Acts 2.1-21; Psalm 104.26-36,37b; 1 Corinthians 12.3b-13; John 20.19-23/7.37-39

THIS Gospel made me wonder: what if there were eight “I am” sayings of Jesus? The Gospel includes seven of these sayings, all in the same form: “I am”, plus something standing for Jesus. “I am the bread of life / the light of the world / the door / the good shepherd / the resurrection and the life / the way, the truth, and the life / the true vine”. There are also two stand-alone “I am” sayings, which have no symbolic “something” standing for Jesus (8.58; 18.5). In this Gospel, in contrast, the symbolic something — water — has no “I am” attached.

What is this “scripture” referred to at 7.38? It is not in my Bible. It is not in anyone’s Bible. Commentators rummage through the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible for references to water, especially water with some miraculous aspect to it. Exodus 17.6 refers to miraculous water that is life-giving, but it is not called “living water”, and there is no trace of the “believer’s heart” that Jesus refers to. Zechariah 14.8 is another possible allusion, for it does mention “living waters”. But it is not even a paraphrase, never mind a quotation.

Yet what Jesus says here is of fundamental importance, not only to those listening to him as he speaks, but also to generations of the faithful yet to come. In verse 39, the Evangelist offers his own interpretation of the meaning: that this “living water” is a reference to the Holy Spirit. But we only have to press the wording a little, and his interpretation slips. The bond between symbol and referent begins to fray.

Imagine someone thirsty coming and drinking. Jesus is the symbolic water that the believer drinks; so the meaning should be that we take Jesus into ourselves, and this gives us life because Jesus himself is life. So far, so orthodox. But the “quotation” refers to water coming forth from the believer — and we cannot easily see a believer as the source of either Jesus or the Holy Spirit.

It is rather confusing. Amid the confusion, though, there are details that stand out clearly, and can be embraced without exegetical gymnastics. We can be reasonably confident, I think, that “living water”, as a physical phenomenon, refers to running or flowing water. That is, water in movement, not still or standing water. The water “lives” because it moves.

Living water was the preferred option for baptism in the Early Church, though still water could be used if necessary. There is a very early witness to this in the text called the Didache (“Teaching”), which was probably written at about the same time as John’s Gospel: “Baptise like this: in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. If you have no living water, use other water. If you cannot baptise in cold water, use warm. If you have neither, pour water upon the head three times in the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit.”

In ancient literature, the spring of water is a symbol for desirable characteristics. The poet who drank from such a spring would be inspired, fresh, original — all infinitely preferable to the slow, muddy, mainstream waters of a broad river. “Living waters” are the mark of something fresh and new.

If rivers of living water flow out of a believer’s heart, they surely do so because Jesus has first generated them there. How? By the same means that makes him as active in our hearts as in the hearts of his first disciples: the Holy Spirit. His first impact on us is to quench our thirst. From having our own thirst for God quenched, we are enabled to become a vehicle of that grace for others.

Another early Christian text (not quite as old as the Didache) refers to Christ as “a spring of living water gushing from God in a land which did not know God, the land of Gentiles”. I think its author, Justin Martyr, is on the right track in making Christ the source of living water. His words are evocative of baptism, though not as explicitly as the Didache. What we can safely conclude is that Jesus’s words about “living water” in John’s Gospel are not an “I am” saying, but an “It is” saying. The Pentecost gift, through baptism, becomes both symbol (living water) and referent (the Holy Spirit) in one.