Faithful on Fridays Blog

Water: Part Three

It’s endearing to me that out of love God designed a movable Tabernacle or tent for His people to be in His presence while traveling from Egypt to Israel. He knew it would be imperative for His people to meet with Him on their way back home. However, only the priests were allowed entrance since they had the responsibility of representing the people to God. Before entering the Holy Place they changed their clothes, and washed their hands and feet (Ex. 30:17-21) in a basin lined with mirrors. This lower story of a change of clothes and washing signified purity so they wouldn’t die as God repeated twice. It wasn’t the lower story, physical death, it was the upper story, spiritual death. 

Can you see the significance of the mirrors (Ex. 38:8)? This bowl of water reflected the sinful state of the priest, literally showing them, as they washed their body parts that served the people: hands and feet. 

Was John thinking of this ‘washing’ when he alone recounted Jesus washing the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper? The details are familiar. The Son of God changed His clothes, tied a clean towel around His waist, and systematically washed all of His apostles’ feet (John 13:1-17) from a basin filled with water. This wasn’t coincidence. This was John tying the Old Testament to the New for us. Jesus is our High Priest, He represented us to the Father, and now our sin is washed away. 

Water is constantly a prophetic picture of God providing all we need for salvation (rescue) as we continue with Moses’ miraculous story. He satisfied the peoples’ thirst in the desert by obeying God’s direction to strike a rock and receive water. Subsequently, John alone records Jesus stopping at Jacob’s well in Samaria (John 4) where He explained the lower and upper story to a woman there. She could only think of physical water to quench her natural thirst, but Jesus directed her thinking to the upper story of spiritual water.

 “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” John 4:13-14

It brings to mind the Old Testament promises to us:

For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit upon your offspring, and My blessing on your descendants. Isaiah 44:3 

Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, Is. 55:1a

When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs. The autumn rains will clothe it with blessings. Psalms 84:6

Will we respond to His call?

“O God, You are my God; earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh faints for You, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1