“The Only Requirement is Thirst” (John 7:37-39)

Series: What Difference Does It Make?

by Pastor Nate Walther

The Festival of Pentecost, 05/24/2026

            Happy Pentecost!  Today we celebrate the birthday of the Christian Church.  It’s a day that gets us thinking about the church growing with all those amazing events in our reading from Acts.  It’s a day that especially gets us thinking about the work of the Holy Spirit…  How does all of this compare to us and to our lives?  How does it compare to Eastside and whether our church growing like it should be?  Finally, how can we be sure we have the Holy Spirit, and that our faith is in the right place? 

            In answer to those questions, some churches pour everything into programs that promise to transform your life, or into numerical growth, or into miraculous signs like healings or tongue-speaking.  It’s a tangible way to say, “My faith is solid! We’re doing something right as a congregation! We’ve got the Holy Spirit!”  It’s why some of these churches even emphasize that they are “Holy Spirit”-driven, or “Pentecostal” churches.  But what’s really important for our faith?  What are the true requirements for faith? 

            Today in his Word, God shows us that faith isn’t really about what we see physically in our lives or in our church.  Nor is it even about some obvious, outward way we can see the Holy Spirit at work.  We certainly adore and worship the Holy spirit as a member of our Triune God—it’s why we have a special day like today to focus on him!—but at the same time, we don’t focus on him like some churches do, often to the exclusion of other members of the Trinity.  In fact, today we hear something curious from Jesus himself: the only requirement for our faith is thirst.

            That’s what Jesus effectively says in our sermon text from John chapter 7.  Like he often did in Parables, here Jesus uses physical images to describe spiritual realities.  Particularly, Jesus uses “thirst” as picture of spiritual need.  And did you notice how Jesus encourages us to resolve our thirst?  It’s not a matter reforming your behavior or doing things a certain way, nor is it a matter of how your life looks.  Instead, it’s simply a matter of drinking deeply from Jesus, and that’s where Jesus also says you can find the Holy Spirit is at work.  Granted, by this point Jesus hadn’t yet sent the Spirit to the Disciples—that’s because he was still with them at this time, and they didn’t yet require additional help from the Holy Spirit—but Jesus was prophetically looking ahead to that time after his Ascension when the Holy Spirit would come upon the church at Pentecost.

            As for us, we tend to think of thirst as a bad thing, because thirst is a lack of what you need.  It’s why we naturally long to resolve the thirst of our souls.  But how do we do that?  Some people look for “signs of the Spirit” – something big or powerful to assure them they’ve done so.  Others try to work harder to be better people and overcome their problems – all in an effort fill them up! But does that fill us with the right thing?  For example, when you’re thirsty there’s nothing quite like water to quench your thirst. Sure, you can get out of the heat and stop sweating, but you’ll still be thirsty.  Or you can have a drink of iced coffee or a cold beer as a substitute to quench your thirst, but you’ll only end up dehydrating yourself further in the end. Or you can try to work even harder to overcome your thirst and push through it, but you’ll just get thirstier… OR you can drink water and actually quench your thirst.

Don’t miss the simple lesson in that picture. Jesus offers the only thing that overcomes the thirst of sin.  Jesus once said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”  We can be so quick to move past thirst that we don’t realize there’s blessing in it.   That’s what we mean today when we say the only requirement is thirst. Spiritual thirst leads us to the one thing that will satisfy our spiritual needs: Jesus, the “water of life.” Because you can have the biggest, best church yet still have problems.  Or you can avoid all sorts of sins yet still struggle under the burden of sin.  Or you can enjoy all sorts of gifts & blessings yet still face depression because it’s never enough…  That’s because you’re still dehydrated.  You still need forgiveness as only Jesus provides it from the cross, meaning that is uniquely found in the resurrection of the dead that will be ours someday as well, and a sense of contentment like no other that is found in Word & Sacrament in a restored relationship with the Lord Almighty of the Heavens. 

            That’s what Pentecost is all about. And that’s what the Holy Spirit is all about.  He’s all about leading people to Jesus as the water of life.  Or, to put it another way, think of the Holy Spirit like the operator behind the spotlight in a big Broadway production.  If he’s doing his job, he doesn’t want anyone looking at him–in fact, he doesn’t want anyone thinking about him at all!–he only wants people looking where he directs their attention. Similarly, the Holy Spirit intends to make a difference in our lives, just maybe not the one we think.  Sure, on Pentecost that resulted in tongues of fire and miraculously speaking in languages.  But if we read farther in Acts 2 we realize it was all about putting Jesus in front of others.  Peter used all these miraculous signs to call the Pentecost crowd’s attention to Jesus.  And today, the Spirit makes that same difference through whatever means ot may be–miraculous or mundane–all to connect more people to Jesus.

            Thirstis the only requirement.  You lack nothing if you have a thirst that drives you to Jesus as the water of life. As Jesus said in our sermon text, that’s where the Spirit is at work.  The Spirit is not found in those obvious things that fill our lives (that’s just the spirit of this world).  He’s found absence of something so important in our souls that we’re driven to the only one who can fill it (that’s truly a Spirit that comes from God).  Yes, he may be accompanied by other things too—the disciples were able to speak in tongues and perform miracles–but in the end it’s all about more people finding good news in Jesus.  Then, like Jesus said in our sermon text, we become springs of water: where these things in our lives point other people to Jesus as the water of life.  On the other hand, when the focus turns to those gifts and those signs and the measurables themselves, it’s no longer about Jesus and we’ve completely lost his Spirit.

            As we return to our sermon text once more, I want you especially to consider the background of these words.  Jesus is celebrating the Festival of Tabernacles for the last time during his life on earth.  It was a holiday that recalled how the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years after the Exodus, relying on God to care for them while they dwelled in tents.  Additionally, by Jesus’ time the priests celebrated each day of the festival by going down to the pool of Siloam in Jerusalem and drawing water, which they would then return to the temple and ceremonially pour out.  It became a powerful image of God providing for his people as they were about to enter the rainy season and prayed that God would bless the crops they had just sown…  Now, can you imagine Jesus watching all of that, then crying out—as our sermon text describes him doing on the final day of the festival—saying something like, “Don’t you see?  This is all a picture of me and what I can do for you!  I am the water of life!”  So also, Jesus cries out to us in his Word and says, “Don’t you see?  As you sojourn on this earth, as you thirst for something more, as you pray that the Lord to bless your labors as a congregation… it’s all about me and what I can do for you!  I am the water of life!”    Never forget that.  Your lives, the work of this congregation, everything about our faith… it’s about Christ filling us up.  If we have that, we’re doing everything right.  If we have that, we have the Holy Spirit in full measure.  Amen.