Rivers of Living Water
The Spirit of Water: ‘Rivers of Living Water’
Revd Toby Wright, Dean of Wells
John 7:32-39
I bring you greetings from the water wells and Cathedral of Wells in Somerset to this place where this holy site stands in a city which is at the confluence of five rivers – perhaps a water version of the five wounds of Christ. In Wells we see four million gallons of water bubble up daily, and I’m grateful to the Dean here for a chance to come and reflect on the theme of the Spirit of Water within your spectacular Flower Festival.
As I begin, I want to note that scientists tell us that 73-85% of our brain is water; and plants, including flower, are generally about 90% water. So as we enjoy the beauty of these flowers, it is water that enables them. And as our brains respond, it is water that enables us to do so. What better theme to be thinking about together as we rejoice in the rich sight and smell of this delightful festival of flowers, and a massive shout out to all who have worked so hard to enable this glorious festival.
Aleck Bartholomew, a geologist and disciple of Viktor Schauberger, writes in The Story of Water; Source of Life (2010) that ‘Water is the most essential component for our physical and spiritual being…Water carries all life. But water is beyond time, for it bears in its flow the seeds of future life, as well as the memory of past life.’ He describes it as the heartbeat of the universe with a mystical quality. And we are learning evermore that water creates, sustains and connects.
Our history is intricately woven with the mystery of Water. As Christians, the symbolism of Creation, Baptism and Redemption are utterly foundational. And these sit on many other ancient senses of the gift of water, from the figurines of south-eastern Europe around 6000BC depicting water-beings, to the Babylonian sense of Aquarius, ensuring that the Tigris and Euphrates fertilized annually, to the Roman Egeria and the Greek Aphrodite who ‘rose from the waves’ as the Roman Venus.
In her book The Meaning of Water Veronica Strang, in a chapter entitled Holy Water, states, ‘The characteristics of water and its visible movement through macro and micro ecosystems are evidently a major source of metaphor in the elaborate cosmological schemes that people construct to describe the ‘order’ of the world and their place in it.’ p83 For water is a sacred substance. Records in folklore suggest there were over 8,000 holy wells in Britain and Ireland (Strang p86), and these have long been sites of regeneration and healing, as we know well in Wells. Furthermore, the importance of water is increasing with water stress and the ecological issues of our day.
So the setting of our second lesson is important to us as we reflect on the Spirit of water. We are on the last day, the great day of the Feast. And Jesus is stood watching the procession of people from their booths to the Temple. Scholars tell us that on each of the days, libations of water were brought in golden vessels from Siloam at the time of the morning sacrifices while Isaiah 12.3 was sung. It may be that this didn’t happen on the 8th day, which would make Jesus’s point about thirsting for water even stronger. The event that is being commemorated is the time in the wilderness when water poured out from the rock (Exod 17.6) – an image of future blessing (cf Ezek 47.1,12; Joel 3.18 and 1 Cor 10.4).
Whereas those who drank the original water in the wilderness thirsted again, Jesus’ water becomes a spring, dare I say a well, springing up within as the refreshing energies of faith. And the beauty of it is that the one who drinks of the spiritual rock then in turn becomes a rock from which the waters flow to relieve the thirst of others, (as Augustine picks up in his commentary on Christ’s gifts (in John Tract 32.9)).
And not only is the witness to water central throughout the Bible, it has also informed our worship within the Church. As the Liturgical theologian Daniélou (1961:42) states ‘Living water can be understood in four ways…in its ordinary literal meaning it denotes spring water, running water as distinct from standing water. In its ritual sense it means baptismal water. In its Biblical sense it denotes God as the fountain-head or source of life. In its Christian sense it symbolizes the Holy Spirit.’
As we have seen, water creates, sustains and connects. It is – we know – utterly essential to life, as these flowers bear testimony. And here in this passage we are reminded that the function of the Holy Spirit is to bear witness to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In just the same way (as Luther made plain) the natural world bears witness to the power of resurrection every time a leaf buds forth, or a flower breaks out.
It seems to me that Christian thought has wrestled hard with the natural world. In spite of the plain statement, repeated seven times in the first Chapter of the Bible that creation is ‘good’ it has not always been held as such. The teaching of Hugh of St Victor is important, as according to his work the universe is symbolic of the mind of God. He reminds us that if we contemplate a flower, it will give us some particular knowledge of God. However, this got tricky when people started saying if we see creation as if reflected in a mirror, it isn’t ‘real’ but only ‘symbolic’ – as the idealist philosophers would argue. This is balanced out by the teachings of Aquinas, who rejects both the symbolic, and the near-human interpretation of creation, instead offering the view of a unity – ‘an ordered hierarchy of being, of things, with inanimate matter at its base and the glorious host of heaven, glorifying God, at its peak’ (The Purple Headed Mountain Martin Thornton p36) and here even flowers can lead us to an analogy of God’s very self.
Today, as we rejoice in the beauty of this floral explosion of life, celebrating water, the heartbeat of the universe with a mystical quality, my prayer is that we may be transformed ever more deeply to see revealed in nature the reality of God’s beauty. That these flowers may recall us to the waters of Creation, Baptism and Redemption and to the power of water that creates, sustains and connects. Using the 73-85% of our brain that is water and the 90% of water in these flowers, let us rejoice in the refreshing energies of faith. And may each of us go from this place to relieve the thirst of others, and to be a future blessing in the world. Let us pray:
Patient lover give us love:
Till every shower of rain speaks of Thy forgiveness:
Till every storm assures us that we company with Thee:
And every move of light and shadow [every drop of water and budding flower] speaks of grave and resurrection:
To assure us that we cannot die: Thou creating… sustaining [and connecting] God. Amen.
Rev George MacLeod: The Whole Earth Shall Cry Glory