Flowing Streams
Original sermon given on The Day of Pentecost, May 24, 2026 written and delivered by Pastor Jeff Leininger at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church.
Watch the sermon live.
“Flowing Streams”
John 7.37-39
Flowing Streams
In the name of the Living God, who gives the living water of the Spirit. Amen.
Happy Birthday Church! Today we observe what’s sometimes called “The Birthday of the Church”, for it was on the Feast of Pentecost around 33 A.D. when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon those gathered in Jerusalem after Jesus’ ascension. In fulfillment of ancient prophecy, and indeed fulfillment of Jesus own words, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and then in word and deed they embodied the gospel of Christ to the ends of the earth. And here we are today, wearing red.
But this morning’s gospel reading from John 7 takes us back before Pentecost, to an earlier Feast and an earlier moment in the ministry of Jesus. In a sense, Jesus words here in John 7 are a pre-birthday prediction for the church. None of us need to predict our birthdays — we know right when they’re coming. When we’re younger, we count down the days in joyful anticipation. When we’re older, we try to forget they’re coming, but those yearly numbers just keep rising, don’t they?
Jesus in today’s gospel points forward to the Day of Pentecost, when after his death, resurrection, and ascension the Spirit would come. And what moving, powerful words Jesus speaks: “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…” (John 7.37-38)
The full impact of these words can easily be lost upon us. They’re lost on us for a couple of important reasons. First, unlike Jesus’ first hearers, we’ve got an abundance of fresh, “living” water. We live by a great lake, and in case you didn’t know it, there are water intake cribs 2 or 3 miles out on Lake Michigan that stream those waters into pumping stations and into our homes, and our faucets, and our mouths, and our bodies.
As a “rookie Chicagoan” back in 2002, I remember standing by the lake with my wife Rachel, the proud veteran Chicagoan, looking out at those water intake cribs and watching them, and then asking why those small ships out there never move. That’s when I first learned what a “water intake crib” is and where our fresh water comes from. That’s also when I learned about how, in the 1800s, all the stockyard waste and our sewage used to be dumped in the Chicago River, which flowed into the lake where they got their drinking water. But then around 1900 they had the grand idea of completely reversing the Chicago River, so that everyone downstate gets all our… schtuff.
We hardly ever think about where our water comes from or of what great value it is, unlike those in Jesus’ day where fresh water was work, or seeking it could mean war, or gathering it was the first, most important, and most difficult task of the day, like it is for many people in countries around the world today.
So, Jesus here in John 7 talking about rivers of living water flowing into you, for you, and out through you is an astounding image. And seeing the Holy Spirit’s work as precisely this — to pour into us the gospel, and then pour out of us for others, is indeed a reason to celebrate the Church’s “Birthday.” So fresh water was rare in Jesus’ day.
The second thing to note which helps us to understand the full impact of Jesus words, “…If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink,” is the specific context when Jesus shouts out these words. Let me paint the picture for you. Our Lord is in Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles, or Booths, which had grown into one of most important celebrations for the Jewish people. It was the celebration when the Jews constructed leafy tent-like structures as a reminder that they were once a people without a permanent home; they were once pilgrims wandering through the wilderness. Tabernacles -- or Booths (Succoth) -- is still observed today.
We’re told that Jesus spoke these words on that last, great day of the Succoth (Tabernacles). The last day of the Feast had become the dramatic crescendo of a week-long celebration. With over a hundred priests required for the activities, crowds of people shouting and processing, the entire festival focused in on one particular moment: in the center of the temple area, a priest would pour out from a golden pitcher water drawn the pool of Siloam, symbolizing the out-pouring of the Spirit of God on all people. Right as the priest poured out the water, the people shouted, “Work now salvation, Yahweh! Work now salvation, Yahweh! Work now salvation, Yahweh!” Then the entire temple area became suddenly silent.
It is into this silence that Jesus shouts, he cries out: “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 from within him.’”
It is impossible for us to conceive of a more specific and powerful confession of who Jesus claimed to be: He is claiming to give the only life-giving water; he is claiming to be the place where Yahweh, the great “I Am”, works salvation, and he is saying that the Spirit of God flows in us and over us and through us by faith, by believing in him.
We’re all thirsting for something, even in a city where we are blessed to have such an abundance of water. We’re all hoping for something, maybe someone to shout into our silence. Jesus’ words his expressing of the work of the Holy Spirit as Living Water confront us. They convict us about the multitude of ways we try to quench our thirsting souls apart from Jesus. As if the right amount of money will do it. Or the perfect job. Or the perfect person to come along and complete you. Or, just filling your life with as many vain, empty, meaningless distractions as possible.
Sometimes our attempts are subtle — kind of like buying a quick, cool, bottled water at the gas station on a hot day. Just one quick fix and my thirsting soul will be satisfied. But you’ll only thirst again, probably more parched than before, and it will never be enough.
Sometimes it might be dramatic — I need a complete, seismic life change — moving someplace else, a totally new career, gotta leave the city, gotta move back into the city, gotta get married, gotta get divorced, gotta go back to school, gotta quit school. Something big. Like those great Chicago workers c. 1900 who engineered a complete reversal of an entire river, maybe that’s what I got to do, then all the schtuff will just flow away from my life, somewhere else. I can be fulfilled, satisfied, complete, at peace.
Jesus’ words here permit none of this. And you need to note this, hear this as his voice fills your silence this morning. Trusting in him, being engrafted into him and him alone brings forth the living waters of the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit, given to us in God’s Holy Word and Sacraments, expressed here and to the ends of the earth in the body of believers, which pours into us true life, and pours out of us true life for the life of the world.
Contemporary author Jennifer B. Wallace explores the question of what really fills us in a recent book with a provocative title: Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose. It’s not a particularly Christian book and was originally written with youth and young adults in mind, especially those struggling with anxiety, but I think it certainly describes a common quest: we all want to matter.[1]
There’s a number of insights in Wallace’s book about “mattering”, but two in particular are noteworthy for us on this Birthday of the Church. She argues, especially for young people, that those who live lives of significance, of “mattering”, all have two things in common: they know that they are valued and feel that they are able to give value to others, in life. To be valued, and to be of value.
Now, I have to say that there’s no secret to “mattering”. Jesus shouts it out to us today. Like a river flowing into us, it is the work of the Holy Spirit both to assure us of our eternal value, in Jesus Christ; and to flow through us to bring value to others.
We know we have eternal value, for our Lord Jesus has gone to the cross for us, forgiven all our sins, made us his very children in love, promised never to forsake us, and prepared for us an eternal home. What can give you more value than this? The Holy Spirit flows into us, creating and sustaining this faith in us. And we know we are of value to others because the same Spirit works with us his gifts for the life of the world: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Gal. 5.22-23)
May this knowledge fill us with meaning and purpose, and may our thirsty souls be filled in him.
Come soon, Lord Jesus. Amen.
[1] I owe this reference to the podcast “Lectionary Kickstart”, Concordiatheology.org
