This helps us to understand a bit better the first reading from the prophet Isaiah. "Let the desert and the dry lands be glad, let the wasteland rejoice and bloom.....for water will gush in the desert and stream in the wastelands, the parched ground will become a marsh and the thirsty land springs of water....So be strong! Do not be afraid here is your God coming to save you." There is a very binding connection between the image of water and the workings of God. In many instances the influence and the benefits of being close to God are described through the image and experience of water.
One of the great Feasts in the Jewish calendar is the Feast of Tabernacles. It is the feast to commemorate the forty years that the chosen people spent in the desert after they left Egypt on the way to the Promised Land. It is also the time commemorating the finding of the water in the parched conditions of roaming around the desert. For the Jewish people, Jerusalem is the centre of the world. At the centre of Jerusalem we find the temple and the Holy of Holies was at the centre of the temple. This means that for the Jewish people, the temple was the centre of the centre of the world. Whatever flowed from the temple had a great influence and impact on the whole world. During the six days of the Feast of Tabernacles, the High Priest would go down to the Pool of Siloam in a procession carrying a silver pitcher. He would fill the silver pitcher with water from the Pool of Siloam and walk back in procession to the temple chanting the psalms. He would enter the temple and pour the water down a hole close to the Holy of Holies signifying that worship of God in the temple would give life and sustenance to the whole world.
The water flowing from the temple would make the plants grow, the flowers to bloom, the trees to give rich food, the arid ground to be turned into springs of fresh water and the people in general would continue to enjoy a healthy and beneficial way of living. All this emanates from God.
As a good Jew, Jesus celebrated all the important feasts in the Jewish calendar including the Feast of Tabernacles. Just before he died, John the Evangelist tells us that on the last day, When the High Priest did not go down to the Pool of Siloam to carry the water back to the temple, Jesus stood and cried out "Let anyone who believes in me come and drink. As scriptures say "From his heart shall flow streams of living water." (Jn 7:37-38) This is an awesome statement. In reality Jesus was saying that there is no need to pour any more water in the temple so that the whole world would get life. It is enough to come to Him. He is the source of true peace and tranquillity. He is the source of all that is needed in order to live the kind of life that God has intended for each one of us. It is in Jesus that we find our rest and sense of purpose. It is only in Him that we find all that we need.
This is so important to hold onto. This is a message that we need to keep repeated at any available opportunity. Just as we cannot live without water, we also cannot live without Jesus.
Last Friday I had the opportunity to celebrate the Eucharist with over nine hundred students at one of our Catholic Secondary Colleges. What do you say to all these young people? What can you impart to them so that they can understand how important and unique they are because God does not make rubbish? As I looked at them I became conscious of the influences and the pressures that keep bombarding them. There are pressures of studies and pressures of work. There are pressures of how to cope with growing up and how to behave with each other in a respectful and dignified manner. There are pressures which promote the idea that what is good for me is the most important thing to seek and to obtain. There are pressures which say that as long as I get the necessary satisfaction then I can do whatever I fancy. There are pressures that do not give much space for God. Pressures that promote noise, achievement at all costs, winning even without fair play, performance without the due respect for fairness and without giving much importance to the weak, the disadvantaged and the disabled.
What could I tell these young people? It is very easy to get tongue tied. It is very easy to be with it and utter words and ideas that are vague and without substance. We are all too important not to be given the best. Choose Jesus. That was my message. As Catholic Christian people we are called to make a mark in this world. We are called to be life giving to provide light where there is darkness, hope where there is despair, life instead of death, forgiveness instead of vengeance, respect instead of abuse, open hands in service instead of selfishness and acceptance instead of exclusion. Choose Jesus and we are able to make our society a much better place to be in. Choose Jesus right from our early years so that we can be for others what Jesus desires to be for them. Indeed just as there can be no life without water, there cannot be life without Jesus.
God bless.
