Daily Reflection Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Today’s gospel passage selects various verses from the beginning of
John 7. The seventh chapter of John marks a transition in John’s gospel account. From here, it moves rapidly toward the height of the Pharisees’ opposition to Jesus (expressed in ever increasingly volatile confrontations with them - they will attempt to stone him twice) that culminates, after the raising of Lazarus from death, in Caiaphas, the high priest, proclaiming in chapter 11 that one man must die for all rather than all die (by Rome, he thought) for one (Jesus).
 
However, chapter 7 is a rather confusing and unique chapter in John. It seems to be composed of various things that were left out of the rest of the account and added here, somehow, since it seems a bit disjointed. It begins with Jesus’ brothers (i.e., his relatives) urging him to go to Judea even though the Pharisees are hunting for him. It also tells us, in the sole reference to such a thing in all the Gospel accounts, that his own relatives did not believe in him (although that is hinted at in Mk 3:21). Running throughout chapter 7 is the confusion among everyone concerning Jesus’ origins. The Pharisees also complain that he never studied the scriptures and therefore they ask what exactly it is that he is teaching, although even they seem to marvel at his words (7:15).
 
It all culminates in 7:37-38 where Jesus defies the Pharisees and cries out openly to the crowd on the feast day, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” That is the same “living water” that he spoke of to the Samaritan woman at the well in Jn 4:10-14. What scripture Jesus was referring to here is not clear, however, though there are many images of water in the scriptures including Jeremiah 2:13, Isaiah 55 (“come to the water”) and Moses in the desert tapping the rock for water in Exodus 17.
 
We can think of this “living water” as the Holy Spirit, the water that assuages all spiritual thirst (John 4:13 “But those who drink of the water that I will give them will never thirst again.”). It is the same as in John 6:63 when many of his disciples misunderstood him when he told them that unless they eat his flesh and drink his blood they cannot have life within them. “The flesh is useless; the Spirit alone gives life.”  And we think of the Holy Spirit as being poured out upon us (Titus 3:6).
 
Jesus tells us plainly that through our faith in him, our hearts will flow with this living water, the Spirit of God, like a river giving life everywhere it flows. It is a most apt metaphor since all life depends completely on water; there can be no life without it. Just as a river, by its mere presence, can radically change the land it flows through, so can the Spirit change us in wonderful ways and then enable us to help others to trust in God. Seek the Spirit in prayer daily. Believe that “with God all things are possible,” that God can take away our fears and fill us with the strength and courage to know that God’s love and care can be found in any situation, no matter how dark and fearsome it may appear. “For even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.” Psalm 139:12 Jesus himself certainly believed this during his Passion.