The Living Water
Story Significance:
In the same way that God provided water out of a rock in the middle of the desert for Moses and his people, Jesus is the Living Water, given to all men that they may know God and thirst no more.
Activity for Today:
- Hang the Water Flowing from Mt. Horeb Ornament: The Rock is the rock that Moses split and water poured out, it looks ahead to when God would pour out the Holy Spirit on all who believe in Jesus.
- Sing “I’ve Got a River of Life”
Bible Overview:
Every day of the Feast of Tabernacles, except for the last day of the feast, the Jews would offer water offerings. These offerings were to remind of what God had done and to look ahead to what He was going to do. First, they reminded Israel of the time that God miraculously provided water during the Exodus. After Israel passed through the waters of the Red Sea and God had fed them with Manna and Quail, the people ran out of water and began complaining to God saying, “Why did You bring us out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” The Lord instructed Moses to take his staff and “when you hit the rock of Horeb with your staff, water will come out of it and all the people will drink.”[i] Moses did this in the sight of all of the Elders of Israel.
The second purpose of the water offerings was that they looked ahead to when God would sprinkle clean water on His people so that they would be clean, cleaning them from all of their filthiness and from all their idols. Moreover, He would give them a new heart and put a new spirit within them.[ii] Therefore, when on the last and greatest day of the feast, when they no longer offered water offerings, Jesus cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, he should come to Me and drink! The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of water flow from deep within him.”[iii] John explains that Jesus said this prophesying about the coming of the Holy Spirit within all who believed in Jesus.[iv] When some of the crowd therefore heard these words they said, “This really is the Prophet!” Others said, “This is the Messiah!” But some did not believe.[v]
But this living water was not for the Jews alone. Earlier as Jesus return home from the Passover feast, He passed through Samaria where He met a woman at Jacob’s well. Jesus asked her for a drink and told her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would ask Him and He would give you living water.”[vi] Jesus explains, “Everyone who drinks from Jacob’s well will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again! In fact, the water that I give them will become a well of water springing up within him for eternal life.”[vii]
REFERENCES:
[i] Exodus 17:6, [ii] Ezekiel 36:25-27, [iii] John 7:38, [iv] John 7:39, [v] John 7:40-4, [vi] John 4:10, [vii] John 4:13-14