He Stood and Cried
’/;z flie last day, that great day of the feast, yesiis stood and cjied, saying. If any man thirst, Id him come unto me, and drink.’’’’ — John vii. 37.
THIS was the feast of booths or tabernacles. It was instituted expressly to commemorate the journey from Egypt to Canaan (Lev. xxiii. 33-43). Once every year, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, the ransomed people in their own good land cut down branches from the trees, therewith constructed tents on the flat roofs of their houses, or in the open squares of the city, and dwelt night and day for a week under the fragile covering. It was by such institutions as this that the history of the Exodus was printed into the nation’s life for all generations. The pilgrimage of forty years between the Red Sea and the Jordan became the mould in which the habit of their thought was cast; their psalms and their prophecies were shapen in it. The language of Canaan was dipped in the bitter experiences of Egypt, and the free enjoyed more keenly their liberty by being continually reminded of their bondage. On the same principle, a more numerous seed of Abraham in a brighter land of promise will call to mind the struggles of the pilgrimage, in order to enhance the sweetness of eternal rest.
In the latter days of Jerusalem, as we learn from the history of the period, a ceremony was added to those of the ordained feast of booths, intended, evidently, to commemorate the thirst in the wilderness, and the supply that was provided from the rock in Horeb. On the last day of the feast, towards evening, the priests formed a procession, and having drawn water from the Pool of Siloam, bore it to the Temple, and poured it on the ground, so that it should flow down to the lower streets of the city. This symbol pointed, probably, to Ezekiel’s grand vision of waters issuing from the Temple, small at first, but rapidly increasing, until they became a river that could not be passed over — a river to swim in.
Ezekiel’s vision must have been an object of passionate interest to the seed of Abraham in Palestine in our Lord’s day. The condition of the people was wretched. They groaned under a foreign yoke. In vain they looked for a deliverer; the heavens over their head remained as brass, and the earth under their feet as iron. There were, in a sense, thirsty souls, but there was no cold water to refresh them. These unhappy Jews, chafing in the chains of the oppressor, would listen to the gushing waters of Ezekiel’s prophecy, as often as the passage occurred in the daily reading of the synagogue, with an intense and indescribable longing. With more or less of intelligent faith, they agonized for a time when forth from the Temple at Jerusalem a stream of blessing should flow to refresh the weary land. I think they would pore over the prophet’s pictured page until they saw the river in their dreams, and were awaked by the tumult of imaginary joy, to discover that their souls were still empty.
The longing of the people’s hearts, it seems, found outlet in the introduction of a new symbol, superadded to the ordained feast, but apparently in harmony with its main design, and suited to the emergency of the time. Besides a material enacting of the dwelling in tents, they instituted a material representation of the stream that flowed from the rock, quenching the bodily thirst at the time, and promising better things in Christ.
The procession of priests has gone to Siloam and returned to the Temple. They have poured the water from the golden vessel, and a rivulet is making its way along the unwonted channel, forth from the hallowed courts towards the city. The assembled crowds are ranged on either side, watching the progress of the mimic stream. The beams of the setting sun strike the water, where in a hollow it spreads into a pool, and golden glory flashes for a moment from the spot that had been dull dry earth before. The multitude gaze in ignorant superstition; but some of the Lord’s hidden ones are there, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and spelling painfully out of these dead letters the name of their living Redeemer.
Jesus was there teaching’. He had come up about the middle of the feast, and now its last day was nearlydone. He looked on the crowd as they gazed wistfully on the symbolic water. His heart was yearning for them. He knew what was in man: he knew that the Jews made idols of these significant signs, as they made idols of the scriptures which were printed on their clothinsf. He saw them drinkino- that which cannot quench the thirst of a soul. He pitied them, and came to the rescue.
You have seen a group of bare-footed, ragged, hungry children, standing on the pavement on a cold winter night, gazing through the glass of a baker’s window — gazing on the bread, which they greatly needed, but could not reach. You pitied them; perhaps you paused, and gave the needy little ones some of the bread for which they longed; you remembered, as you resumed your journey, the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Such to the Lord seemed those groups of Jews who crowded forward to see the water flowing that evening in the courts of the Temple at Jerusalem. He saw them straining after a consolation, which, although it was near them, they could not reach. The waters were indeed a symbol of spiritual life in the Lord; but the Jews could not penetrate the glass which at once veiled and revealed the salvation of Christ. They were like the visitors who stood and looked into the empty grave of Jesus. He is not there; he is risen. Why seek ye the living among the dead? This is man’s extremity and God’s opportunity. He approaches them; he speaks to them; he turns their straining eyes away from the husks which once held the wheat, but which are empty now. He bids them turn away from that trickHng symboHc water to himself, the Saviour from sin. “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” Consider the invitation, —
I. In its substance: “Any one, come unto me.”
II. In its specific form: “If any one thirst, let him drink.”
HI. In its peculiar earnestness: “In the last, great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.”
I. The invitation in its substance: “Any one, come unto me.”
1. What the offer is: “Come unto me.”
2. To whom the offer is made: “Any one.”
I. What the offer is: “Come unto me.” — It is here that a minister meets his greatest difficulty, and discovers his own helplessness. God’s greatest things are the simplest, and the simplest things it is most difficult to explain. As long as our course lies along the outskirts, and among the accessories of the faith, our expositions may be intelligible, interesting, and instructive; but when we approach the heart of our theme, we are liable to be made dumb if we perceive its greatness, or to speak foolishly If we don’t. Scarcely any form of words is more familiar in this Christian community than “Come, to Jesus,” and cognate expressions gathered directly from the Bible or bursting out from believing hearts; yet scarcely any form of words passes more frequently by, like a ship in the sea or a bird in the air, without leaving a track behind.
The way to be saved is to come to the Saviour. He does not destroy our enemies, and permit us to remain at a distance from himself We cannot be saved by him unless we are saved in him. He desires to get the company of saved men; and if men hope to be saved by his mercy, and yet keep out of his sight, they have missed the meaning of his work. If, with no relish for his presence, you keep company with your vanities, and cry to an Almighty Christ to open for you the gates of heaven, that in the last extremity you may escape from hell, you have no part in his salvation. The answer prepared for you is, “Depart from me; I know you not.” Those who do not want to have Christ’s society on earth will not get it in heaven. His invitation, “Come unto me,” implies that we part from all that displeases him, and walk with him in newness of life. The true disciples, when the Lord manifests himself, are ready at all times, and especially when darkness approaches, to constrain him to abide. While he walks with them, their hearts burn: when they miss him from their company, their hearts are sad. His promise is a double one: Lo, I am for you at the judgment-seat; and lo, I am with you in the present pilgrimage. This Christ cannot be divided: if we do not accept all, we get none. He will not be for us in that day, if we do not take him with us in this.
“Come unto me!’ It is to Christ himself, and not to any servant or substitute. You may come to the church, to the Lord’s table, to the Bible, and get no good. Past all these attendants a needy soul must come, saying, as the spouse to the daughters of Jerusalem, “Saw ye him whom my soul loveth .?” Christ’s work for sinners is not the fulfilment of a contract in which mere omnipotence is put forth. It is not to lift the dead weight of the fallen stars and set them in their place again; it is an engagement between person and person; it is a work in which love enters as the controlling element. In the redemption of sinners love is first and last, the beginning and the end. His work is not to lift a weight; it is to win an alienated heart. He loves; and love is hurt when it is not loved again. The saying has become memorable, “The Bible is the religion of Protestants.” It might be carried a step further, and so made to express a deeper truth, — Christ is the religion of Christians. The true Christian is the man who makes Christ his friend, who speaks to him when he lies down at night and when he awakes in the morning; who cleaves personally to the man Christ Jesus, God with us, as his company to-day and his Redeemer at last.
2. To zuhom the invitation is addressed: “Any one.” — The gospel is as free as the air or the sunshine. To you,
O men, the voice of Wisdom calls: “Whosoever will, let him come.” Search this Bible through: you will find many of the worst accepted; but you will not find a single example of one rejected for want o, some necessary quality in himself The little children, people in the busy, burning noon of life, and those who have grown old in their sins, — all are welcome. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. If you have gotten much of this world, and have made its thick clay the portion of your soul, yet come to Jesus and you are welcome; he upbraideth not. If you have failed to win the wealth for which you laboured, and with weaned, soured spirit, quarrelled with God and men on account of your misfortunes, yet come, and you are welcome to Christ. Let the self-righteous leave his pride behind, and cast his filthy rags away, — the fine linen, clean and white, the righteousness of the saints, is ready to adorn him with. Let the intemperate turn his back on his tempter and come to Jesus: he will in no wise be cast out. The society of the redeemed in glory will be in one sense very various, and in another sense one homogeneous company. They have come from various kinds and degrees of impurity; but they have all washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
II. Consider the invitation now in its specific form — Let the thirsty drink: “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.”
The spring has been opened, and it is flowing freely.
The whole world may get life there as well as one man. All the fulness of the Godhead bodily is treasured up in Christ. On one side all things are now ready. Here lk the water of life, but where are the thirsty souls y
I saw lately a letter written by a young invalid, who had been sent to Madeira to escape the rigour of a Scottish winter. It glowed all over with the praises of the place: the climate, the landscape, the lodging, the friends, the food, — all were of the best. Even in the matter of health there was neither sickness nor pain. But one plaint, not loud but long, ran through the letter like its woof ;^the key-note of its melancholy cadence was, “I have no appetite. If the appetite should return, I would be well.” The next mail brought intelligence that she was dead and buried. In the midst of plenty, she died of want, — a want not of food, but of hunger.
This is the ailment of which many souls are dying in the city and the land to-day. Wells of salvation are flowing, and overflowing, and flooding the land. The proclamation everywhere resounds, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” Yet many perish, — perish for want of thirst.
I know not any pleasure of sense more exquisite than a draught of cool, clear water, when you are thirsty; but few things are more insipid than water when there is no thirst. It is thus that Christ and his salvation are very sweet to one, and very tasteless to another.
When the law of God comes in with authority upon a guilty conscience, — when the terrors of the Lord consume a soul, as the burning sun dries up the herbage in a rainless season, — then the convinced sinner understands what is meant by ‘’ the water of life.” The good news of mercy to the guilty through the sacrifice of Christ is as cold waters to this thirsty soul. When sin is gnawing at your heart like the living worm, and the judgment-seat is frowning before you like a burning fire, and the dark grave, like the bottomless pit, is opening to receive you, — oh then Christ is welcome, — his gospel is sweet to your taste.
But to the whole-hearted these are unmeaning words. The form of doctrine to which they have been accustomed they do not indeed reject, but to them it has no meaning. They have never been thirsty, and therefore for cold water they do not care. Those who do their religion as a painful duty, or bear it as a burden which it is not safe to cast away, die strangers alike to the pain and the pleasure of God’s children. They know neither the craving of thirst, nor the delight of getting that craving satisfied.
Here a fellow-creature is helpless. None of us could make a drop of water, although it were to save a brother’s life. But our impotence on that side is not a misfortune, for God has provided for his world an abundant supply. On the other hand, although crystal streams were flowing through every valley, and pearly drops descending from the skies on every field, we could not create thirst in any living creature, if it were not implanted there by the finger of God. In point of fact, except in a q. morbid examples, the creatures are on both sides very good. Water in abundance is provided for every living creature, and every living creature is stimulated by thirst to take as much as it needs. On neither side could we repair the machinery, if it were defective; but the machinery on both sides is perfect, and needs no help from our hand.
In the spiritual department we are equally helpless. We could not provide the supply, — the life from the dead to sinners. But God has provided this supply — in all fulness he has treasured it in Christ. But neither can we kindle in a soul the desire which will accept the mercy provided through Christ. He who in nature provided the water, generates also in the creature the necessary thirst; and He who in the gift of his Son has provided the living water, must generate also in the soul the thirst.
It is not enough to say that we cannot make thirst where it is not; we cannot even explain what it is. If this body of brothers to whom I now speak had never experienced thirst, I could not, though I should speak with the tongues of men and of angels, convey to you a true conception of what thirst is. But if you should afterwards be thirsty, I might save myself the trouble of defining what it means. You know it without a word from me. It is precisely the same in the spiritual department. Neither I nor any other minister can rightly show what it is to long for God’s salvation, to those who have never experienced that desire. “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled.”
III. TJie manner of invitation — the peculiar earnestness with which it is given.
“In the feasty — The solemnities instituted of old in Israel all pointed to gospel privileges. The feast is now; and while it lasts the word of Jesus falls on our ear, — the word, “Come unto me.”
“Li the last day, that great day of the feast!’ — Great because it was last. There were seven days of it; but now the seventh was nearly done. While this day now running its course is in its own nature neither greater nor less than other days, it is to some of the world’s inhabitants greater than all other days of their life together. If one has lived twenty, or thirty, or fifty years, and is still a stranger to Christ when this day dawns; if, moreover, this should be the last of his allotted number, — then this day is to him a great day. It is greater than a whole eternity to him; for on it he is either saved or lost.
“Jesus stood!’ — He remained on the spot. He did not go away, wearied with waiting, or provoked by the people’s neglect. When the foolish virgins returned from their search he was gone, and they were shut out. “Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” He is bending over you, like the sun in the heavens; so that if the blind eyes open now they will look on the Light of Life. Some of us may have been much surprised to find him waiting when we were at last made willing. Young man, he knocked at your door in your early youth; but you left him without, and kept your vanities as more congenial company. At another knock you ventured to speak to the Lord, and promised to arise and admit him; but you fell in with other company ere your good resolution was executed, and Christ was again neglected. When at last some providence shook your foundations, and rent your coverings away, you thought that now, in your need, Christ would have none of you. You were surprised at the long-suffering of God our Saviour. When at last, deserted by all others whom you had preferred, you thought of turning to the Son of God, you found him still waiting; and he upbraided not. “His is love beyond a brother’s; oh, how he loves!”
^’ He stood tipr — He took a prominent position, that all might see him. So to-day, in our land, he is lifted up. Our eyes behold our Teacher.
‘’He cried!’ — This is strange. This is the world’s way turned upside down. We are accustomed to hear those crying who are ready to perish, while those who go out to save are calm and silent. Here this method is reversed. The lost whom he saves are silent and satisfied; the Saviour, who brings deliverance, cries. They act as if they were full, and he as if he were needy. He cried; why y All things are his in heaven and on earth; what want is gnawing at the heart of him in whom all the fulness of the Godhead bodily lies t Ah! it is the longing of his soul not to get, but to give redemption.
He has a more eager desire to give pardon than any awakened sinner has to get it. It was he that said, out of his own experience, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
When the men of Jerusalem were buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage, this Jesus stood on the mountain’s brow and wept over them. They who needed salvation had dry eyes; he who longed to give salvation wept, because they were perishing in sin. It is so to-day. He is the same Jesus; and human hearts are still deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.
How is it with you, friends.’’ I find that this aspect of Jesus is very winsome to my poor, fearing, doubting heart. While I think only that I need him — while I look within, and discover all evil — when I look forward, and find the prospect shut in by the judgment-seat — Vvhen I am oppressed by the thought of my sin and wretchedness — when I throw out all my line to sound the depths of my own need, and feel no bottom, — I am apt to dread that Christ may not welcome such a one. I may be told, indeed, and told truly, that he will not cast out this empty, needy, worthless thing. Still, I find it hard to believe. It is like bidding me, while I stand on the earth, fling a line first fastened to my waist, fling it upward into yonder blue far heaven. I throw at it with all my might, but it falls down again by its own weight at my feet; it will not go up — it will not for me go up all the way and hold. But after knowing that I need the
Saviour, when I discover also that he needs me — that he wants me — that he longs to make me like himself, and take me to his presence; when I know that he longs to give salvation more than I long to get it — when not only I cry to him, but when he cries to get me — oh! then it seems easier to believe. Then, it is not I that by the vigour of my own arm must throw a line into heaven; but the line, fastened to the throne of God, drops down from heaven to me. I have but to grasp it, and I am saved.
“And from above the Lord sent down,
And took me from below;
From many waters he me drew,
Which would me overflow.” (Ps. xviii. 16.)
It is not, Who shall ascend into heaven y that is, to bring Christ down; but the word is nigh thee — his own word. He cried, saying, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.”