Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 236 · August 24
He Stood and Cried
“In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.”
Jesus shouted.
John is exact about the noise: "Jesus stood and cried, saying." That stands out, because He had come up to this feast quietly. His brothers had pushed Him to go and make Himself known: "If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world." John adds plainly, "For neither did his brethren believe in him." So Jesus went up after them, "not openly, but as it were in secret," and waited until the middle of the feast before He taught in the temple. Already the Pharisees and chief priests had sent officers to arrest Him. Then, "in the last day, that great day of the feast," He stands up in the crowded temple courts and raises His voice.
What He shouts is one condition and two commands: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." Thirst is the only requirement for coming. Set that beside what the Pharisees say about the same crowd a few verses later. The officers come back without Him and report, "Never man spake like this man." The Pharisees answer, "But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed." So the invitation was shouted to the very people who were being written off, and it went right over the heads of the men who were writing them off.
Two things in the passage stay open. "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water" has been read in two ways for centuries. Some say the rivers flow from Jesus, and some say from the believer, and the grammar allows both. John also adds a note in brackets, explaining that the offer was made before the gift it promised had come: "But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given."
So that offer was shouted in the temple before the gift had come, and since then the Spirit has been given. Nothing has taken the offer back or made its terms stricter, and the requirement is still thirst. If you have been waiting to feel less thirsty before you come, you have the requirement upside down. Jesus is still standing in the middle of the crowd, asking for the one thing you already have, and He promises to fill it.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 236 is The Generous Soul (Proverbs 11:25).