The Great Salvation

On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’”

John 7:37-38

This scene is set at a climactic moment—the seventh day of the weeklong Feast of Tabernacles, or Festival of Shelters. The whole week was a celebration of tremendous joy and pageantry. As many Jews as could make the trip were in Jerusalem joining the great celebration. The Holy City was packed with people.

The last day was known as Hoshana Rabbah, which means “Great Salvation.”

On that day, the people were wakened at dawn by the priests blowing the shofar, or ram’s horn. As the people headed for the Temple, they carried in their right hands a lulabh, a branch of myrtle, willow, and palm tied together. In their left hands they carried an ethrog, a kind of fruit. When they reached the Temple, the people divided into three groups. One group participated in the Water-Pouring Ceremony.

The Water-Pouring Ceremony was the high point, the most joyous ceremony of all, because it pictured Jehovah’s promise to pour out his Spirit upon his people.

A white-robed priest carrying a golden pitcher led a procession of worshipers through one of the Temple gates to the Pool of Siloam, where he filled the pitcher. The procession followed him back to the Temple, singing, waving their branches, and dancing.

As they sang, the priests, waved branches and marched around the altar seven times. In the midst of this charged, holy moment, Jesus cried out in a loud voice. Jesus was watching the joy and exuberance the people were experiencing as they saw physical water poured out, and the words burst from him: “Are you thirsty? I have the water! Are you thirsty? Believe in me. Come to me. Rivers of water will be within you! You will never thirst again.”

Jesus, keep filling me with living water now and forever.

If the life of Christ is flowing through us, the water from the Rock turning the wheel, as it flows into the heart, it will fill us with joy; and if so, we cannot contain it, it must flow out.

G. V. Wigram(1805–1879), English Bible scholar