Water of life
I’ve been thinking about the water of life, and I’ve listed a bunch of passages below – no developed narrative, but things you might find useful in your preaching.
Also, a completely mad game, best played OUTDOORS! Messy Church/ Scouts / youth club will love it!
For the more sane among us, there’s a lovely prayer tree craft with leaves for healing and labyrinth art and meditation.
At the bottom, your liturgy based on this beautiful passage from Revelation, and many thanks to all those who have expressed how much they enjoy the liturgy resources week by week. I greatly appreciate your encouragement 😊
Bonkers Game
Think about how we can carry the water of life out to those around us in this crazy game – best played outdoors.
You will need:
- two ‘volunteers’ with a change of clothing
- two large sweatshirts
- two paddling pools
- Two buckets
- a lot of plastic jugs
- water
Divide into two teams. At the whistle, each volunteer puts on a sweatshirt and stands in the paddling pool. The rest of the team douse them in water using the plastic jugs. When the volunteer is totally drenched, they run to their bucket (100m away) where there are more team members. They take off the sweatshirt and all wring out the water into the bucket. Repeat until the whistle blows. The team that has transported the most water wins.
Water of Life – passages and comments
Gen 1:2 – Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
I love it that the Bible both starts and ends with water.
Genesis 2:10-14 – A river watering the garden flowed from Eden.
Exodus 2:10 – She named him Moses, saying, ‘I drew him out of the water.’
The first of many instances of God’s people being saved through water.
Numbers 8:7 – To purify them, do this: Sprinkle the water of cleansing on them; then have them shave their whole bodies and wash their clothes. And so they will purify themselves.
This is the water made by the sacrifice of a red heifer, with scarlet yarn and red wood. These red things a foreshadowing of those who wash their robes white in the blood of the lamb.
Numbers 20:11 – Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.
Psalm 23:2 – He leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul.
Psalm 46:4 – There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.
Isaiah 35:6–7 – Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool.
Isaiah 44:3 – I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit.
Water = spirit
Jeremiah 2:13 – My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
Jeremiah 17:7–8 – But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord …
They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
Ezekiel 47:1-12 – Water was flowing from under the threshold of the temple… This water flows toward the eastern region… so that when it enters the sea, the water there becomes fresh. Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows.
In Jewish ritual law, uncleanness spreads. If a pot with water touches something dead, both the pot and the water become unclean. The unclean pot must be broken. But with this water than comes from the temple, the opposite happens. It spreads life to dead places.
Joel 3:18 – In that day the mountains will drip new wine, and the hills will flow with milk; all the ravines of Judah will run with water. A fountain will flow out of the LORD’s house and will water the valley of acacias.
Zechariah 13.1 – On that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.
Zechariah 14:8 – And on that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it toward the Eastern Sea and the other half toward the Western Sea, in summer and winter alike.
To all people, at all times.
John 4:14 – But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.
John 5:2-5 – Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool… Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
Thirty-eight would have lit fireworks in the heads of John’s readers, recalling their ancestors’ wandering in the desert, waiting for the generation of fighting men to die out. They repeatedly claimed (Ex 17 and Num 20 etc) that there was no water there. How long did it take from the failed attempt at spying out the land to the crossing of the Jordan? Thirty-eight years. BOOM!
Coincidence? I think not. Jesus is saying, “The time of desert wandering is over, follow me into the Promised Land.” Interestingly the word John uses for ‘paralysed’ also means ‘dried up’. Even more interestingly, the Jewish pool for ritual purification is a מַקְוֶה (miqveh), which also means ‘hope’ or ‘something waited for’. Double BOOM!
John 7:37-38 – On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “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.
The feast in question is Feast of Tabernacles/ Booths, which commemorates the desert wanderings. Celebrations involve a lot of drinking (it’s also a harvest festival) and pouring out of water in the temple. So for Jesus to ask, on the last day, if anyone is thirsty, is a hilarious joke.
Then Jesus says that the healing water that brings life to dead places doesn’t come from the temple but from himself …
John 2:1-12 – What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs by which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
John 3:5 – No one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.
John 19:34 – One of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.
John notes this as fulfilment of “they shall look on those whom they have pierced”, Zechariah 12:10. But remember that the scriptures did not have chapter breaks in Jesus’ time and that quoting the start of a passages often meant the whole of the passage. Only four verses later comes Zechariah 13.1 “On that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.” followed quickly by Zechariah 14:8, “And on that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it toward the Eastern Sea and the other half toward the Western Sea, in summer and winter alike.”
Titus 3:5 – He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
1 Peter 3:20 – God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water.
Rev 22:1 – Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.
Liturgy Resources for Sixth Sunday in Easter
Rev 21:10 – 22:5
Confession and Absolution
He showed me the holy city… and the nations will walk by its light.
Merciful God, we confess that we have not walked by your light,
nor have we been light to others.
Forgive us, good Lord.
Forgive us and help us.
Its gates will never be shut.
Merciful God, we confess that we have not held open the gate of your city
but have closed them in the faces of the people you love.
Forgive us, good Lord.
Forgive us and help us.
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life.
Merciful God, we confess that we have shunned your living water,
preferring the muddy pools we dig for ourselves.
Forgive us, good Lord.
Forgive us and help us.
God of all mercies forgive and restore you,
and bring you to live with him in the city where light is unending.
Amen.
Blessing and Dismissal
May God refresh you with the water of life, clear as crystal,
flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.
May there be for you no more night,
for the Lord God will be your lamp,
now and forever.
And the blessing …
Go as God’s holy temple,
to flood the land around you
with living water.
Amen.
The Reflectionary 