Pilgrimage by Lynn Austin

water to splash the mud mixture from his eyes, his miraculous healing would have occurred before crowds of onlookers. For a rabbi who shunned publicity, Jesus seems to have chosen a very public place to send someone for a miracle—especially on the Sabbath. Once news of this miracle spread, I imagine a stampede of sight-impaired people rushing to the Pool of Siloam, thinking that the water was the source of the cure when the true source was Jesus.
    This pool was part of a very important ritual during the Feast of Tabernacles, which included prayer for rain for the coming year. As crowds of worshipers followed and watched, a procession of robed priests drew water from the Pool of Siloam, then carried it up the hill to the Temple and poured it out around the altar. There the crowd listened in hushed silence as a priest read the prophecy of Zechariah, who had promised that living water would one day flow out from Jerusalem (Zechariah 14:8).
    Imagine the priests’ shock when, in the middle of this sacred ritual, Jesus suddenly stood up in a prominent place and interrupted the proceedings, shouting in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him” (John 7:37–38). I wonder which made the priests angrier—the fact that Jesus disrupted their finely rehearsed ritual with His invitation, or that He dared to compare himself to living water?
    “Living water” flows from a natural, God-given source such as a stream or a spring. Only living water may be used for ritual baths and purification ceremonies, which is why Johnbaptized in a flowing river and why the priests drew water from the spring-fed Pool of Siloam. But Israel’s leaders had rejected Jesus, the Living Water, and relied instead on their own lifeless rules and rituals for their righteousness. God told these leaders, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13).
    Cisterns are man-made holes, plastered and filled by hand. The water they hold is not “living.” Cisterns must be patched and repaired and refilled or all the water will disappear. The loss might start with a small crack or a fissure; add on months of neglect and the water slowly trickles away. But a “living,” moving source originates with our bountiful, life-giving God. Living water not only purifies; it doesn’t run dry.
    Our endless rushing and Pharisaical good works cannot bring righteousness any more than a ritual, without God, can bring rain. Any more than the Pool of Siloam, without Jesus, can bring healing. Yet we insist on using God as a magic charm, trying to do everything just right so our lives will be blessed. The Christian walk isn’t about blessing, as I’m learning, but about a relationship—and that relationship is built and established with prayer. It’s about obedience, even when I don’t understand, even when it means a cross.
    If I’m empty and dry, maybe it’s because I have tried to satisfy my longings from man-made sources instead of allowing the Living Water to fill me. How foolish to expect a church service—with my preferred style of music, of course—to satisfy my soul when spiritual wholeness and healing come from a relationship with Christ, not a ritual. In my loneliness and loss, I have foolishly dug a lot of cisterns and started alot of useless projects that eventually ran dry. But when my thirsty soul longs for water, my empty heart for healing, I can go to the true Source in prayer and be made whole. And God will freely give, never chastising me for trying to quench my own thirst.
    I take another swig from my water bottle as I stare into the remains of the Pool of Siloam, and I can almost hear His invitation: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37). But Jesus said something else