

Christine: Exactly, yeah

David: ... the unclean from the clean.

Christine: Yes.

David: And so this was a very normal thing to do, and they were washing their hands and their plates and dishes and silverware-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... and everything.

Christine: Yeah. There's a whole cleansing process for... I mean, hopefully we also wash up and clean up before going to a wedding or any important event.

David: Mm.

Christine: But for, yeah, the Jewish customs of wedding, there, th- there'd be these huge jars that they would fill up with water and use for purification. And these water jars in John 2 are set aside and empty because the wedding is already underway. People are-

David: Everything's already been cleaned.

Christine: Yeah, people are celebrating. They're cleaned, and then wine runs out, and Jesus says, "Fill those jars up again."

David: Yes.

Christine: And he-

David: And so they're filled with water.

Christine: Yes.

David: Number one, he's getting ready to do a new cleaning.

Christine: Yeah, but he's God who provides water.

David: Mm, what do you mean?

Christine: Well, it just reminds me of water in the wilderness. He, these are, it says that they are stone jars, right?

David: Oh, it does.

Christine: And so there's no water or wine when Mary comes and says they have no wine, and Jesus immediately thinks of his own wedding.

David: Yes.

Christine: "My hour has not yet come." So he equivocates wine with his own wedding.

David: Yes.

Christine: Which is his, that, yeah, it's beautiful. But the stone jars are empty, and Jesus says, "Fill them up with water," which the servants do.

David: So let me read between the lines here, Christine. Are you talking about the water from the rock?

Christine: Yes.

David: Oh, man.

Christine: Because Yahweh-

David: Which we did not talk about in the last episode.

Christine: We, we did not, and I was thinking, we talked about how the word of the Lord comes-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... to people, and it's uncanny how, how does a word come and/or appear in a vision? Like, that's a visible-

David: That's right

Christine: ... manifestation of-

David: Right. The word is a person-

Christine: Yes

David: ... who visits people.

Christine: And God says he's going to stand on the rock that Moses strikes and water gushes out. And so there is Yahweh standing at the [laughs] He, you just went cross-eyed.

David: Sorry.

Christine: [laughs]

David: Keep going, keep going.

Christine: He stands on the rock, and Moses strikes it, and water gushes out to water his bride, his people, give them water. So I see a lot of those themes surfacing here, and Jesus is, again, present with his people, and there is a need. It's not water this time, but he uses water. He fills stone with water, and then he draws out wine.

David: Wow.

Christine: Which is, I think, supposed to remind us of water in the wilderness maybe.

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: Um, 'cause it's the same God doing the same, or a similar miracle, but it's also foreshadowing his banquet, his wedding banquet. So-

David: Yeah, because-

Christine: That's what I'm seeing. What are you seeing?

David: Well, I'm just thinking about how, I think, is it Paul who says that rock is Christ?

Christine: Yes.

David: Yes.

Christine: The rock followed them. Yes, mm-hmm.

David: Yeah. [laughs] And so, I mean, it's not a, not a big swing there to when we're told that the rock is Jesus.

Christine: No.

David: And yeah, when he is pierced and struck, water comes out of him, and that provides both water and blood, water and wine for-

Christine: Yes

David: ... his, his people-

Christine: Yes, 'cause when we-

David: ... for the wedding

Christine: ... we partake of his blood, it's wine.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yeah. It's, his blood is wine, so.

David: And so he fills these rock jars with wilderness miracle water, [laughs] and but that's not even the miracle at this point. This could have, that alone could have been a, like we talked about in our, our sign episode, that alone could have been a prophetic sign act of Jesus through his word as the word in the flesh saying, "Fill stone jars with water."

Christine: Yes.

David: And that-

Christine: And there was water. They weren't out of water, but-

David: No

Christine: ... yeah.

David: But that alone could have been a prophetic sign-

Christine: Yes

David: ... of Let me show you who I am who I said I am.

Christine: That's, that's true. Yeah.

David: That alone would've been a sign.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: Um, but then he performs a miracle, [laughs] a wonder, which elevates the sign.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And the water turns to wine, and the water, which is for healing and cleansing and all these things that we talk about, takes on a new characteristic, and it becomes a different thing. It becomes wine. What's significant about that transformation other than water and blood is that that's the main idea, but there's also... Oh, I'm thinking about Joel when the mountains drip with... Is it sweet wine? Is that Joel?

Christine: Yeah.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yeah, which this, this would've reminded people of, yeah, Joel 3:18, where it says, "The mountains will drip with new wine," and that is signaling the messianic reign-

David: Mm

Christine: ... which that is who Jesus is. He is God come to His people. He is the Christ, the son of David, and He has visited His people, and His kingdom is beginning. And I think, and I just noticed this, but even the progression of water in the first three chapters of John are very much hinting at, like, the wedding ceremony-

David: Yeah, big time

Christine: ... or service because we have the baptism, the purification, the cleansing. Let bride and groom be cleansed-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... purified. Let water become wine [laughs] which is at, literally occurs at a wedding, and then after that, Jesus talks about new birth and-

David: Hmm

Christine: ... life through the Spirit and being born of water and the Spirit.

David: Right.

Christine: That seems to track with the sequence. [laughs]

David: It does, and at a wedding, providing wine that is connected to Jesus's blood.

Christine: Yes, which He identifies as-

David: Yes

Christine: ... yeah, my time is nigh come.

David: And, and he tells us in John 6 and then at the institution of The Lord's Supper, the church's practice forever is taking His life into yourself-

Christine: Yes

David: ... which is what a husband and wife do on their wedding night-

Christine: Hmm

David: ... is they share their lives together to create new life.

Christine: Yeah, and that is what points to God and His bride-

David: Hmm

Christine: ... His church, and so it's that prayer that Jesus prays in John 17 as well. I in them, you in me, and that's the true unity that is being inaugurated with even the incarnation, God and man run.

David: Run, yes.

Christine: And is what we are being brought into-

David: Mm

Christine: ... and which is why we are called the Body of Christ. We came from His s- Like, it's, it's one flesh every single-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... way, in ways that just can't even be described.

David: Which does set up nicely and help us understand the next time water is mentioned in John 3 with Nicodemus because we're talking about how to be born again or born from above.

Christine: Yes.

David: How do I bring the life of God into myself? [laughs] And we, we've talked, we, we've seen here, well, it's going to be through this marriage of heaven and Earth. It's going to be through God taking man into Himself-

Christine: Yes

David: ... and then letting Himself into man-

Christine: Yes

David: ... through this blood wine that we-

Christine: Yes

David: ... His life blood that we take into ourselves.

Christine: Yes, and what is the invitation? Why did John write this? That you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His name.

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: Why does he want that? As good as a proposal at this point because to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, children born out of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. This is John 1:12.

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: The way we are joined to God's life, the way we become one with Him is through receiving Him and believing in His name.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And that is how we become what He is.

David: And this is the mystery that Jesus presents to Nicodemus when he comes to Him. Nicodemus comes to Him, and He's like, "Okay, what's the deal, Jesus?"

Christine: Yeah.

David: "No one can do what you're doing, these signs and wonders and miracles, unless God is with them, so who are you?" And then He t- starts talking about, "Well, you're not gonna understand who I am because you haven't been born from above yet." And they get into this discourse. N- Nicodemus misunderstands Him. He's like, "Well, I can't be born again," and there's a funny double entendre happening there, where the Greek word for born from above is-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... the same word as again.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: It means, like, from the top. It actually works in English. That double entendre works in English. To say take that from the top is to-

Christine: Oh, yeah. It's like-

David: ... do that again.

Christine: Yeah, repeat it.

David: Repeat that.

Christine: That's cool. Uh-huh.

David: And so the same thing's happening in Greek here, and so Jesus says to him, "Very truly I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God without being taken from the top." [laughs]

Christine: Hmm.

David: And he's like, "Well, you mean again or from above?" And-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... Nicodemus misunderstands Him. "I can't go back into my mother and be born again." And Jesus is like, "That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about this mystery of receiving the water of God and being literally born in the Spirit again and taking the life of heaven into yourself like Adam again and being remade-

Christine: Yes

David: ... as heaven and Earth joined together."

Christine: Yes, yes. It's powerfully mysterious, and it goes again to show that this is not natural descent that warrants being born from above. It's being born of God is receiving His Spirit, believing in His name, joining Jesus in His mission and in His life in the world, and which we also touched on is kind of how John talks about salvation in his gospel. It's receiving and abiding in Jesus.

David: Mm-hmm, and he's-

Christine: So-

David: ... inviting Nicodemus and, and through John's [laughs] report of it, everyone who would hear to enter the waters of baptism and to be-

Christine: Hmm

David: ... born again-

Christine: Yes

David: ... to be born from above-

Christine: Yes

David: ... out of it-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... and which is awesome that that is a double entendre, and I think actually that is probably the main focus that Jesus is, is having here 'cause it's about being able to see things not from an earthly perspective but from a heavenly perspective.

Christine: That's right. Mm.

David: And He's like, "Well, you're not gonna be able to understand the things of heaven if you don't even-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... understand the things of Earth."

Christine: Yeah.

David: And so He's like, "You need to be born from above in order to understand the things from above."

Christine: Yeah.

David: And so, you know, I don't know if you've ever heard the phrase, like, a born-again Christian.

Christine: Yes, I have.

David: But, so it's a very common phrase, but a, a better way to talk about it would probably be a born from above Christian.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: Is, and 'cause that's what He's talking about. You're born of water. You go under the water, under the flood, where everything that is chaotic and evil and broken sloughs off and dies and is buried. How does life then enter you from there? Well, the spirit hovers over the water-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... and you're born in the spirit [laughs]

Christine: Yeah

David: ... and you come out alive-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... not born of human mortal will anymore, but because you're united with Jesus. And I think about Paul in Galatians 2:20, who talks about this in the exact same way. I've been crucified with Christ. I died with him.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: I don't live anymore. It's no longer I who live. Well then, how am I alive?

Christine: Christ lives in me.

David: The life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Christine: Mm.

David: I'm alive 'cause I'm united with Christ.

Christine: Yes. And it reminds me of how we talked about in Acts 2, Peter's call to the crowds right after, you know, the Holy Spirit-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... ushers in a new creation again, and the call is, "Repent and be baptized. Repent and be baptized." Because in that way, you will save yourself from this corrupt generation, which is-

David: Like Noah

Christine: ... you know, reminiscent of, yeah, language around Noah, who was also saved by a flood from a wicked and corrupt generation.

David: Mm.

Christine: It's the same re-enactment. It's the same participation of you want to live with God, you have to die to the corrupt generation and be raised to life with Him.

David: There's so much here.

Christine: It's beautiful. [laughs]

David: We have to keep going, though.

Christine: Okay.

David: But we're gonna have to stay on, have to, get to stay on [laughs] the topic of baptism because we see this split, and I don't mean that in a bad way. I think of it more in multiplication. Uh, I don't know, separation of the waters, separation of Adam [laughs] and Eve.

Christine: [laughs] Yeah.

David: I don't know if I'm reading too much into it, but John moves to a different territory and continues baptizing people. Can-

Christine: John the Baptist

David: ... John the Baptist-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... thank you, continues baptizing people because he's now going to a new place because the Messiah has showed up where he was proclaiming the ministry and preparing the way for the Messiah. Well, now he's going to prepare it in a new place-

Christine: Yes

David: ... because he wants to call more people to him. But the issue is less and less people are listening to John and going under his baptism, and more and more people are starting to follow Jesus and are being baptized by his disciples.

Christine: Yes.

David: And, uh, like, there's this-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... concern that people bring up to John, and they're like, "People are going after the Messiah now, are going after Jesus and not you. Aren't you concerned about that?" [laughs]

Christine: Yeah, and John is very much okay with that, shockingly.

David: Yeah, he's like, "That's the whole point." [laughs]

Christine: Yes, yes. He is very excited, in fact, about more people joining Jesus and being baptized by him and his disciples, and his response is very humble-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... and very... I'll just stick with humble.

David: Yeah.

Christine: He knows who he is in the story, and he says as much. He acknowledges to his hearers that they themselves know from his own mouth that he is not the Christ and that the bride belongs to the bridegroom, and the friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. "That joy is mine," says John, "and it is now complete. He must become greater. I must become less."

David: This is the wedding episode.

Christine: This is, [laughs] this is the wedding episode.

David: [laughs]

Christine: We talked-

David: Every time we talk about water, we have to talk about a wedding

Christine: ... we talked for an hour about water throughout the Bible so that we can-

David: Talk about a wedding

Christine: ... talk about a wedding in John. [laughs]

David: It's fascinating.

Christine: [laughs]

David: But it's true. The baptizer sa- says, "Oh, I'm not just a baptizer dealing in water. I am the groom's best friend-

Christine: Yes

David: ... at the wedding."

Christine: Yes.

David: "That's who I am."

Christine: "I'm helping ... Yes, I'm helping get the bride ready, and I am all for the groom's joy here. His joy is mine, and so I am not upset about the bridegrow- going to her groom."

David: That's right.

Christine: "That's the whole reason why I'm here."

David: And he says, not only is this a humble thing that he's saying, "I must decrease, he must increase," it's also talking about his ministry of baptism-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... versus Jesus' ministry of baptism.

Christine: Yeah.

David: "My ministry of baptism must decrease because I am cleansing for repentance. His is different. He is cleansing and filling with the Holy Spirit."

Christine: Yes.

David: "Mine is preparatory. His is f- absolute fulfillment-

Christine: Yes

David: ... because the purpose was not just to clean the world, but to have the world clean so that God could come and dwell-

Christine: Yes

David: ... in it and create Eden with man."

Christine: Yes. The-

David: "I can't do that by myself."

Christine: Yeah.

David: "The husband has to come."

Christine: Yes. The point is not just to clean the space, but to prepare the space for the groom, and so, yeah. And so John is just exuberant.

David: Yeah, he's like, "The wedding's happening. Why would I be upset?"

Christine: Yeah.

David: "I've been spending all this time preparing for the wedding day-

Christine: Yes

David: ... and now it's here, and you're like, 'Hey, you're not the center of attention anymore.' And I'm like, 'Yeah, I was never meant to be. I was just preparing-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... for the groom.' The groom was always the center of attention.

Christine: Yeah.

David: The, the bride and the groom, the wedding is the center of attention."

Christine: Yeah. "I've been crying out in the desert this whole time."

David: "Get ready for the wedding."

Christine: Yes, and so why would I be upset that the groom has arrived?

David: Yeah.

Christine: God has come and visited his people. This is, again, messianic language, and God as groom and Israel as bride is also just interwoven throughout the Bible.

David: Oh, definitely.

Christine: And so we won't go down that trail, but-

David: What's interesting holding this story next to Cana, and you have people coming to a wedding, getting prepared, washing and cleaning themselves in these six jars, and then the husband comes.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And actually, that becomes the center of attention.

Christine: Yes.

David: And John's like, "I was the one with the water jars-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... but the one who provides the wine is here now."

Christine: That's a good way to put it.

David: You know what I mean?

Christine: Yeah.

David: Like, it just, they're talking to each other-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... in some really cool ways.

Christine: Yeah.

David: Okay. Now-

Christine: Very cool

David: ... John 4.

Christine: Now it's John 4, which-

David: Again, we're gonna have-

Christine: Wedding, water

David: ... wedding water again.

Christine: Wedding is water. Water is wedding.

David: [laughs]

Christine: What are we gonna do?

David: This is, this is what we've learned.

Christine: Yep.

David: So Jesus comes, of all places, to a well, and a well in Samaria.

Christine: Yeah, and to Jacob's well.

David: Jacob's well.

Christine: So He's getting married, right?

David: I mean, that would be the pattern-

Christine: Okay

David: ... that we're setting up here, and it's also really interesting where He's coming. He's coming to this well. It's Jacob's well. This is in the land of Shechem.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: Um-

Christine: Oh, yes. You love this meditation. [laughs]

David: I did do a deep Shechem dive. I won't go all into it, but just to set up the well properly, Shechem is the first place that Abraham builds an altar, um, after being called by God in Genesis 12.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: That's the first place God meets him after his... He, he says, "Hey, I'll show you where you're gonna live." And then he comes to Shechem, and God says, "I'm gonna give you this land." And so he builds an altar there. So this is the first place that Abraham comes and sets his foot that God promises him. So this land is extremely important in the history of Israel and their, their land promises.

Christine: It's tied to God meeting man.

David: It is.

Christine: It's a place where God met man.

David: That's right.

Christine: Fascinating.

David: Yes. And so Jacob then ends up buying this land from the Shechemites and purchases it for 100 pieces of currency. But-

Christine: [laughs] Pieces of currency.

David: That's a, that's a, a newer translation, but, uh, some of the older translations, I think the King James, just 100 lambs.

Christine: Oh, that's right.

David: Right?

Christine: Yeah. And it's hard to know what that word means.

David: Means now.

Christine: Yeah.

David: It's a very old word. The only other place it appears is in Job-

Christine: Wow

David: ... when it's not referencing this story two times. So Jacob gives this land to Joseph and his two children that he had in Egypt, Ephraim and Manasseh. It's interesting already to see, like these are not children that Joseph had with his family from a wife he took from his own people, but from Egypt.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: And so there's this mixed multitude thing happening here, and this blended state of Shechem is already being hinted at, and that's the land that's given to Ephraim and Manasseh, these blended children who are meant to represent the blessing, the water of Israel flowing out to the nations.

Christine: Yeah, because Ephraim even means fruitful.

David: Oh, cool.

Christine: 'Cause Joseph says when he's born, "God has made me fruitful in a foreign land."

David: Mm.

Christine: And so Ephraim being fruitful and becomes one of the largest clans in Israel is all stacking onto this idea of fruitfulness. Even Joseph's name means adding on, and-

David: Oh

Christine: ... because Jacob, or sorry, uh, Rachel, when Joseph was born, asked that God add another son, which she does get.

David: Right.

Christine: So there's this multiplication upon multiplication-

David: Mm

Christine: ... going on in connection with these patriarchs, these people.

David: Which is who Israel, God's people, were meant to be. They were meant to be-

Christine: That's right

David: ... this fruitful and multiplying, watering force that brought Eden flourishing to the world.

Christine: That's right, yeah.

David: And so that's happening. But this land ends up getting compromised. It is the place that Jeroboam goes to after David and Solomon's reigns, and he ends up going up to Shechem and founding a new temple there with the two golden calves.

Christine: They're golden calves again.

David: They're back.

Christine: Symbolizing unfaithfulness and-

David: Are we gonna have ground beef water again? [laughs]

Christine: ... wording. Well.

David: He sets up two golden calves there in Shechem. So yes, the golden calves-

Christine: Yes

David: ... are back.

Christine: So the unfaithful wife of God, the adultery sl- slash idolatry is back.

David: That's it.

Christine: And this is where Jesus sits down by a well that's grounded in patriarchal history and also polluted and defiled by Israel's adultery against God, Jesus.

David: Yes, you've nailed it. Yeah.

Christine: And this is where he sits down and meets a woman.

David: Yes. So it's just so cool to see the history here-

Christine: It's loaded, yeah

David: ... of why is all of this happening and what's going on.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And so it is a place of adultery, but it's also a place of a patriarch, and water's there.

Christine: And promise.

David: Uh, it makes me think of the Bathsheba story again that we talked about last episode-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... where when there's water, things aren't clear-cut. Sometimes water's death, sometimes water's life. Is Samaria good? Is Samaria bad? Is it blended?

Christine: It's 1,000.

David: Is it ancestral? What is it?

Christine: Yeah, and God meets man here.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And that's gonna happen again. And God and man were meant to be one, but there's a problem of idolatry.

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: There's polluted waters. There are wells that were good but had become polluted. The prophets go into that, broken cisterns and all that instead of Yahweh-

David: Exactly right

Christine: ... the living water. And so it's very, very poignant that Jesus comes. First of all, the fact that he as a Jew is going through Samaria is already crazy, and John highlights that-

David: Yes, he does

Christine: ... in his account in John 4.

David: So Jesus comes to her and asks her for water.

Christine: Yes. So he asks her to give her- him a drink, and-

David: Which is something that Isaac's servant does at the well. He says, "Whoever I ask for water and draws water for me and my camels-

Christine: Yes

David: ... will be the wife that God has chosen for my master."

Christine: Yes, and Elijah asks a Sidonian woman for a drink also-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... in a foreign land, in a compromised land. Elijah and idolatry were always head-on-head, and he's a paradigmatic prophet in the time of unfaithful Israel.

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: And John the Baptist is the new Elijah here. So these are all [laughs] categories-

David: Wow

Christine: ... that are getting stacked on, and the idea that, yeah, Jesus asks a woman for a drink, it should remind us of Rebekah-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... and how she was found. It should remind us of Elijah and the woman who's not an Israelite that he converses with. And then this whole thing about God meeting man, Shechem, compromised fidelity, compromised waters-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... and, and yet that is where people meet their brides. What is happening in this-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... passage? [laughs]

David: Yeah, and just thinking about, oh, no, we're back at waters where the golden calves were-

Christine: Oh, wow

David: ... and the test of adultery.

Christine: Yes.

David: And this woman is adulterous.

Christine: Yes, yes, and it's, it's just crazy.

David: It is.

Christine: There's so much going on.

David: There's so much going on. So-

Christine: And the woman is shocked too. [laughs]

David: She is shocked. She's like, "Uh, what are you doing?"

Christine: "Why are you talking to me?"

David: So he asks her for water. She responds-

Christine: "You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan. You ask me for a drink?" 'Cause Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

David: Yeah.

Christine: So.

David: And then he turns it back around on her and says, "If you knew who was asking, you would have actually asked me for water, and you would have never thirsted again."

Christine: Yes. "He would have given you living water."

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: And the woman, who has a jar with her, and Jesus does not, says, "You have nothing to draw with. How can you give this living water?" And Jesus leans in and says, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

David: So here we go.

Christine: So-

David: There, you have this woman who is in the land of Shechem, which is associated with a broken cistern, which are, is, is, is this thing where still-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... water rests, and then that's a cistern. It's not living water. It's not moving water. It's still, stagnant water, but it's a broken cistern, so it can't even hold the water that it's meant to hold. And so sh- she and her people are all thirsty. [laughs]

Christine: Yes.

David: They need living water to come drive out and, and, and destroy in like a flood the idolatry and the evil and the wickedness that's in their land-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... but also needs to be saved from it-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... like in the ark. [laughs]

Christine: Yeah, their idolatry and adultery separates them from God.

David: That's right.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And yet this, this is the one that Jesus is coming to, and he's offering living water, which, as we've talked about, means, "I will marry you. I will bring myself into you, and I will take your death away, clean you up, and put my own life inside of you, and you will have living water bursting forth from you. You'll be freed from this-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... death world that you're in of Genesis 1 and brought into life and Eden world of Genesis 2."

Christine: It's an Eden picture too.

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: Like, yes, and to what you said, living water flowing out is a symbol of Eden. Like, you're gonna be a mountain that's just gushing the presence of God and life all over the place. And even at a more face value level, the idea of having water that will satisfy you forever is very appealing [laughs] to this woman, who, by the way, was just asked for, for a drink, but now she asks Jesus for a drink and says, "Sir, give me this water so I don't have to keep coming to this well to drink." And then adultery and idolatry come up because Jesus says, "Go and call your husband." And this is where we learn that, oh, she actually... And Jesus knows well [laughs] because he is her God. He knows that she has had five husbands already, and the man she's now with is not her husband.

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: To which the woman seems to change the subject, but-

David: She does not. Yeah

Christine: ... as we said, idolatry and adultery are one and one when we talk about God, the husband of humanity.

David: Yeah, the Samaritans were waiting for a prophet like Moses. You can read some of their, their, um, their literature. They were waiting for a prophet like Moses, and the sign of his coming would be that he would be able to prophesy things that were occurring right now, that he would know the unseen things and be able to call-

Christine: Mm.

David: .. them out-

Christine: Wow

David: ... and prove that he was who he said he was. And so she's like, "Okay, I know this is someone who is from God-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... 'cause he's seeing the unseen and calling it out. Maybe this is even the prophet that our texts speak of-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... that we've been waiting for, the prophet like Moses from the Torah." And so she asks him where the true temple is because after the Ezra-Nehemiah debacle [laughs] and all the stuff that was happening with Sanballat and all the things when E- when, when Israel came back to the land to build a temple that hasn't gushed forth water yet. A lot of people in the S- in the Samaritan region go and build a rival temple on Mount Gerizim. And so thinking about water in our [laughs] again, w- we're going, "Where is the life of God, the presence of God, the healing purposes of God going to usher forth from? Is it going to be from this temple or from the one in Jerusalem that Jews claimed?" And Jesus is saying, "No, I am the temple. I am the, the, the water of life. I am the spirit. I am the, the one who has life in himself." And he's, he's saying, "It's not going to be in that place or your place anymore. It is going to be whoever is in me-

Christine: Yeah, it's-

David: ... is going to have this life."

Christine: We're gonna have unadulterated worship. [laughs]

David: [laughs] Yeah, that's right.

Christine: Quite, quite literally, and the woman said, "Well, I know when Messiah comes, he will explain everything." And that's where Jesus reveals himself again. "I am the one who is he." Or, "I who speak-

David: Yeah, the one you're waiting for.

Christine: "Yeah, I who speak to you," and he, and then the woman leaves her jar and goes and-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... tells her neighbors, "This person told me everything I ever did. Could he be the Christ?"

David: Right.

Christine: 'Cause again, as you said, they're waiting for a prophet who would be like Moses and tell them the hidden things.

David: Everything they've ever done. [laughs]

Christine: Yep. And so-

David: And so there's a cool thing happening here. She leaves the water jar, which I think we might have mentioned in an- an earlier episode, but it bears repeating. You had your six jars at the wedding of Cana.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And where's the seventh one?

Christine: Yeah, we were almost ready for Jesus's wedding 'cause those were filled up, and then wine was doled out. But it looks like maybe this isn't. We're still ... 'Cause John is a man of sevens.

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: And so if there are six jars, we should probably find another one. And if you're doing the math, the woman had, Jesus reveals to her that he knows that she has had five husbands, and the man she is now with is not her husband.

David: That's six.

Christine: So that would be six men in this woman's life, making Jesus her seventh.

David: That's right.

Christine: And-

David: So the seventh jar is left with her seventh husband in order to-

Christine: And finally

David: ... celebrate a final marriage. And provocatively-

Christine: Yes

David: ... John is painting this picture not in Jerusalem-

Christine: Yes

David: ... but in the adulterous waters of Samaria.

Christine: Because that is the kind of wife that God takes to himself.

David: You know what's cool to think about this with golden calves in Shechem at water, adulterous. This is like what we talked about with the golden calf at Mount Sinai in the last episode. The golden calf is ground up, put in the water, and the people drink it in a test of adultery. And they fail the test of adultery, and death starts to break out. But God in his mercy still forgives, covers, pursues, cleanses, marries this people.

Christine: Yeah. He still brings them into the promised land.

David: That's right.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And now again, he finds, in order to, to ... Who does he choose to share the seventh jar with?

Christine: A Samaritan woman.

David: A Samaritan adulterous woman.

Christine: Where does he get down on one knee- [laughs]

David: Yeah

Christine: ... as, to speak-

David: In Shechem

Christine: ... modernly.

David: In Shechem-

Christine: I-

David: ... where Jeroboam left Jerusalem and went and built golden calves, and this is the place of adultery. This is a place of idolatry.

Christine: Oh.

David: This w- this place was destroyed by Assyria way before Jerusalem was.

Christine: Yeah.

David: That was the, this is the worst place.

Christine: It is.

David: And that's where Jesus proposes.

Christine: Lots of, lots of wounds in Shechem.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yeah.

David: Yeah, because Jesus's water can clean anything. [laughs]

Christine: Can clean the- Deepest wounds. Yeah

David: Yeah, he can bring life out of the-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... deepest, darkest waters-

Christine: Yes

David: ... of death

Christine: So Jesus goes to the outskirts, to the margins of religious fidelity and goes to the compromised and draws them into His messianic kingdom.

David: Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, the next time we see water is in chapter five with the healing of the man at the pool of Bethesda, but we actually did spend quite a bit of time talking about that in the signs episode.

Christine: We did.

David: So I don't wanna over repeat too many things here, just to leave room for things we haven't got to talk about yet.

Christine: Yeah, sure.

David: But is there anything that you feel like we've- w- now that we've gone through the water motif that we've left on the table here that we need to make sure we pick up on, on our journey?

Christine: I think the point we made there is worth repeating in brief, at least here, that the problem the man had w- was that he could not get to the healing water.

David: Mm.

Christine: He could not become whole. He could not be cleansed, purified. He could not be truly human, and so Jesus, the living water, comes to him and restores his humanity, which is what the incarnation does. It unites humanity to God and heals humanity in profound ways, and this is a picture of that. It's a sign that we talked about in more detail, but-

David: Oh

Christine: ... that's what I recall. But-

David: Oh, it's so good. It makes me think, too, of th- the rivers of water flowing out.

Christine: Yes

David: That it's never a climb up the mountain-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... and come to me. The-

Christine: The river comes down to you

David: ... the river comes down to you.

Christine: Yes, yes, and that's when we hear living water. That's what we understand, or living water is moving water, water that moves, like in a river, 'cause water that's a puddle will run out. Water that can't move, that's ... Even water in a jar isn't going anywhere. You will have to crawl your way to a pool-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... or to a jar. But-

David: Living water is moving water

Christine: ... living water comes to you.

David: And Jesus is the living water who moves-

Christine: Yes, he is

David: ... to the dead, broken, unclean, unrighteous places

Christine: Yeah, those who cannot bring themselves to-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... have a drink or to be healed. Jesus comes and-

David: And turns them into new creation, new humanity-

Christine: Yes

David: ... Garden of Eden, founts of water themselves

Christine: And He does that on the Sabbath, the seventh day, 'cause John is a man of seven.

David: That's right.

Christine: And new creation comes to this man in the form of the living water, who is Jesus.

David: Beautiful.

Christine: So wonderful, but-

David: Wonderful

Christine: ... we can-

David: As we get to chapter-

Christine: Speaking of water walking. [laughs]

David: Yeah. S- oh, stop it. Speaking of water walking to us, let's talk about Jesus walking on water. Yes.

Christine: Da-da-da.

David: Oh, that is fun. Yes, as we come to chapter six, we encounter water in a slightly different way.

Christine: Yeah, this is, unless I'm missing one, this might be unique in-

David: Yeah, this is-

Christine: ... how water functions

David: ... this is bad water.

Christine: Yeah, this is chaotic water. Genesis 1 water that needs to be-

David: This is Genesis 1 water

Christine: ... conquered.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yeah.

David: I'm like, now I'm starting to see a little bit of bad water in the Shechem idols and the well. I'm like, okay, the test-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... of adultery. There's something there.

Christine: Yeah.

David: But this is, I think, unless, like you said, unless we've missed something, which let us know if you did by sending us an email at [email protected] or going to speakpipe.com/spokengospel to share your comment with us. We wanna hear from you. If we haven't missed something, this is where we see chaos water in John. I think the only place we see chaos water, the primordial death, dangerous problem waters-

Christine: Yes

David: ... of Genesis 1.

Christine: Yes, this is the water of Galilee that turns into a storm and endangers Jesus's disciples who are in a boat at sea.

David: Mm.

Christine: So you have humanity in danger. You could say the beloved of Jesus is being tossed by the storm and the chaos water, and so Jesus, the Word who was in the beginning, comes in full control of the chaos and walks up to His terrified disciples and proclaims to them, "Don't be afraid. It is I," which is a claim of I am Yahweh, basically.

David: Yeah

Christine: It's the I am.

David: The I am statement.

Christine: Yes.

David: And He's doing this by trampling death with life.

Christine: Yes. He is life.

David: He is, He is the living water walking on top of death water.

Christine: Chaotic water.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yeah.

David: He is bringing authority, order, life on top of and over the chaos waters of Genesis 1.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And He's going to safely bring His people to land and life and make that separation again in a kind of what sounds like in John's account, in kind of a miraculous way. Uh, instead of just calming the waters, Jesus treads on the head of the water, comes to His disciples, says, "I am He," and they're all of a sudden safely on land again. And it's almost like Genesis 1, where the Word of God comes over the water-

Christine: Mm

David: ... and brings His people to land. [laughs]

Christine: Yeah

David: Out, and puts a boundary between the safety of land for His people and the boundaries of the chaos waters, and He is the Word of God who accomplishes that new creation out of the primordial waters.

Christine: That's really good. Yeah, I love that. It's a bit like Noah, too, 'cause God-

David: That's right. They're in a boat. He keeps them safe.

Christine: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

David: Brings them to a new land.

Christine: Yeah.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Oh, that's really good.

David: But there's other things going on here.

Christine: Yes. The walking on water, it occurs right after Jesus feeds the 5,000, so it's a repeat of the Exodus story, which we were talking about how that is creating boundaries. That's a water that is a baptism of sorts, and it happens at Passover, too, if I'm not mistaken, or right around Passover. John 6:4 says, "The Jewish Passover feast was near," and then we read the story of this multitude coming to Yahweh quickly, and they need to eat something. And so Jesus gives them food miraculously. There's this meal He shares with them around Passover that's miraculous.

David: Mm.

Christine: And then He sends His people across the sea and, as you just told us, gets them across safely, and He walks across the water as on dry ground.

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: And then that takes us to the next discourse of, well, what is this p- Bread from heaven. What is this manna? Which again repeats the Sinai story-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... of God feeding his people. And so Jesus is walking through the steps of the Exodus and showing that he is God who covenanted at Mount Sinai to love his people no matter what, and he is doing the same thing again, and is saving them from the chaos waters that threaten to end their life.

David: Yeah.

Christine: So it's beautiful.

David: He's pulling people, he's pulling life out of water and death.

Christine: Yeah.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And the, a lot of these are fishermen too, which that's what they do all the time, right? [laughs]

David: You told me this and it blew my mind. Do you wanna s- share it or will you give me the joy of sharing this wonderful thing that you told me?

Christine: Make my joy complete.

David: Okay. This is just a little side note in, in water is, as you showed me, fishermen draw life out of death all the time because the waters of death and chaos that you can't go and live under, that's not habitable space for a human, but you go fish, and you plumb the depths, and you pull out life that you take into yourself [laughs] and live, is just a beautiful picture of death and resurrection out of the waters.

Christine: Yes.

David: And these are the kinds of people that Jesus used to take his message of resurrection from the dead, and life from death, and land and Eden from the chaos waters to the world. He used fishermen who pull life out of death all the time.

Christine: Yeah. He draws the world in through the fishermen's nets.

David: It's so cool.

Christine: It's beautiful.

David: [laughs]

Christine: And Christianity has long considered the fish as a symbol of Christ.

David: Yes.

Christine: Not just because the Greek word for fish-

David: Ichthys

Christine: ... is an, is an acronym for, you know, declaration about Jesus, but they were aware that, yeah, a fish is a life that is drawn out of death and then gives its life to give life to others.

David: Yes.

Christine: And they just saw Jesus in that image.

David: While we're on the topic of fish, fish are mentioned in water in a really crazy story at the end of John. While we're on the topic, let's just see how those talk to each other. So what, what happens after Jesus' resurrection, after what I feel like should be the big, grand finale of John, he even, like, ends his book, he's like, "Let me tell you about the purpose of this book," at the end of chapter 20, verse 30.

Christine: Yeah.

David: This is why I wrote the book.

Christine: Mm.

David: And then we jump back to water-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... and we see fish.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And i- if you're just reading it without the themes of the Bible in your head, it can feel like a strange appendage.

Christine: Yeah. It's like-

David: But it's actually John's proof sign, [laughs] if you want to, that shows that Jesus is who he said he is and who John has been setting him up to be. So what's going on just w- with the fish in the water here?

Christine: Yeah. Well, just a few things I'm noticing in this, what appears to be a diminuendo after the grand resurrection-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... and the thesis statement, is that John is tracking Ezekiel themes. To mention just a few, Jesus is the resurrected temple.

David: Yes.

Christine: And he-

David: The one that Ezekiel promised would come.

Christine: Yes. Ezekiel's book ends with this beautiful, beautiful description of a Sabbath temple-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... and built upon keeping the Sabbath, and Sabbath rest, and all that, and you can go and listen to the Ezekiel episode 'cause it's beautifully unpacked there. But what happens here is retelling what comes out of that temple in Ezekiel.

David: That's right.

Christine: Because it's-

David: Which we talked about at the end of our last episode.

Christine: Yes, yes. There's water gushing out and, yeah, not surprisingly 'cause it's Eden, it's God dwelling with his people-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... and it's filling places of death with life.

David: Yes.

Christine: And in Ezekiel you read that even the Dead Sea, a place that's been dead as dead for centuries-

David: Yes

Christine: ... suddenly is filled with fish and-

David: Like the, the-

Christine: ... is bursting with life

David: ... the water from the temple goes into the Red Sea-

Christine: Yes

David: ... and transforms it.

Christine: Yes.

David: I've been to the... Have you been to the Dead Sea?

Christine: I've seen it. Yes.

David: I've, I've, I've laid in it.

Christine: You've laid in-

David: I have.

Christine: Oh.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yeah.

David: I've floated, and it's crazy. It's so, so much salt content nothing can live in it.

Christine: Ugh, yeah.

David: And, like, fish can't live in it.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: And you can just lay... I don't, I'm not very good at floating on my back [laughs] in water actually, and so that was pretty fun for me to just effortlessly just float.

Christine: Wow.

David: Anything you wear in it gets ruined.

Christine: Hmm.

David: Absolutely ruined. I have a hat still at my house that I did not wanna get wet but I lean my head back a little too far and you can-

Christine: Oh

David: ... see the line-

Christine: No way

David: ... from the Dead Sea still on it. And so it is this just salty dead water, and the water from the temple, the living water of life, comes into it and transforms it. And something happens to that body of water that the people who have lived around it have never seen before.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And it's just miracle fish.

Christine: It becomes a fishing metropolis all of a sudden. This-

David: There's more fish than you can imagine being in it.

Christine: Yeah. This place of utter death, this death water, has become life water.

David: Right. Why? Because God, life itself, is visiting the world-

Christine: Yes

David: ... and bringing life into dead places.

Christine: Yes, and f- fulfilling the Ezekiel theme of faithful husband to very wayward bride.

David: That's right.

Christine: Life is coming. God has forgiven his wayward people and has cleansed her, resurrected her, restored her. The bad water is flowing with life.

David: And so Jesus comes to his disciples when they have seen him resurrected and now they're just fishing again.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And they're, like, going back to their old ways.

Christine: Yes.

David: And he comes to Peter in this story-

Christine: And Jesus is like, "Not so fast. You're not-

David: Yeah, and he comes to Peter in the story, who denied him.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And there's all this reconciliation happening.

Christine: Yes.

David: But at the center of it is this miracle.

Christine: Yes, and that's very deeply connected to water because-

David: Yes

Christine: ... yeah, despite their trade being fishermen they cannot catch fish even though they fish all night.

David: It's almost like they're fishing in the Dead Sea.

Christine: It's almost like they're fishing [laughs] in the Dead Sea until the living water, the resurrected temple, flows their way, calls out to them over the water [laughs]

David: Yeah

Christine: ... and tells them to throw the net on the other side. And when they do it becomes a fishing metropolis.

David: That's right.

Christine: Yeah. Water-

David: The living water turns the Dead Sea into a fish metropolis.

Christine: Yes. He comes to meet his- Bride that is running away from him. [laughs] Not on purpose, but it- there's a- that's an image there that I think we're meant to notice.

David: Wow.

Christine: And John recognizes Jesus, and Peter jumps into the water and [laughs] runs to Jesus sopping wet, which again is like, okay, am I supposed to see baptism here?

David: [laughs]

Christine: Am I supposed to see reconciliation, new birth?

David: A crossing of a boundary.

Christine: A crossing of a boundary to be with your God.

David: Yes.

Christine: Yes.

David: All of it.

Christine: Probably.

David: Okay. Jumping back [laughs] into more of the middle of John, there's a few more we wanna at least try to touch here. A quick one that we can touch on is in John 7-

Christine: That's right

David: ... just because we've set up a lot of it here-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... is that during the, uh, Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Booths, the Feast of Little Temples, [laughs] there was a ritual that at this time that the Jewish people would do where they would dump water for cleansing down the steps of the tabernacle and let it gush out into the streets, reenacting the promises of Ezekiel, and- and showing like this is what we're waiting for. This is what Ezekiel has promised. The Spirit of the Lord is, is gon- gonna come to us. The Messiah is gonna come to us.

Christine: And r- remembering that time when all of Israel and God dwelt together in tents.

David: That's right. Yeah. All, yeah. All the while remembering, yeah, that moment out in the wilderness when God was dwelling with His people in tents, and God was like, "I'll live in a tent, too."

Christine: Yeah.

David: [laughs]

Christine: We have the same garment.

David: Yep.

Christine: We're living in the same thing.

David: And so the Word that became flesh and dwelt in the tent of humanity comes to the Feast of Tabernacles at the temple and says, "Oh, I'm the living water. If you wanna never thirst again, come drink from me." And says, "I am the water that runs down the steps of the temple and brings life to the world."

Christine: Yes.

David: "That's who I am."

Christine: Yes. His invitation compels even officers sent to go and arrest Him, and I'll just quickly read His, what He says in a loud voice at the greatest day of the feast in chapter 7 verse 37. "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

David: Hmm.

Christine: Which-

David: Whoever, and again, whoever believes in me.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: Whoever participates-

Christine: Who receives my Word

David: ... in my life, who receives my life, becomes like me and gets my life in them, and they become the stream by which the world is healed. This is what we were talking about at the end of the last episode, that the prophets saw a time when Israel would become the banks of the river through which God's justice and peace and righteousness flow.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And that if you join yourself to Jesus, you become a priest to the world and bring His water and life to it.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And heal it.

Christine: You become a channel of His life to the world.

David: Yeah, that's right.

Christine: It's beautiful.

David: Okay, we're kind of on a speed run here, but we're gonna try to get to as many as we can, but I really wanna make sure we talk about a few more, one of which includes John chapter 8, which is strange because water is not actually in it.

Christine: It's not, but I'll go out on a limb and say Jesus is the water we are meant to see in this picture.

David: We know, we know Jesus is water. John has-

Christine: We do

David: ... John has proved that.

Christine: He set that up in every chapter so far, which I know He didn't have chapters He was aware of.

David: Yes.

Christine: But in our Bibles-

David: Yes

Christine: ... every chapter of John so far has had water deeply connected to Jesus' presence.

David: Yes. So walk us through where we see water even though we don't see water [laughs] in the story of John 8.

Christine: So what we see is a woman caught in adultery.

David: Well, there you go. Test of adultery.

Christine: Yes. Uh, precise-

David: Connected to water.

Christine: Yes, and it is very profound because we'll see several themes pop up here with Jesus. Now, is water gonna be good here or bad here? We have a woman caught in adultery, and Jesus is the living water that will fill and cleanse, but also will wash away all death and-

David: Hmm

Christine: ... unmaking and uncreation. So what's gonna happen here? But the woman that's brought to Jesus by the Pharisees is accused of being caught in adultery, and they bring to Jesus the law that they say, "The Law of Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" And they were using this as a trap for Jesus.

David: Hmm.

Christine: So Jesus has two options here, or to- that's what they're trying to put Him in, is a catch-22, 'cause either He has to agree with Moses and condone the stoning of this woman, or He has to show her mercy and discredit the Law of Moses.

David: Yeah.

Christine: So-

David: He either has to, He either has to go, "Well, I treated the Samaritan adulterous woman one way, but I'm gonna go against that and treat this woman differently," or, "I have to, uh, to your definition, break the Law of Moses."

Christine: Yes.

David: "So either I break my own law or I break Moses's law, and I'm gonna have to be proven a hypocrite in either one."

Christine: It's a trap that they think is very well set, but God Himself bends down in front of this adulteress woman and starts to write on the ground with His finger, which He's writing in dust. And remember when we saw living water come into contact with dust? That was a test of adultery.

David: Hmm.

Christine: We've seen that in the Exodus adultery with God at Mount Sinai.

David: In Numbers.

Christine: Yeah, and in Numbers, there's the test of the unfaithful wife w- that involves getting dust from the tabernacle, holy dust and holy water, and the woman has to ingest that, and that will test her fidelity or expose her infidelity. We see Jesus, living water, writing things in the dust, which I just think is so fascinating, and then He says, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Notably, without sin, not a sinner-

David: Hmm

Christine: ... 'cause righteous people still sin, but they repent.

David: Yeah.

Christine: So no one would've called themselves a sinner, most likely, if they're Pharisees.

David: Hmm.

Christine: The sinners are tax collectors and-

David: That's right

Christine: ... prostitutes. But Jesus stoops down and writes again, and people are not going to admit in front of a crowd that they have never sinned.

David: Right.

Christine: Like, or, or not gonna say that obvious lie.

David: He catches them in their own hypocrisy trap.

Christine: He does. He does.

David: Yeah.

Christine: He is testing not just the woman, but everyone there- [laughs]

David: That's right

Christine: ... in a way. And-

David: He do- he does a test of adultery for everyone.

Christine: Yes.

David: When the living water touches the dust of the earth-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... he gives a test of adultery to everyone.

Christine: Yes.

David: And in a sense, everyone fails.

Christine: Yes. People back away, the older ones first, until only Jesus is left with the woman still standing there. Another way to say the only one who has committed no sin and can pick up the first stone is left alone with the adulterous woman.

David: That's right. Yeah, Jesus is the only one who, who is without sin.

Christine: Yes. And he asks, "Where are they? Has no one condemned you?" And she said, "No one, sir." "Then neither do I condemn you. I, the one who am without sin." [laughs]

David: Yeah.

Christine: "Go and leave your life of sin." So we see living water coming and rescuing a sinner.

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: Which again, is like we've had categories of baptism brought up, and we also have water being life-giving and rescuing and being given to the unfaithful. [laughs]

David: Yeah.

Christine: And so all of that is in there, where again, we said water is not mentioned explicitly, but we see Jesus reenacting-

David: The test of adultery, with-

Christine: The test of adultery

David: ... dirt and water.

Christine: Yes.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And shows mercy and acquits. [laughs]

David: Yeah, because like we've said before, Go- God, God only has adulterous brides to marry. [laughs]

Christine: Yes.

David: It's, this is his only option. And-

Christine: Yes. And he loves her

David: ... he's so merciful-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... that he loves... That's amazing.

Christine: And he points out, I mean, there's, we don't know the story of what happened to this woman. But what we do know is that she definitely did not commit this sin by herself.

David: Right.

Christine: And she's the only one brought there, the one who couldn't even testify in court, you know, of the two. And so she's definitely the victim of victims here. And, and there is a place in the law that says you have to test to see if the woman was even complicit in this affair. If she was a victim of it, then she would go free and the man would get stoned.

David: Right.

Christine: But there's no such judicial thing going on there. And so Jesus mercifully and beautifully upholds the law and asks people to, "Yeah, be faithful to the law."

David: Mm.

Christine: "Throw the first stone."

David: It's also interesting to think about this, if this is, and I think it absolutely is, the, the test of adultery. The living water giving the test of adultery through touching the dirt-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... to everyone present.

Christine: Yeah.

David: Everyone self-selects as guilty.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: And Jesus is like, "Yeah, you're the ones I'm gonna marry." [laughs]

Christine: Yeah. "I love you all."

David: Yeah.

Christine: "Now go and leave your life of sin."

David: Yeah.

Christine: "I don't condemn you. I'm here to clean you."

David: That's right.

Christine: He says he did not come into the world to condemn the world.

David: Yes, but to save the world-

Christine: The world through him

David: ... through water. [laughs]

Christine: Yes, yes.

David: Like the flood. [laughs]

Christine: He says that to Nicodemus.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And so, and he's a member of the Pharisees. So it's, it's beautiful how Jesus comes in mercy, in cleansing, that does get rid of sin and cleanse sin, but not at the expense of life-

David: That's right

Christine: ... but bestows life. Anyway, so it's beautiful.

David: Oh, man. Okay. Another one that we did talk about during the signs episode is the healing of the man born blind.

Christine: Yes.

David: But we talked about it more as the signs and how he got, he saw more and more clearly who Jesus was as the Pharisees and those who condemned him-

Christine: Yes

David: ... became more and more blind. But there's another theme happening here, which is the theme of water that invades this sign in really cool ways.

Christine: Yeah, yeah. There is new creation here. We see Jesus, uh, this is chapter nine, the man born blind, where Jesus heals him i- through another miracle or through another sign. And he makes mud, [laughs] God makes mud with his own spit and with the dirt, and he puts that on the man's face and then says, "Go and wash in the pool of Siloam." So not only did Jesus make some liquefied [laughs] dust, he also commands the man to go and wash in a pool of Siloam, which means scent, which he-

David: Mm.

Christine: He was sen-

David: He sends him.

Christine: Yeah. Well, and he's the one who was sent into the world to cleanse it and bring it life.

David: Oh, yeah.

Christine: And to bring new creation.

David: He's the walking water.

Christine: He is the walking water-

David: [laughs]

Christine: ... and the one who walks on the water. So this-

David: So he comes and he makes mud-

Christine: Yes

David: ... with water from his mouth.

Christine: Yes.

David: The Word of God [laughs] with water from his mouth creates a new compound.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: Like he did when the Spirit, who is like water, breathes on dirt-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... and creates the new compound of man-

Christine: Yes

David: ... and new creation, new humanity of man. God is reenacting the moment of humanity's creation in Eden there in the dirt in front of him, and using it to restore humanity in sh- in fullness and health, and to recreate a human's sight-

Christine: Yes

David: ... right in front of him.

Christine: Yes, 'cause humanity is fallen. In a way, it's humanity is born blind-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... because we cannot see God. If we did, we would die. We've fallen from that grace, and Jesus comes and gives him eyes to see him.

David: Yes. And this makes me think so much about John 3 with Nicodemus. Nicodemus cannot see what Jesus is saying, and he says, "You cannot see the kingdom of heaven unless you're born from above." He's saying, "You're blind-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... unless you've been born from above. I have to come and create new creation in you to make you see."

Christine: Yes.

David: And so, uh, this story is talking to Nicodemus-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... and the John 3 that it's set up. He, he, he's saying, "I'm gonna come and I'm gonna remake your eyes so you can see from above."

Christine: Yes.

David: And that's what happens in the rest of the story.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: The man, with increasing visual clarity-

Christine: Yes

David: ... sees and proclaims that Jesus actually is who John says he is.

Christine: Yes, yes. And he is the light of the world here, which is the other theme that is very prevalent-

David: That's right

Christine: ... and Jesus declares himself as such. But he does that through a new creation of water, which light is the first thing that is spoken into existence at creation, and then there's a new man made here through water that is baptism of sorts in the pool of Siloam. And also Jesus' life-giving [laughs] spit that makes mud that creates new life for Him, and sight, sight to see God.

David: Well, there's two more I wanna touch on as we try to sprint to the end here. [laughs]

Christine: Okay.

David: Jesus washing the disciples' feet, and I wanna talk about Jesus saying, "I thirst," on the cross.

Christine: That is-

David: So-

Christine: Oh, so beautiful

David: ... let's do washing the disciples' feet first, John 13.

Christine: So Jesus, we mentioned, is the bridegroom who's preparing for His death and to be joined to His, to His earthly wife forever. And here at this Last Supper, which I find it fascinating we're talking about that today, it's Holy Thursday.

David: Oh, yeah, we're recording this on Maundy Thursday.

Christine: Yes, so we're in a beautiful and apt place, and Jesus shows the full extent of His love by removing His outer clothing, taking on a towel around His r- waist, and then washing His disciples' feet, which is such a beautiful image of so much. But what John highlights here is this is the full extent of His love. It's an emptying of sorts. This is almost like a reenacting of the incarnation or the whole life of Jesus as He leaves His former glory, empties Himself, comes as a servant, washes people clean, and then puts on His clothes and returns to His place. We get the incarnation all the way to the ascension in this small microcosm where-

David: Wow

Christine: ... why did God come? To cleanse humanity-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... and c- make them like Him and be glorified in that.

David: Yeah, and in this microcosm, He stoops down to serve His disciples in this way, and Peter-

Christine: Yes

David: ... bucks up against it.

Christine: Yes.

David: And he's like, "No, no, no, you can't clean my feet. That's too low for you." You know, even John says, "I'm not worthy to untie His sandals."

Christine: Yes.

David: John the Baptizer says that. And now Peter's like, "Yeah, I kind of agree with [laughs] with John. I can't do this."

Christine: Yeah, "This is below you, Jesus."

David: Yes.

Christine: And Jesus is like, "It's not." [laughs]

David: He says, "No, and unless I cleanse you, you have no part in me."

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: And then classic Peter-

Christine: He's like, "Well, then wash every part of me."

David: [laughs] Yeah.

Christine: Yeah, he is, he is all in at that point. And sweet Peter, who will only deny Him that same evening. Jesus is washing. He's preparing for His own death. He's preparing to go to the cross and unite Himself to humanity in death, and this is a part of the Passover too, the rescue from death that He is bringing.

David: Mm.

Christine: The full extent of God's love is to descend to the lowest depths to meet humanity in death, in weakness, in frailty, naked, and to save them and be one with them in that. And this is what we see a small picture of with water showing up here at the Passover meal, where... Or the, yeah, the preparation meal, where Jesus is getting ready to go to His cross, and He shows His love for His disciples, even the disciples who will betray Him-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... by doing this act of service, this self-giving, this self-emptying that He then commands them to do for one another, and to love one another in that.

David: Yeah, so j-

Christine: It's so beautiful

David: ... the, we, we've talked metaphorically, you know, in a sense, and that doesn't mean with unreality, but we have, we've talked about Jesus as the living water. But He's been walking around as a human, [laughs] not a liquid blob.

Christine: Yeah.

David: A- a- and so it's a metaphor. It's an, it, it's analogous. But here, the living water actually gets water and cleans. It's just so beautiful to see Him actually touching dirt [laughs] and water and using it to clean, and this is what He invites us into, is that He will clean us and then indwell us.

Christine: Yeah.

David: It's-

Christine: And we are clean, or He says His disciples are clean because the word He spoke to them. Like, they have received the words that He spoke to them, and they are clean. And they can be one with God and receive the triune God into themselves-

David: Mm

Christine: ... and be drawn into the triune life of God.

David: Yeah, and so the picture we have here is Jesus coming to cleanse His people as the Word of God in the flesh so that He might dwell in and with them.

Christine: Yes.

David: So even in the foot-washing, [laughs] this is still a picture of God's commitment to new creation and forming a new humanity that He will dwell with and through whom He will spread out living water to the world.

Christine: Yeah, and He comes as a servant, humble-

David: Yes

Christine: ... kneeling at their feet to wash them clean.

David: Yeah. Okay, the last thing I wanna talk about, and this is a little different because I actually have not sat down and meditated on this with you yet.

Christine: Mm.

David: And so this is gonna be new for all of us as we walk into it, but you've mentioned it a few times in passing in our conversations on John off air, and I, I would love to hear as we kinda wind up the podcast here today. The living water thirsts.

Christine: Yes.

David: He just o- He offered the Samaritan woman water that would never be thirsty again, but He says, "I thirst."

Christine: It's quite a mystery because we see Jesus thirst twice in John, strangely. We see Him thirst at the beginning with the Samaritan woman in John 4, and He asks her for a drink. He says, "Please give me a drink." And it's interesting that the woman never actually does give Him a drink.

David: [laughs] Right.

Christine: But right after asking her for a drink, He offers her water.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And so it makes you wonder, well, if you have water, why were you asking for a drink? And a similar thing happens at the end of John. We have now seen Jesus betrayed, crucified. He is on the cross at this point. I'm talking about John 19-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... where Jesus says on the cross while He's hanging on the cross, "I'm thirsty," or, "I thirst." And we've already seen clear as day that Jesus is the living water, and He- Says here at the end again, strangely, "I thirst." And once again, he does not receive water from people.

David: Hmm.

Christine: They are so merciless at this point that they do not even give a dying man his-

David: Dying wish

Christine: ... his last wish. They just give him sour vinegar or sour wine. That's how sour [laughs] they are to the lover of mankind. And Jesus, after that, dies and his side is pierced, and here we see water gush forth again.

David: Wow.

Christine: So we see the living water who is thirsty, and yet he has water in himself 'cause he's just bursting forth. And there are ways to talk about this in, you know, normal human physical-

David: Biology

Christine: ... terms.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yeah, because, yes, he is parched. The last time he even ate was the night before. He had not drunk anything. He's, he's clearly thirsty and dehydrated because of all the lacerations and stress of the night and the day. People on crosses are always thirsty as they die, and water does build up around their lungs, and they die of asphyxiation. So all of this, you know, biologically checks out that Jesus is dehydrated, and yet this buildup that is pierced through after his death-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... just gushes water.

David: But John's not writing a-

Christine: But John's-

David: ... biology textbook.

Christine: John's not here to prove anything like that to you. He is, I think he's inviting us, and, like, the church has talked about this and meditated on this for a long time, that Jesus is a thirsty fountain, and he has water in himself. And both times he asked for water, he does not receive it, but he does offer it. And in that sacramental death that Jesus dies where water and blood gush forth, and that's a picture of, you know, his, him laying his life down for his bride and joining her in death, and he even says as much, "It is finished," he is still thirsty. And people have said that this is him thirsting to be thirsted after. He is the groom, the God who longs for our thirst. He is thirsty for the woman to thirst for him.

David: Hmm.

Christine: He is the thirsty fountain who wants our thirst, who wants us to crave him. That's what he thirsts for. He can give us water. He has so much water to give, and that's what he's come for, and he wants us to thirst for him, and that's what we can give.

David: Wow. He, he brings up thirst and embodies thirst, not for his own sake, but to awaken thirst in us.

Christine: Yes.

David: He says, "I thirst," to the woman at the well to awaken her thirst-

Christine: Yes. I thirst-

David: ... and offers her water

Christine: ... I thirst for you.

David: He says, "I thirst," on the cross only to burst forth water for others.

Christine: Yes. He's thirsty for the people who are rejecting him.

David: Hmm.

Christine: He's received nothing but injustice, nothing but merciless flogging, mocking, slaps in the face. He, and he's like, "I'm thirsty for your love."

David: Wow.

Christine: "I am so thirsty for you to love me, and I'm here to give you my whole self. I am giving you myself." This is the fountain gushing forth in healing, life-giving water, and the fountain, the thirst for the love of humanity.

David: That's beautiful. Well, thank you for sharing that, and thank you all for walking through John with us today [laughs] and the theme of water. It's been so beautiful to meditate on. Um, I hope it gives you some helpful tools and, and, and ways to understand the beauty that John is trying to present Jesus to us through this Bible-sweeping theme of water.

Christine: Yeah.

David: So thank you all so much for joining us. If you have any questions about John, you can send your questions to us by emailing us at [email protected]. You can record your own question so we can interact with you on the podcast by going to speakpipe.com/spokengospel and recording your question for us there. We'd love to dialogue with you about what you're seeing in John, what questions you have, and to share the conversation with you. So thank you so much for joining us, and we will see you next time.

Christine: [outro music] Thank you for listening to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Spoken Gospel creates short films, devotionals, and podcasts like this one. Everything we make is free because of generous supporters like you. To see our resources, visit spokengospel.com or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thanks for listening. See you next time. [outro music]

Related Resources

Vídeos gratuitos enviados diretamente para sua caixa de entrada.

Living Water: How the Gospel of John Reveals Jesus in Every Wave

Show Notes

The Word Over the Waters: New Creation in John 1

Water Becomes Wine: The Wedding at Cana

Born From Above: Nicodemus and the Bridegroom's Friend

The Seventh Husband: The Samaritan Woman at the Well

From Chaos Waters to Miracle Fish

Living Water Poured Out for the World

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