John 7:37-39 … Drinking the Living Waters (02/19/17)
“There is a love like a small stream which dries up when it doesn’t rain. But there is also a Love like a mighty spring gushing up out of the earth … It keeps flowing forever and is inexhaustible.” ~ Isaac of Nineveh
Isaac of Nineveh was a 7th-century East Syriac Christian theologian & devout ascetic, and his staunch belief that the notion of God punishing men endlessly through the mystery of Gehenna (or “the lake of fire”, or “Hell”) was not at all compatible with God’s all-encompassing Love resonated perfectly with the teachings of Jesus and The Way of Christ. As such we should not be surprised that he would utter something so potently reminiscent of Jesus’ statements in the Gospels …
Indeed, John 4:14 has Jesus noting that “Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life”, and John 7:37-39 has Jesus continuing on to say “’Let the one who believes in me drink. As the Scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ He said this about the Spirit” (see also Proverbs 18:4 & Gospel of Thomas 108).
Jesus also noted that this inner Spirit was essentially of God Himself (John 14:20) and that God was the essence of perfect LOVE (Matthew 5:48), so it makes perfect sense that Isaac of Nineveh would have equated the three as well – Water as Spirit; Spirit as LOVE; LOVE as Water.
And as far as the inexhaustibility of the same goes, this is an accurate utterance as well, for while the self-centered “love” of the ego (i.e. love given as manipulation or obligation or reciprocity or in response to societal expectation) inevitably drains its giver (leading to fatigue, resentment, isolation, and despair), truly Divine LOVE is given solely for the benefit of the other (often via acts of willing self-sacrifice) and as such is an ever-invigorating act; leading the giver thereof to always experience emPowerment, Calm, Joy, &/or Contentment.
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