Free Drink

To the thirsty I will give water, without cost,  from the Spring of life. ~Rev 21:6

It makes me laugh.  There has never been a better way to get people to a party than to have a free bar. The party in heaven is no exception!  

Jesus has an interesting relationship with alcohol,  and one that I won't explore this morning,  but it is a curiosity that his first miracle was to turn water into enough wine to inebriate a garrison,  at a party where most of the guests would have been likely half-cut already!

But if we don't focus on the drink itself,  we are given such a huge picture of the excessive generosity of God,  who is able to give more than we can ask or imagine.

You can't outgive God.

He is the God of abundance.

And this is what I want to talk about.  God's desire to satisfy the eager.

Remember the sermon on the mount? Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,  for they shall be filled.

And it is not to anyone that Jesus gives this water.

No.

It is to the thirsty. 

Are we thirsty today for the water of life?

If nothing excites a crowd of revellers like a free bar,  then nothing underwhelms us like free water.

I grew up believing that no one paid for water.

I didn't see that side of it. 

In my young head,  you just turned on the tap and water came out.  That is all.  It was colourless,  tasteless,  everyday and there was never a shortage of it.
You could say I didn't really appreciate it as I ought to have.

So when I went to stay with a French family on my school's student exchange program at the age of 14,  I was so shocked that all the water they drank was bought and paid for at the shop.

This is partly cultural but at that point mineral water was something I had heard of but never experienced.  We were a bit slow on the uptake here in the UK.  I mean, who would pay for water??  What a joke.

But when you can't trust the water that is available it makes perfect sense.

Water is the most common and the most precious of resources.  Without water we will all die.

Water is life.

And spiritually thinking,  the 'water' most of us survive on is contaminated and unclean. Eventually, It will be the end of us.

Earthly water is only good for earthly life. Everyone who drinks H2O will die.

We need the true water of life,  to live eternally. And Jesus says he will freely give it to whoever desires it.

Wow.

And we do not even need to pay for this clean,  living water,  straight from the source.

Amazing.

The prophet Isaiah says

Come, all you who are thirsty,
    come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without cost.
² Why spend money on what is not bread,
    and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
    and you will delight in the richest of fare.
³ Give ear and come to me;
    listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,

What a promise. It contains an open invitation to the thirsty.

And you know that as much as we love various flavours of drink,  on a hot and dry day,  nothing satisfies the parched mouth like a long, cool drink of fresh water.

And Jesus makes the water into something more exciting still.  The water of life is the new wine of the Kingdom.

And the bar is open right now.

And it's never closing,

Today,
Or any day.

Amen.