If anyone thirsts
It was the last and great day of the feast, and Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37). And then he paused, and looked around at the milling crowds.
I wonder why Jesus said if anyone thirsts? Surely he knew that deep down everyone really does thirst for God. Hadn't he heard about the ‘God-shaped hole’ that we all long to have filled? And had he forgotten that quote from Augustine about “our hearts being restless till they find their rest in thee”? Possibly Jesus hadn't been reading Erwin McManus's latest book, Soul Cravings, in which the author testifies, “I am absolutely convinced of one thing: God has placed cravings within your soul that will drive you insane or drive you to him. Your soul longs for God; you just may not know it yet.” (Incidentally, we also know Jesus wasn't influenced by McManus, because Jesus was in the habit of saying “Truly, truly I say unto you” rather than “I am absolutely convinced of one thing”.)
Did Jesus think that there were multitudes out there who were not thirsting? Judging by what else was happening in John 7, it's easy to imagine him coming to this conclusion. After all, his own brothers were so supportive of him and so thirsty for what he had to offer, they cynically suggested he go up to Jerusalem for the feast where he could make a big splash (and get arrested and hopefully killed). The Pharisees and chief priests were hardly thirsting for him (unless you count thirsting for his blood). And the crowds—with one fearful eye on the Pharisees, and one confused and indecisive eye on Jesus—couldn't or wouldn't decide what they thirsted for, despite witnessing all Jesus could do (see John 7:31: “When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?”).
How many were really thirsting for what Jesus was offering? And what was it exactly that he was offering?
The answer is in the very next verse: “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:38). The thirst Jesus was offering to satisfy had been brewing for a long time. It was an Old Testament thirst for redemption and salvation and a new age of the Spirit—for the time when the dead, dry bones of Israel would come to new life, and when the spiritual desert of Israel would once again flow with water (see Ezekiel 36-37, for example, or Isaiah 55). It was the “consolation of Israel” that old Simeon was longing to see before he died (Luke 2:25); and the “redemption of Jerusalem” that Anna and at least a few others were hoping for (Luke 2:38). Some hungered and thirsted for God's saving righteousness to be revealed—and to them Jesus promised that, at long last, their thirst would be slaked (‘slaked’ being a word I've wanted to use in print for quite some time).
The story of John's Gospel and of all the Gospels (indeed of the entire Old Testament) is that precious few in Israel had this thirst. No doubt they had cravings—for power, for meaning, for safety, for relationships, for love and, of course, for liberation from the accursed Roman oppressors. But when Jesus came offering them the very water of eternal life, it was not to their taste. When he came to his own, as John's Prologue says, they received him not (John 1:11). In the presence of the light of the world, they preferred the darkness because their deeds were evil (John 3:19).
To be honest, I don't like to think about people this way. I prefer to imagine that the great sea of non-Christians in which I swim each day really does have a thirst for God—if only they realized it. If only I could put Jesus in front of them in a way that attracted them—perhaps showing how he really is the long, tall, satisfying drink that will quench their deepest desires—then they would gladly and gratefully stretch out their hand and drink.
But the longings of the human soul in all their intertwined variety are not disguised or unrealized longings for God. Platonism says that (and so, in his own particular reprise of Platonism, does CS Lewis). The Bible has a much more pessimistic view of the nature and direction of our thirsts.
By the end of John's Gospel, there is only one man left with a thirst. It is Jesus himself, who, on the cross, cries out, “I thirst”. After they had given him sour wine to drink, he said, “It is finished” and gave up his spirit (John 19:28-30).
He became thirsty so that his enemies might drink. And from the hearts of those who drink will flow rivers of living water, welling up to eternal life.