“While rejoicing you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” (Quinn-Miscall p. 99, 108)
We are at the end of this Advent road, on the cusp of the night when that transcendent God descended to a body of flesh and bone, and at the end of this road there’s a song.
Isaiah has used many images to speak of this God who came to be Immanuel, “God-With-Us”: a whole crowd of different children, one of them named with four regal names; a green Shoot growing from a stump; a suffering servant; and several images of water, from a flood of Empire to an ocean of knowledge to bubbling wells. It’s the last image that Isaiah leaves us with, and it’s this that he gives thanks for.
The psalm in Isaiah 12 is divided into two parts, three verses each. The first part, 12:1-3 says “you,” a singular person, will sing this song of praise. In 12:2 this song echoes the Song of Moses in Exodus 15:2, with three key words that start with “s” in English: “The Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation.” This old song is sung again. The Lord IS the song that is sung again.
The second part, 12:4-6, says “you,” a group of people, will sing this song. Like so much of Isaiah, the second occurrence broadens and builds upon the first. This part praises the Lord’s name, who He is, and praises what He has done.
In the middle of the song is the image of water in a thirsty land. We will draw this water from the “wells of salvation,” the “fountains of triumph,” the “waters gained in victory.” The well is God’s daily gift. You don’t control a well, you just put down your bucket in faith and trust that enough will be there for what you need.
I’ve done this every day when writing these entries, going back to the well of Isaiah 6-12. I’ve never written something like this before, and I wasn’t sure I’d keep finding something worth your time to read. But as I pulled the bucket up, each time, it came up full. And I look back into the text and see that there’s oceans more down there. When I look, I see my own face reflecting back from the mere surface of the depths we have yet to fathom. (And perhaps you have something to write, too?)
Jesus meets me at the well, as he met the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well in John 4. Jesus told her, “those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” (John 4:14 NRSV) This descendant of the Northern Kingdom, long after Assyria destroyed her ancestors, returned to the Son of God, fulfilling Isaiah 11, even as Jesus alluded to Isaiah 12:3.
Later, Jesus said again that he gives water, and in fact, he gives the ability to give water. The was on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. Even though it was mid-October, these Temple ceremonies must have felt a lot like a water-themed version of Christmastime: there were crowds of people, green branches of palms, temporary tents set up like a Christmas market, burning lights in the darkness to commemorate the pillar of fire, special festival songs praying for salvation — and water, water, everywhere, poured-out streams of water sacrificed to thank God and pray for rain.
(Some people think that Jesus’s actual birth date may have been in mid-October, coinciding with this festival. That’s the latest date that shepherds would be out tending their flocks by night.)
At the culmination of this festival of darkness, light, and water that Jesus stood up in the Temple and said, in a sense, “I am the source of this celebration!” Specifically, Jesus called out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:37-38 NKJV)
This passage has puzzled readers because Jesus cites a scripture passage that doesn’t exactly exist, not those exact words in that order. But Jesus is citing many scriptures at once, combining all the times prophets talk about life-giving water (including Isaiah 12:3) into one sentence, into one person.
And He gives this prophecy away, to anyone who believes in Him. As Jesus drew from Isaiah, anyone can draw from Jesus and Isaiah, becoming a Spirit-filled spring of living water. The believer becomes a source of life to the world by knowing God as Jesus knows God.
It looks like the earthly festival is mirrored in God’s Eternal Realm. The heavenly temple in Revelation 7 has a festival with many elements of the Feast of Tabernacles: branches, tents, crowds, calls for deliverance, then ending with water. After great troubles for God’s people, “the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:17 NKJV)
We draw from these wells as we sing Christmas carols this day. We sing with Isaiah and all the prophets, with the crowds at the Temple in John 7, and with the crowds around the throne in Revelation 7.
As we sing, God is with us in all his colors and all His names – Immanuel, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, the Shoot from the Stump, the Suffering Servant, our Deliverer with us as we pass through the waters, Jesus Christ our Lord – the child sleeping in the manger under a star tonight.
With people from every nation and every situation, from every time, with the lowly shepherds and Wise Men, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we look to the shining star and offer our songs. As Isaiah 12:6 reads, “Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of Three.” (KJV)
(Image: https://premieresales.com/well-water-basics/ Details on the connections between the Feast of Tabernacles and Revelation 7 in The History of Sukkot in the Second Temple and Rabbinic Periods p. 91-92.)
