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Pentecost 2026
Immanuel Lutheran Church, Hamilton, Ohio
Pastor Kevin Jud
May 24, 2026
Numbers 11:24-30, Acts 2:1-21, John 7:37-39

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            When you think of the Holy Spirit, what symbols come to mind?  How do we represent the Spirit in Church art; in our windows and banners?  On banners and paraments and in our front window and side windows the spirit is represented as a dove because… Matthew 3:16–17 (ESV) 16 … when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” 

            On banners and the Pentecost window, the Spirit is represented by a flame.  This comes from our reading today from Acts.  Acts 2:1–3 (ESV) 1 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.”  The Spirit is manifested as a dove and as a flame, and as wind. 

            The word “spirit” in Hebrew and Greek both mean wind or air or breath.  Jesus breathes on His disciples and says, John 20:22 (ESV) 22 … “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  The Spirit arrives on Pentecost with the sound like a mighty rushing wind.  The Holy Spirit is represented by a dove and a flame and wind, although it is hard to make a picture of wind. 

            There is another description of the Spirit that does not come so readily to mind which we find in our Gospel reading today.  John 7:37–39 (ESV) 37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” The Spirit is Living Water flowing from Jesus. 

            In John 7, Jesus is at the feast.  This feast is the one everyone wants to be at so it is sometimes just called, The Feast. It is the Feast of Tabernacles or Feast of Booths.  It is a seven day festival remembering the Israelites 40 year exodus in the wilderness.  Families construct temporary huts to eat in and sleep in for seven days to remember their ancestors’ time in tents in the desert. 

            Each morning of the feast the priests go the pool of Siloam and bring back golden pitchers of water which they carry through the water gate to the temple and then pour the water out onto the altar to remember the waters of creation, and God providing water when Moses struck the rock in the desert, and also looking forward to the fulfillment of the prophecy of Ezekiel.  Ezekiel 47:1 (ESV)  1 Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar.”

            Jesus comes from Galilee in the middle of the feast and teaches in the temple each day.  Some are fascinated by Jesus’ teaching… some want to kill him… the Pharisees send officers to arrest Jesus, but they are also captivated by His teaching.  When they return without Jesus… John 7:46 (ESV) 46 The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!” 

            On the last day of the feast, likely as they are pouring out the water on the altar or after they finished…John 7:37 (ESV) 37 …Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.”

            Jesus has been boldly teaching at the Temple since the middle of the feast, but now, on the last day, Jesus shows great audacity.  The priests have been pouring out water to remember the waters of creation, water from the rock in the wilderness, and Ezekiel’s prophecy of water flowing from the temple. Jesus stands up and claims that He is the fulfillment of all of this.  Jesus was there at creation.  Jesus is the rock flowing with water.  Jesus is the temple gushing with water.  Jesus is the source of living water.  He continues, John 7:38 (ESV) 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”  This verse begs a question.  Out of whose heart will flow rivers of living water? From the believer in Jesus?  Or from Jesus Himself?  The ESV leaves it a bit ambiguous.  Some translations are specific, The NRSV says, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.”’ 

     This passage has likely been mistranslated going all the way back to Origin of Alexandria, a Church father in the early 3rd Century.  Origin translates that the living water flows from the belly of the believer. The earlier translations are more like the New English Translation.  (NET) “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and  38 let the one who believes in me drink.  Just as the scripture says, ‘From within himwill flow rivers of living water.”  Meaning, from within Jesus.  This follows better with Jesus saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.” The dispute hinges on the placement of a period.  However, the original Greek manuscripts do not have punctuation, so Origin was relying on a later manuscript that added the period.  Not to go against a church father, but I believe that the living water flows from Jesus.

            Jesus stands up and announces that He is the source of Living Water; “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.  Earlier, in John 4, Jesus talks to the woman at the well.  John 4:10–14 (ESV) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”… “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 

On the cross, after Jesus gives up His spirit, a Roman soldier spears Jesus and from His side flows water and blood. 

In John’s Revelation He writes, “Revelation 22:1–2 (ESV) 1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”

            On the high day of the feast, Jesus declares He is the source of living water and then John tells us what this living water is.  John 7:39 (ESV) 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

            The Holy Spirit cannot be given until after Jesus is glorified by His suffering and death on the cross, and His resurrection from the dead.  The Spirit testifies that Jesus paid the price for all your sins.  He cannot do that until Jesus paid the price for all your sins.  On that Pentecost, after the disciples receive the Holy Spirit by wind and flame, they are preaching and the people are convicted of having killed Jesus… Acts 2:37–39 (ESV) 37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”  Three thousand that day are born again… born from above by water and the spirit and receive forgiveness of their sins.  In baptism you receive forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit; the Living Water of God welling up in you to eternal life.

            You live in a dry, dusty, sinful world intent on ignoring God’s law altogether, or trying to appease God by their own good works.  You are different.  You have the Holy Spirit and so when you are confronted by God’s law you realize that the world’s ways cannot work, and you are left thirsting for righteousness.  As hard as you try, you cannot free yourself from sin.  In a sermon on John 7 Martin Luther says that the one who thirsts is the one brought into despair by the Law.  To drink from Christ, that is from the Gospel, “satisfies the thirst, makes us cheerful, and revives and consoles the conscience.”[1]

Jesus proclaims, (NET) “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and  38 let the one who believes in me drink. Just as the scripture says, ‘From within himwill flow rivers of living water.”  Amen. 

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[1] Weinrich, William, John 7:2-12:50 Concordia Commentary Series, pg. 57