05/25/2026
Pastor's Sermon - May 24th 2026 - Pentecost/Confirmation Sunday
John 7:37-39
Jesus attends the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Booths. This was a feast that celebrated God’s provision for Israel during their wilderness wandering after the Exodus. It included several symbolic ceremonies, and one of the most important was a daily water-pouring ritual. Historical understanding believes that during the feast, priests would draw water from the Pool of Siloam and pour it out at the temple, praying for rain, blessing, and remembering how God gave Israel water in the wilderness. On the last and greatest day of the feast, right in the middle of all that symbolism and intent, Jesus stands up and cries out: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.”
I imagine none of us have been wandering the wilderness in a literal way like Israel did in the Old Testament. I also imagine most of us have never known what it is like to truly be at risk of starving or thirsting to death. In America, we are so blessed that typically, water is available with ease and in abundance. So, in that sense, we cannot necessarily easily understand the struggle and worry that might have shaken the hearts of the Exodus-days Israelites which led to this pointed celebration.
Make no mistake, that all said, each of us can relate to what it means to be lost in the wilderness. Each of us knows what it’s like to thirst for that which is needed for life and to come up thirsty.
Christianity doesn’t start in strength and knowledge or self-sufficiency. It starts in need, desperation, and emptiness. Each of us is born spiritually empty—dead—and we dwell in a desert of sin where there is nothing that can truly satisfy us. Often, we mistakenly think or are tricked into believing that we can satisfy our thirst in this sinful wilderness, but the truth is we cannot.
In The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, the young shepherd Santiago crosses the Sahara, and the desert is harsh against him. Desperate, he carries on and finds that his desperation and the wilderness combine to play tricks with his perception and his hope. He experiences heat waves, and most alarmingly, distant illusions—false hopes of refreshment. We’re familiar with the idea of the lone traveler crossing the desert and seeing the oasis in the midst of sand only to discover that it’s fake. It’s a trick of the mind.
We wander this desert of sin and face many false hopes and empty oases. Satan, the world, and sin itself all work to give us false hopes and ultimately lead us away from true refreshment.
In this world, there are many oases that we can get distracted by. When we find ourselves in the pits of thirsting—in need of betterment, hope, and help, where do we turn? We turn to self-help books that turn us inward. We turn to motivational speakers who give us unreliable advice and uncertain promises. We turn to things that would feel like they may satisfy us by numbing our true needs for a time: drugs, alcohol, s*x, food, and every other sort of coping mechanism that the world loves to push upon us.
Make no mistake—not all of these things are innately wrong or sinful. There are appropriate drugs to help, there is responsible alcohol consumption, there is a healthy need for food. However, when these things are source of hope and satisfaction, then we have been deceived. We’ve fallen for the oasis. We’re like the Samaritan woman at the well who is so fixated on the water from the well that quenches her throat for a moment, that she misses the Savior who sits right before her. The water is good for a day, but the Savior is good forever.
You have completed your confirmation classes. You’ve studied God’s Word and you’ve studied our Lutheran Confessions as spelled out in Luther’s Small Catechism. Certainly, we all recognize that there is still more to learn. The entire life of a Christian is one of studying and learning and trusting. That said, you’re being affirmed by this congregation today that you are fit for the Lord’s Supper and you are ready to step into the world. The world will push against you. Satan will stalk you like a prowling, roaring lion. You are stepping into the wilderness of the world. This can be scary. It can be like a man looking out over the never-ending Sahara desert and wondering just how he could cross it. You can look out across the wilderness of sin in this world and wonder how you could ever stand. There’s no waterskin that can sustain you across this vast desert.
As impassable as this world seems, especially understanding that the wells and oases of this world are insufficient, how then can we have any hope to make it?
Let’s look at history. 40 years in the wilderness is a long time to try to keep on. Yet, we know that the Israelites did just that. And how did they do it?
Not by their own strength. God sustained them. That’s the point of the Feast of Tabernacles. God provided for them—not just the physical needs, but also their spiritual needs—the very things that would see them not only to The Promised Land of Canaan, but to the Promised Land of Heaven itself.
So, in 2026, how is it that any one of us is going to cross the desolate wilderness of this sinful world? Let’s look back to our text for the day. “’If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”
We have water that will see us through this entire wilderness. We have a supply that will keep us alive and well through all the trials and flames of this fallen world. Jesus Christ Himself is the very living water—the Savior that the Old Testament pointed toward—and He has offered Himself freely to us. As each of us is in need, dying to the parchedness of sin and death, let us come to Christ and receive all needed. He quenches our need and sustains us across the entire wilderness, being Himself enough to see us to Heaven forever.
From Christ flowed His Holy Spirit whom we have received. In our baptisms, the Holy Spirit was poured upon us like saving water from a real desert oasis, but unlike plain water, the waters of Holy Baptism are attached to the Word and the Promise of Jesus Christ Himself. From that font, we received the very Living Water of Jesus Christ, and by it, life has sprung up from within us like a well. No matter how vast this sinful world is and no matter how scorching the heat gets, we shall be kept, just like the Israelites of old. Even if we would walk through the Valley of the Shadow of death, we have no fear—God has provided all things needful in Christ.
We approach the oasis of the Lord’s Table where He provides Himself as the sustenance that keeps us in both body and spirit. There we receive forgiveness, the very balm for the curse of sin that would kill us.
God’s Word is given freely to us and by it we are sustained. It is the Living Water that saves us from sin, death, and the Devil. It is a sure promise for our life.
Israel of old certainly had much to remember and celebrate in what God did for them during their 40 years of desert wandering. How much more do we, the Church, have to celebrate in what God does and will continue to do in saving us from the wilderness of eternal damnation.
As each of us leaves these sanctuary walls and goes about our various vocations in the world, we do so content. There is nothing needed that has not been provided. We no longer belong to the desert of sin or to the valley of death. We don’t wander alone. Everywhere we go, we go with the Holy Spirit—with Christ’s promised presence. We are helped and sustained. We belong to God and in His home we are kept. Now. And forever.
There, the River of Life flows and from it we shall be blessed to drink freely.
In Christ’s Name, Amen
