Carlos Padilla—Year A Pentecost
Anthony: Let’s transition to our final text. It’s John 7:37–39. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Pentecost on May 24. Carlos, read it first, please.
Carlos: Sure. Yeah.
On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, 38 and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive, for as yet there was no Spirit because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Anthony: “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” And I think this is a place, maybe we lean heavily on the vicarious nature of who the true believer is. But what does it mean and what does it look like when out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living waters?
Carlos: Yeah. The term that I think crushes me is that term living. And what it does is it confronts me with a life that I have to acknowledge that I’m no longer, that God’s no longer fitting in any of my containers, that there’s no way of domesticating the goodness of God because it’s a living water. It’s not stagnant. It’s something that intrigues you because of his hospitality already inside you.
Anthony: Yeah. And how do you, I’m just curious, how do you see this living water imagery? Or do you? Does it move people from a personal spirituality or even an unhealthier place of privatized spirituality into witness in the world? What say you?
Carlos: Absolutely. 100%. You can’t give what you do not have.
Anthony: Yeah.
Carlos: And Jesus says, I will give you the Spirit. So, not only with the Spirit, do you just get this relationship, but you get the divine empowerment to be ontologically yourself, which is automatically on mission, which automatically transcends any version of ethics we have because it prioritizes a cruciform love.
And Jesus says, those who love much will forgive much. He doesn’t give us 50 billion ways and 20 different books on how to forgive somebody. But rather, he says, if you get the big rock in first, all the small ones will just fit. I think this will behold in awe and wonder the beauty of Christ, and let that revelation grow from day to day as a stagnant, as a living water inside of us. The natural response is that out of our belly, people will see this water flowing out of us, and those who are thirsty will come drink. And that is the message of reconciliation. You have been reconciled, therefore live like it.
Anthony: Amen. This is a really brief text, especially for Pentecost. Is there anything else that you’d want to draw from it that you would share with a congregation?
Carlos: Yeah, I would. And like you said, Karl Barth says revelation is reconciliation. There’s no way that we can see God unveiled in his glory, in true revelation for who he is, and it not lead to some type of reconciliation, not just in us, but outside of us.
The resurrection is the message about what Christ has done. It’s a miracle from heaven that he would be raised from the dead. But then he also shows us in that revelation, the true beauty of the cross, this co-centered cruciform love.
Anthony: Yeah.
Carlos: That we have the privilege of awakening to seeing our exact location, what God believes about us, and sharing that same gift of love to a hurting world.
Anthony: And what a gift that is. We’re recording this during Holy Week, today’s Holy Thursday, and we see these living waters expressed in the person and activity of Jesus who walked into the room with his dear friends, even those that would betray and leave him.
And he knew all authority in heaven and earth was his. He knew he was large and in charge in a sense. And what do we see him do? Cruciform love gets up quietly from his reclined position and he washes dirty, nasty feet because he came to serve, not to be served. And it is out of those living waters that we can love one another. It’s only by that.
It’s a supernatural thing. It does not necessarily come naturally to a broken human being like myself, but by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit made manifest. We can love and love well. And thanks be to God that he acts first.
Carlos, I want to thank you for being with us. Bless you and Beth and your family as you make this move and depart from the States to continue your pursuit of truth in a PhD program. That’s awesome. We’re so grateful for you and I want to leave with a thought from TF Torrance who says, “If Jesus Christ is God’s word to man, then Jesus Christ is man’s word to God.” Thanks be to God for that. I want to thank our team with Gospel Reverb. It would not be possible without having a great group of people working behind the scenes to make it happen.
Carlos, thank you. And as is our tradition here at Gospel Reverb, we’d like to end with a word of prayer. Would you pray for us please?
Carlos: Sure. I just want to keep it short. Over the last couple of years, this one prayer has really affected my heart, and I try to share it with as many people as possible. And it’s short and simple. It’s by Macrina Wiederkehr. She says this, “God, Father, give us the courage to believe the truth about us no matter how beautiful it is.” In your Son’s name. Amen.
Anthony: Amen.