Springs of Living Waters

“Springs of Living Water”

May 11, 2025 Cobleskill United Methodist Church, Pastor Anna Blinn Cole

Psalm 23; Revelation 7:9-17

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Revelation 7:9-17 

9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. 10 They cried out in a loud voice, saying,

“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb!”

11 And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 singing,

“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdomand thanksgiving and honorand power and mightbe to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you are the one who knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

15 For this reason they are before the throne of God    and worship him day and night within his temple,    and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.16 They will hunger no more and thirst no more;    the sun will not strike them,    nor any scorching heat,17 for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,    and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Have you ever been thirsty, but surrounded by water you couldn’t drink?  

Way back in the early days of adulthood, Garrett and I set off some pretty adventurous trips.  One of them was to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, starting at the Mexican border and heading north to Canada.  One of the hardest parts of this trail is hiking through California’s desert.  It’s a grind… scorching heat in the day, long distances between water sources.  There’s one infamous section of the California desert section of the trail that follows the LA aqueduct.  The LA aqueduct this massive channel that carries melting snow water from the High Sierra Mountains down hundreds of miles to LA where they, in the desert, need the water.  About 17 miles of the trail follows the aqueduct.  Hiking in the desert, great to be by a channel of melted snow water, right?  Wrong.  The trail follows the aqueduct but the aqueduct is under the ground.  But just barely.  There’s a concrete cover that we walked on, thin enough so that you could hear the sound of gushing water, but completely closed off and inaccessible from any hope of drinking it.  This section of trail is so incredibly hot, almost everyone does it at night to avoid overheating as you walk the 17 miles stretch with absolutely no water sources.

The idea of being thirsty and yet surrounded by water you can’t drink is an uncomfortable and maybe even dangerous position to be in.  It also serves as a compelling metaphor.  How do we tap into something deeper and more meaningful that will give us life when what is all around us is not actually life-giving.  

It’s here, into our lap, after a very rain-soaked week that a mysterious scripture lesson from Revelation falls about “springs of living water”.  We’re so prune-y from rainwater, it’s hard to even imagine what “living water” is.  And this is if you even made it to the verse about living water because it comes near the end of a reading from Revelation that takes a lot to follow.  

I’ll be honest and say that when I saw the focus for today’s lesson was on Revelation, I kind of gasped in my office.  I’m not sure I’ve ever preached on the Book of Revelation.  No book in the Bible has sparked more controversy and misunderstanding than this, the last book of the Bible.  Commentator Dan Clendenin tells us that “In the fourth century notable scholars like Chrysostom and Eusebius hesitated to [even] include Revelation in the [Bible].  The Protestant reformer Martin Luther described it as ‘neither apostolic nor prophetic.’ [He said,] ‘My spirit cannot accommodate itself to this book. I stick to the books which present Christ to me clearly and purely.’ John Calvin wrote commentaries on every book in the New Testament except Revelation. [And] today, among Eastern Orthodox believers Revelation is the only book that they don't read in their public liturgy.”

Revelation is what we consider to be apocalyptic literature, that is, its narrative talks about the destruction of the world.  You know, fun stuff.  Not only is it fun in that way, its verses are complicated and rely on symbolism, numerology, and fantastical creatures to impart cryptic messages.  To just dip into it casually on a Sunday morning is …not easy.  

The other piece that makes it hard to talk about Revelation in a productive way, is that the book has become almost synonymous in popular culture with the end times.  We have taken those “destruction of the world” narratives literally.  Scenarios popularized by series like Left Behind have us automatically associating Revelation with an eminent, yet mysteriously unknown timing, of an ominous rapture event.  In this way Revelation has been used as a threatening warning of what is to come and how you better not get left behind when that terrible thing comes.

But, actually, reading Revelation like this is a relatively modern idea.  This way of reading Revelation largely projects that the “Great Ordeal” (the really bad thing that Revelation references) and Christ’s reign both lie in the future, ahead of us, at some near but uncertain time.  If you’ve ever had the pleasure of driving through the Bible Belt of the United States you have undoubtedly seen a billboard that talks about the impending rapture.  Here was a gem from about 14 years ago. 

Yeah, that didn’t age well.  

Reading Revelation with the goal of threatening judgement in the future, whether you attempt to project the exact day or not, is not the point of Revelation, though.  

And it is not how Revelation has been understood for most of Christian history.  In fact, several direct passages from Revelation state that the narrative in this book is actually about tension in the present moment when the book was written with the Roman empire.  It’s the oppressive empire that is occupying the author, John’s, homeland that is the force to be reckoned with, both in the present and as time goes on.  This is the Great Ordeal.  In the days of the very early Christian movement, fresh after the resurrection of Jesus, it’s the empire that is causing social violence, political imperialism, religious persecution, and economic exploitation.  And Jesus’ death was proof.  And yet the shocking revelation that John makes in Revelation is that the empire does all of what it does under the guise of offering prosperity and comfort and shelter to everyone in the empire.   Let us rule you and your troubles will go away.  The empire promises security and prosperity, but the problem is that what it actually brings is persecution and exploitation.  

The point of Revelation’s pages is that confronting the empty promises of oppressive empires will be the ultimate and life-long work of every Christian.  And the only tool we have to overcome this empirical deceit is the Gospel.  The Good News.  The Easter Story in which Jesus’ love ultimately defeated the deadly power of the empire.  The point here is that when we are surrounded by promises of security and truth from the empire, we might as well be walking on the LA aqueduct.  It’s there but it’s not actually for us.  Instead, we have to find the real water, the true promise of Jesus’s life-giving love.  Counteracting the life-sucking power of Empires that try to distort this love will always be the Greatest Ordeal of our lives.  It’s not a future apocalypse, it’s a present test.   Will the Gospel message, will faith in Jesus’ love, will our resistance be enough? 

A very present test, indeed.  

Surrounded as we are by promises of efficiency and prosperity, greatness and security.  It’s like gushing water that we can’t actually have.  Because it’s promised but not actually realized.  It’s offered as only an allusion not grounded in truth or love.  This type of “water”; this security; this comfort; this greatness is only for a few…. The ones way down there at the end of the aqueduct.   Oh, didn’t you read the fine print?  

The Great Ordeal is and always will be our resistance to empty promises that lift up the power of a few over the love of the multitudes.  It’s not a future judgement, it’s a current test.  

---

Today is a day we often think about how we have been mothered.  A sense of provision and shelter, unconditional love that strengthens us for the trials and tests we will face in our lifetimes.  Sometimes this has come from our biological mothers, and other times it comes from selfless acts of mothering from others in our communities.  At its best, the love that comes from the act of mothering is a tapping into a deep and sustaining well of living water.  It’s a love rooted in something greater than ourselves that fortifies us for standing up to the allusions and empty promises we’ll encounter in our lives.  

Yesterday I attended SUNY Cobleskill’s commencement where Tom Porter, a local Mohawk leader, was presented with an honorary doctorate.  In the several times I got to hear him speak, the wisdom of his people shone through.  He told about how really it was his Grandmother who should get the recognition. Because all of our struggles today, the wisdom we earn through encountering difficult challenges, the depth of care and respect we cultivate for one another, these are gifts that we pass down and they had been passed down to him by those who mothered him.  A value held closely by his people that we must care about what our children inherit from us, and their children, and their children and their children... all the way to the seventh generation, we must care that the world they inherit is a world liberated from false promises and the bondage created by occupying empires.  I’m grateful for Tom and his Grandmother.  If there is anyone who can teach us this in our present day, it’s people like him who have lived it.  The real and present task before us is to tap into something deeper.  A spring of living water that quenches our real thirst for love.   We must rise to meet this present task because in seven generations we want our world to be a better place than it is now.  It’s the core longing of everyone who mothers.  It’s the desire of every good shepherd who leads their flocks through the valleys of the shadow of death.  It’s the wisdom of our lands’ first peoples- who have kept this hope alive despite the power wielded over them.  

We dipped our toe into the water of Revelation today.  And I think the takeaway message is this: Let’s step back from the religious culture around us that says our faith is all about judgement and escaping from this world.  Let’s worry less about being “Left Behind” and more about leaving behind a better world for our children and their children and their children.  Let’s face the Great Ordeals of our lifetimes, and stand up to empty promises and occupying empires.  Let’s tap into a deeper source of security and love, a spring of God’s living water, so that the generations to come will not thirst any more.  

A prayer taken from writings of 15th century contemplative, Julian of Norwich.

Mothering God, you gave me birthin the bright morning of this world.Creator, source of ev’ry breath,you are my rain, my wind, my sun.

Mothering Christ, you took my form,offering me your food of light,grain of new life, and grape of love,your very body for my peace.

Mothering Spirit, nurt’ring one,in arms of patience hold me close,so that in faith I root and growuntil I flow’r, until I know.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Anna