He Stood and Cried

He shouted.

John is precise about the noise. Jesus stood and cried, saying. This is a man who has spent the chapter avoiding attention. His brothers had told him to go up to the feast and make himself known, if thou do these things, shew thyself to the world, and John notes without softening it that neither did his brethren believe in him. He went up secretly, waited until the middle of the week before teaching, and officers had already been sent to arrest him. Then, on the last day, that great day of the feast, he stands up in a packed courtyard and raises his voice.

What he shouts is a condition and two imperatives. If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. Thirst is the entry requirement and there is no other. Set that beside what the Pharisees say about the same crowd a few lines later, after the arresting party comes back empty-handed reporting that Never man spake like this man: But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed. The invitation was shouted at the people who had just been written off, over the heads of the men writing them off.

Two things stay open. Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water has been read for centuries as either his or the believer's, and the grammar allows both. And John adds a note in brackets saying the offer was made before what it offered existed in the world. This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive, and then the reason: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given.

That offer stood in a courtyard with nothing behind it yet, and it was shouted anyway. Nothing since has withdrawn it or tightened its terms. The qualification is still thirst. If you have been waiting to be less thirsty before you come, the entry requirement is upside down, and the man is still on his feet in the middle of the crowd asking for the one thing you actually have.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 236 is The Generous Soul (Proverbs 11:25).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two