The
Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity.
The
Collect.
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EEP, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy
Church with thy perpetual mercy; and, because the frailty of man without thee
cannot but fall, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us
to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I am Alpha and Omega, the
beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of
the water of life freely. (Rev
21:6)
And he shewed me a pure river of water of
life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 In
the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the
tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every
month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Rev 22:1-2)
Jesus Christ is clearly the Fountain of Living Waters. He is not altogether the
River of Life referred to in Revelations 22, but rather the Great Source of
that River. His Word, proceeding in an abounding flood from His Heart and Mind,
are the means whereby we may be granted, by His Grace, eternal life. The poor
servant girl, Hagar, fleeing her mistress (Sarah) in the wilderness was found
by the Lord by the preserving Fountain of Water. When we are helpless to govern
our own path, as a poor servant girl, the LORD is always near as a Fountain of
Water. And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the
wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. (Gen 16:7) But when she
was freed of her servitude and again in the midst of the wilderness, the Lord
found it necessary to open her eyes to see the Fountain that was at hand. And
God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the
bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. (Gen 21:19) Christ is always near at hand for those who,
even being blind, seek Him.
Life
is full of wilderness places. Sometimes those wilderness experiences come as a
result of illness or death of a loved one, a financial tragedy, or the
unrequited love of a dear soul upon whom we have set our heart and all of our
love. It is at such wilderness places that we may benefit the most from opening
our eyes to the beautiful Fountain of Living Waters (our LORD Jesus Christ)
that stands at the ready by our sides to replenish our souls that have fallen
vacant of love. He knows our circumstance and feeling for He has often showered
His love on many from whom such love was not immediately reciprocated, and
sometimes, NEVER!
His
is the Source of all the Waters of Life and of the Light of Heaven. He is the
LIGHT only whereby we can SEE light. How excellent is thy loving kindness,
O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy
wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house;
and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. For with
thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.
(Psalms 36:7-9)
How
constant is that Fountain of Waters to those Elect who are privileged to have
it? It is a Continual supply to those who love Him and KNOW Him. And the
LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make
fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of
water, whose waters fail not. (Isaiah 58:11) Our nourishment is two-fold: it is the Water of Life (the Word of God),
and the Bread of Heaven (the Person of Christ). We cannot have our own water,
but His. For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me
the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken
cisterns, that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:13) All of the wells and fountains of water hewn
out by the hands of men cannot suffice. They will fell in due season when the
waters are most needed; but the Waters of Life supplied by the Lord are a
contiunual and overflowing stream.
We
may read of two places that our names may be written down by the Lord: 1) the
Book of Life in Heaven. If our names are not written there, then they are, of
necessity, written in the earth. And all that dwell upon the earth shall
worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8) O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and
they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have
forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters. (Jeremiah 17:13) Perhaps it was the names of those accusers of the woman taken in
adultery that the Lord wrote upon the ground in the 8th chapter of the Gospel of St John, and the next writing He made was
perhaps the names of some other accomplices in the sin of adultery by their
names. This would have definitely dispersed the accusers beginning at the
eldest even unto the youngest.
In
speaking with the Samaritan woman at Jacob¡¯s Well, Christ gently informed her
that it was not the water from Jacob’s Well that she needed most, but the
Living Water that he could give her. If thou
knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink;
thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
(John 4:10) When our hearts are possessed of THAT WATER, they will be too small
to hold the overflowing floods of life that spring there from. He that
believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living water (John 7:38) When we truly possess that Living
Water of Christ, we cannot contain the whole. Our hearts will overflow with
such profusion of love and truth that all around us will marvel. Do you have
that Living Water, and does it overflow to all around?
