TITLE: “Jesus Quenches our Thirst with Baptismal Waters”

 

Members of Messiah, family and friends, and especially our confirmands, Bess and Lisa: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text for this morning is from the Gospel lesson just read from John chapter 7, with focus on the words of Jesus, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow out of him.

Ezekiel in our Old Testament lesson (Ez. 37:1-14) paints a picture for us that is rather morbid.  The Lord God brought Ezekiel into the middle of a valley full of bones.  The bones were dry and brittle, with no life in them at all.  These bones were a reminder of what once was.  The bones once were filled with life, and made up a vast army of God’s people.  But no more.  Now they were just bones, dry and dead.

Our Lord asked Ezekiel a question: Son of man, can these bones live?  It’s a good question, and we may ask it of ourselves.  Can these bones live?  Can this body actually live?  On our own it cannot.  Your body is nothing but the dust of the earth on its own.  That is what our world is faced with every day.  All around us you will see people who try to defy death and the grave.  It may be health programs or pop psychology or fake TV religion, but one way or another, the world tries to defeat death.  But in the end, the result is the same.  Our lives are brittle and fragile, and just simply not worth much on their own.  Those bones had no life in them on their own.

Lisa and Bess today face the beginning of their lives as adult Children of God.  I suppose that their parents might question that adult word a bit, but in the eyes of the Church, they are mature Christians who are now prepared to receive Christ’s body and blood.  Bess and Lisa, you are now faced with a question, and one that will be asked of you again and again in your life: what makes you thirsty?  Or put another way, what do you thirst for in this life?

Up until this point, and for the rest of your life, there is and will be a battle raging for your soul.  Jesus in our text cries out, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.  When you were baptized about thirteen years ago that thirst within you was quenched in Jesus Christ.  That day began a journey for you, a pilgrimage of faith where God is the one who refreshes you in the journey.  As Jesus said on the Sermon on the Mount, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied (Mt. 5:6).  You were washed in holy waters and satisfied, because you were made a child of God in Jesus Christ.  God gave you His Holy Spirit, which was first given at Pentecost so many years ago.

But this battle for your soul didn’t end at your Baptism; it had just begun.  For the rest of your life Satan will try and tear you away from Jesus Christ.  Jesus says that if anyone is thirsty that He is the real food and drink.  But Satan will try to send you a different message.  Satan wants you to believe that you are not thirsty; that you don’t need God.

But let’s unpack this for a minute.  What is the thirst that Jesus is talking about?  It is the thirst for righteousness that cannot come from within us.  Jesus is talking about how the Law crushes us to powder and shows us our sin.  The Law shows you who you really are before God.  Without Jesus Christ, you are the dry bones that Ezekiel talks about.  Can these bones live?  The answer is a resounding YES!  Look at the power that the Holy Spirit given in the Word of God has.  The Holy Spirit can make dead bones live, just like He has done with you.

But that’s not what Satan wants you to believe.  Satan wants you to believe that you are not thirsting for righteousness and forgiveness.  Satan wants you to believe that you are thirsting for possessions.  There will be temptations in your life that will be difficult to overcome: money, your peers, your possessions, sex, sports, or the desire to be accepted.  The list could go on and on.  But those things cannot satisfy you.  They may have some purpose, some of them may even be fine and good on their own.  But none of them can satisfy like the life of faith lived in Jesus Christ.

Jesus promised that He would not leave us alone, that He would send a Comforter to us.  That comforter is the Holy Spirit, and the way that He comes to you today is through the Word and the Sacraments.  Think back again to Ezekiel’s dry bones.  What is it that made these bones live?  The Word of the Lord.  Only God’s Word can bring life out of death.  Only Jesus Christ in the Gospel can make you alive and keep you alive.

From time to time I have people ask me what we can do to keep our young people in the church.  Our human nature wants to believe that there is some gimmick, some trick that we can play on our young people that will keep them coming to church.  Well, my friends, I have bad news and I have good news.  The bad news is that there is no gimmick that will keep young people or old in coming to church.  There are no magic activities, no special programs or bracelets or anything else that we can do that will keep people in Jesus Christ.  We would like to do it ourselves.  We would like to come up with the perfect scheme to make Lisa and Bess and all of our other young people remain faithful.

But the good news is that there is something far greater than any device that you or I could come up with: Jesus Christ.  Sound too simple?  It is.  Remember Jesus’ words, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow out of him.  In other words, the way that God creates faith and keeps faith alive is by faithful preaching and teaching Law and Gospel.  And that life of faith will flow out of you like streams of living waters.

Jesus loves you too much to give you poison, and so do we.  One of my criticisms of the way that youth work is often handled in the Church is that we try to baby our youth into coming to Church, or even bribing them.  But not Jesus.  What does Jesus call us as a Church to do?  We are called to proclaim the Law in all its sternness and the Gospel in all its sweetness.

Look at it this way.  Generally speaking, you aren’t going to go and drink a glass of water unless you are thirsty.  Your body tells you that you need nutrients and so sends a message to you to go and drink.  Well, because of sin, we don’t know that we’re thirsty.  We don’t know that we are dying without God.  Only the Law can show us that.  But once you are crushed with the Law, the words of the Gospel are sweeter than honey.  Jesus’ words of forgiveness and life are the most important words you will ever hear.

One of the things I have drilled into Lisa and Bess this past year is why we go to church.  Simply put, we go to church to get Jesus.  This is the place where Jesus promises to be found.  Jesus comes to us in His Word preached and His Sacraments given out for the forgiveness of sins.  If you understand that, if you believe that, then the Church is the most important place in your life.

Today is a day of great rejoicing here at Messiah.  God’s Word continues to work in our midst, and He has brought Bess and Lisa to the point where they will soon make a public confession of their sinfulness and will receive Jesus Christ’s body and blood for the forgiveness of sins.  This is what the Church is about.  We are about forgiving sins in Jesus’ name.  If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.  Jesus says, take eat, this is my body, take drink, this is my blood.  Come and eat and drink of Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit comes to you now to refresh you in the journey of life.  This food and drink will never grow stale.  It will never become boring or unappetizing.  This food and drink is what will keep you alive until you go home to be with Jesus in heaven.  That is real food and real drink, that will last to all eternity.  In the name of the Father and of the † Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

 

Todd A. Peperkorn, STM

Messiah Lutheran Church

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Pentecost (June 11, 2000)

On the occasion of the Confirmation of

Bess Curry and Lisa Leisten

 

 

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Last Revised: June 27, 2000