Poetry day - If any one is thirsty
I am still chugging my way through the ESV Study Bible, reading all the notes and introductions as I go. I am now in the New Testament, which is a small relief. I’ve slowed down a little here, and stopped trying to get through anything close to four chapters a day.
Late last year I read through the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, so I was well placed for Christmas. I am now in John’s gospel. You could be forgiven for finding some of the things Jesus says in the book of John, or the way they are recorded there, a little peculiar, I say. I have heard the stories and the metaphors so many times they are familiar, but every now and then they strike me as really strange ways of communicating to people (though perhaps that is because the way we communicate ideas has changed also). Like near the end of chapter six when he starts talking about being the living bread that comes from heaven, and how anyone who feeds on his flesh has eternal life. And then in chapter seven, from vs 37, where he stands up at a feast and begins to tell everyone that if they thirst they can come to him and drink, and out of their hearts will flow rivers of living water.
Oh course, it all makes sense after the crucifixion and resurrection, and it's all good news, but then it must have been puzzling.
I have recently re-read this sonnet by Don Carson, from Holy Sonnets of the Twentieth Century. I like the way these sonnets make you see the old and familiar truths through new eyes. This one is based on John 7: 37, and also John 19: 28, 29.
Twenty-two
“If any one is thirsty, let him come
To me and drink”—this drink that can’t be sold
Or bought, thirst-quenching nectar, spirit gold,
This fountain out of heaven, given, not won.
Beyond all praise, beyond all princely sum,
The heavenly draught bestows a wealth untold,
The life of God. The thirsty may be bold
To claim the gift held out by God’s own Son.
A drink so rich could not be wholly free:
Fulfilling Scripture, Jesus speaks again:
He gives the draught—transcendent irony—
Who whispers, “I am thirsty,” through his pain.
A human thing, this agony of thirst
By which the arid chains of death were burst.
D. A. Carson