Pet Names For God's People

In one of the Bible verses Jesus referred to in his promise to pour out his Spirit upon those who believe in and trust him (John 7:37-38) the LORD calls Israel by a sort of pet name, Jeshuran.

Did your parents or siblings give you a pet or nick name when you were a child? Sometimes parents simply shorten a child's name. Nathan becomes Nate and Jeffrey becomes Jeff, William is Billy and James is Jimmy. At other times they use endearing terms like Sweetie, Snookums, Honey or Blossom. My mother called her twin Little Lally although her given name was Elma.

That's what the LORD did when he called Israel Jeshuran, "the righteous or straight ones" (Isa. 44:2-3). Greek speaking Jews translated the name into their language as Epagamenos, meaning "most beloved". One English speaking translator tried to pick up the sense of the Hebrew by calling them the righteous little people. What I sense the Heavenly Father does in this verse is simply to say, "I want you guys to know that I really, really love you!"

So having used that pet name for the Children of Israel, He promises,

I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my 
Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams.This one will say, ‘I am the Lord's,’ another will call on the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand, 'The LORD's and name himself by the name of Israel. - Isa. 44:3-5

Willows by the river

This is a beautiful image of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. People so blessed will be like willows by flowing streams of water. Willows love water. They flourish and grow beside rivers and streams. That's how Psalm 1 describes the man who delights in God's Word.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. - Ps. 1:3 ESV

Of such men and women Psalm 92 says,

They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, - Psa 92:14 ESV

No matter how old their bodies get to be, they still have that fresh, invigorating stream of God's Spirit flowing through them, filling them with new hope and power to praise God. That's what Jesus was getting at on the final day of the Feast of Booths as he cried out to the people in the temple.

"If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. - Jhn 7:37-39 ESV

The feast was technically only seven days. But on the eighth and final day, the Great Day, Jesus promised to give God's people the Holy Spirit. John says this proclamation pointed forward to what was to happen after Jesus was glorified. What great honor and praise was bestowed upon him by his heavenly Father? Why was the Father so pleased with him? Because he freely offered himself as the sacrifice for the sins of all men. And then on the Great Day, the eighth day, the heavenly Father honored Jesus and confirmed the sacrifice by raising Jesus from the dead. The sacrifice was complete. Forgiveness and life were now available to all (John 19:28-30; Acts 3:13-15).

Now the Holy Spirit is freely poured out like a flowing stream, speaking to the hearts of God's people, saying, "You are My beloved, forgiven and righteous children, My sweet little ones. I love you, dear ones, and will never ever let you go." These words invigorate and renew like no others can. They fill even old people with peace and hope.

May it ever be so for you no matter what your age.

The Fear Of Death

Here in the United States we're in the midst of a presidential election as I write. Last week the candidates of the two major parties met in a nationally televised debate. Reportedly over 60 million people watched as they matched wits and offered solutions to the major issues and problems we Americans face. We the voters must decide now which candidate and which political party has the wisdom to lead us into a safe and prosperous future. One of the Biblical proverbs puts it this way:

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion. ... The words of a man's mouth are deep waters; the fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook. - Pro 18:2, 4 ESV

Jesus claimed to have wisdom, not only the wisdom to rescue his nation, but the kind of wisdom that would bless men of all nations. On the final day of the fall-time Feast of Booths he stood in the temple and proclaimed,

"If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. - Jhn 7:37-39 ESV

In the past couple years the farmers and ranchers of west Texas learned much about being thirsty. A long drought dried up the pastures. Many had to sell their cattle just to stay in business. They had no grass to feed them and could no longer afford to buy hay. We are all like that grass. Without water we quickly dry up and die. A few years, a few fleeting moments and we are cut off. We grow old and wither like cut flowers.

Yesterday I spoke with a friend after Sunday worship. We talked tentatively about getting together for a more extended conversation over breakfast. "I'm finding it more and more difficult to get up for those early breakfasts," he said. "I'd just as soon stay in bed until after nine and maybe roll out for a ten or ten thirty meal."

"Hey, brother," I replied, "you're getting old."

"Yes," he muttered with a frown on his face, "but at least I'm still getting. I'm not done yet."

This little exchange reminds me of the longing in the hearts of us all. Getting old means that we are getting closer to death. And the very thought troubles us. Getting old implies that our bodies are falling apart. Heart and lung diseases, arthritis and who knows what other problems move in upon us. Some begin to lose their mental capacities. Short term memory slips away. We can't even remember that our son or daughter came by for a visit yesterday. Like grass, we're drying up and dying.

And even if we're young, we run from the thought of old age. There's even a fancy word for the fear of death called thanatophobia. The irrational fear of dead things is called necrophobia. We run from death. We long for life. We'll spend anything and everything we have to cling to it. Just watch all the things put up at this time of the year for the season of Halloween. Kids will soon come begging for candy dressed as skeletons, witches or vampires. Even they will try to mock death as it pursues us all from birth to old age.  

Are you in the same place in your soul? Does your heart thirst for life? Death is alien to our very being. Life is beautiful, but something deep and dreadful is wrong. It isn't supposed to be that way. And we know it, even though we struggle to put it into words. Solomon put it this way, 

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. - Eccl. 3:11 NIV

Jesus spoke to that thirst. It is, in fact, a thirst for God. We long to be united with Him. He is the source of our life. In Him we live and move and have our being. Jesus came that we might again have that life within us, that life that is like a stream of water, constantly bubbling up, filling us with our Creator's presence, power and peace. Once Jesus spoke of that water to a woman of Samaria who came to draw water from her village's common well. He said,

"Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." - Jhn 4:13-14 ESV

Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit, the source of true life, life that never ends because it comes from the one source of all life. I wrote about the Holy Spirit and Baptism in a series of blogs in June of this year. But there is much more to be said about the work of the Holy Spirit, especially as we consider Jesus' promise to the believer,

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" - Jhn 7:38 ESV

More on this next time as we take another look at the abundant life of the Holy Spirit.

Water, Word And God's Spirit

We continue our meditation upon Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus in John 3:1-21.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

So goes the famous words from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The mariner and all onboard waited in vain for a wind to blow that would take them to land where they might find drinking water. Without water to drink only death awaited them.

And every tongue, through utter drought,

Was withered at the root;

We could not speak, no more than if

We had been choked with soot.

Through water God's Spirit brings new birth, new life, new hope, said Jesus in His nighttime conversation with Jewish Sanhedrin member Nicodemus. 

Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. - Jhn 3:5-6 ESV

Nicodemus knew of the importance of water in the history and in the rituals of Israel. By water the LORD had rescued them from slavery in Egypt as Pharaoh's armies were drowned in the Red Sea (Exodus 15:4). When nothing but desert threatened the LORD twice gave them water from a rock Moses struck with his rod at the LORD's command (Exod. 17:6; Num. 20:8-11). Water was used to clean clothes, to wash feet, to sprinkle on dwellings, to pour on unclean people, on altars, etc. (e.g. Lev. 8:6, 21; 11:32-38; 14:6-9, etc.). The waters of the Jordan river parted when Israel finally marched into the Promised Land (Joshua 3:15-17), "and all Israel was passing over on dry ground until all the nation finished passing over the Jordan."

Every year the people celebrated their Exodus journey from slavery to freedom during the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles in the seventh month in the Jewish calendar (Sept.-Oct.), the time of the year when the fall harvest was gathered (Deut. 16:13-16). For an entire week they lived in booths (sekhakh) as they praised their LORD for bringing them safely through the wilderness to their prosperous land and for giving them another year of His blessings. On the eighth and final day of the feast, the high priest, in a great processional made up of priests and thousands of worshipers, descended from the Temple Mount to pause briefly at the Pool of Siloam. A pitcher was filled with water, and the procession continued via a different route back to the Temple Mount. Once back in the Temple, with great ceremony the high priest poured the water out of the pitcher onto the altar.

In this way the people were reminded of God's continued blessings and deliverance from slavery and death. This ceremony was also intended to invoke God's blessing on the nation by providing life-giving water for the coming year. In Israel rains normally stop in March and there is little or no rain for almost seven months! If God did not provide the "early" rains in October and November, there would be no spring crop, and famine would again be at the doorstep. On the last day of that feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out,

"If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. - Jhn 7:37-39 ESV

As God provides water to quench thirst and grow crops, so He gives His Spirit to bring new life to all His children. In this way water and the Spirit are intimately tied together. This is the new birth that Jesus speaks about in His conversation with Nicodemus. Or course, it is not the water itself that gives new birth.  By itself water cannot work such a wonder. It is the Spirit of the Living God at work in the water, the Spirit speaking God's life-giving Word, the Word that glorifies Jesus. And how does the Spirit glorify Jesus in the hearts of those upon whom water is poured? The Spirit tells those so washed (baptizein in Greek) that Jesus has taken them with Him into death and from death to life eternal. He has gathered them together and brought them safely out of bondage and slavery. Now He is leading them through the wilderness of this world to the security of the promised land.

We have adopted the Greek word baptism to speak about this wondrous creative activity of God's Spirit. More about this next time.