Rivers of Living Water: Faith and Trust in Christ

Aysor, Hovhannes’ k’nerakitsin mej e. Ayo, Hovhannes’ avedaranin mej e, Hesus shat hamartsak khosq uni mezi hamar. Ksesé, “Ov ker tsarav en, xogh inzi khan yev xmen.” Yev ksesé, irens xoren piti phxi ket kenats ch’ri. Asiga gheghuts’ik yev xork umec’o mejberumne Hesusi qoghmen mezi hamar: “Ov ker tsarav en, xogh inzi khan yev xmen.” Asiga k’k’rkthe, k’k’rkne yev k’amrabnthe nuyn tasin, vor menk k’sorveink grete ays ampogh arden ants’ats amsva antats’kin. Ays khosq’e havatki masin e. Ananthat mer hayrer ays kirakineru antats’kin mintsev vor hasnink Poun Paregant’an, mek tas k’sheshsten. Yev tasa hetevyatn e. Petq e havadank. Petq e havadank. Ayp havatkin het amen inch yev qalis e yev qarili e. Bays arants havatki, voch’ inch qarili che. Asiga himnakarne, vor vora himnavorvats e voch miayn mer havatk’, mer kor-koronakan gyank’, bays mer ampogh gyank’, mer haverzhakan gyank’. Amen inch e ayp himnakari vra k’nsti. Vorkan uzheghe mer havatk’. Vorkan k’vstahink Hesusin. Yete k’vstahink, yev vor zavare-zaraven k’tarnank Hesusin yev i xmenk. Yev inch k’sesé piti patahi? Mer xoren, xore inch e? Ayn jamanak zhoghovurth k’madats’ayn, vor xor ayndeg ner, ur vor hokin k’pnaker. Hokien piti ka ketm e. Vzdik, vzdik, ch’uri tesak pam che. Ketm e, uzhegh, sharjvogh. Srp Hokin, kenats ch’urin, henc me. Yev ur piti ertha ays ket e? Ur piti ertha? Ashkharin, yev ashkhar piti lec’vi mer havatkov, Srp Hoku nvernerov. Bays yete ayp havatk’ e ch’unenk, zarav piti mernink.

I remember visiting Las Vegas once for perfectly innocent reasons. And when you go to Las Vegas, at some point, if you’ve ever been, it’s important to visit the Hoover Dam. Who’s been to the Hoover Dam before? It’s a remarkable place, right? You’ve seen pictures of it. It’s one of those things like the Grand Canyon or Yosemite. If you see a picture of it, you’re like, “Oh, that looks interesting.” And then when you show up and you put it in perspective, you’re like, “This is unbelievable.” Or Niagara Falls. Who’s been to Niagara Falls before? My grandfather was born there. You can’t imagine this thing until you see it with your own two eyes. I remember visiting Armenia for the first time and being in Yerevan and seeing Mount Ararat in the distance, which at that point, when I was young, I didn’t realize the geography of it all. I thought if you’re in Yerevan, like you would have to drive far away to see Mount Ararat because it’s not that close. Okay? It’s hours and hours and hours away from Yerevan. But if you’re standing in Yerevan, you can see it massive on the horizon. How huge must this thing be that from here I can see it so clearly? When I’m at the Hoover Dam, I’m sure like you, I’m imagining what sort of engineering is necessary to hold back this flow of water, to keep this in check in a way that is safe and consistent. It puts in stark contrast the latent and potential energy that is in that river, that is in that water, waiting to break free. It’s almost terrifying to imagine what would happen if the full extent of the power of that water would be let loose on the world. It would be devastating, right? Well, we’re putting our faith in that dam, that it’s gonna hold it back, and so far so good. But we forget, we forget the power of the natural world. We forget the power that is held in these things that work according to their nature as they should. But for all of these things to function in that harmonious way, there is a latent and truly awe-inspiring amount of power present that consistently lets it go. We think of the wind. The wind seems such like an innocent and everyday thing. A powerful wind is devastating. It can clear the landscape.

Today, Christ speaks to us allegorically, analogously, about such power, and it’s important for us to put it in perspective. He says, “Let all of those who are thirsty come to me,” okay? “And from them will flow rivers of living water.” This is what He says in such a beautiful and succinct way, consistent with His messaging throughout this period of time in the Gospel. He is at an event which is known as the Feast of the Tabernacles or the Feast of the Pavilions, and He’s speaking to us and to the followers of His at that time, these radical and simple people. He’s speaking to them about the virtue of believing in Him. Over and over and over again, and as we’ve been talking about over the past month in church, over and over and over again is emphasized the utter and absolute necessity of believing in Jesus Christ, and He’s telling us that. He’s telling us that over and over again, “Believe in me.” That’s the key. That’s the key that opens the lock. Everything starts there. “Believe in me,” okay? We’ve been talking about that all month long, and our church fathers weren’t messing around when they chose these Bible passages because we’re about to get into Great Lent, okay? That’s the time when we exercise that belief. We cultivate that belief. We’re reminded that we have to cultivate that belief, and we get into Lent, and then we apply it, okay? We challenge ourselves. We don’t live our easiest life. We live our most difficult life, and we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ that He’s going to help us realize our potential, our spiritual potential during that time. We’re building up this reservoir of faith so that when we get into Lent, it can result in something. It can be fruitful in our spiritual lives.

And He says, “If you believe in me, come to me. If you’re thirsty, and you will drink, and out of you will flow these rivers of living water.” Now, He says, “Out of your belly.” Out of your belly. Why out of your belly? At that time, it was understood colloquially or thought that the soul of a person resided here in the center of their body mass, in their belly. Not in their stomach, but just here, like in their torso, okay? This is where a person’s soul resided according to popular thought at that time. When He speaks of the belly, He’s talking about our souls. From our soul will flow this river of living water. What is this river of living water? He tells us a moment later. The evangelist puts it in parentheses. We love these parentheses. We don’t meet them all the time. Put it in parentheses. It’s the Holy Spirit. These are the gifts that we have received at baptism, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, manifested, visualized for us in the form of an overwhelming river, a river that is so strong that it bursts forth. I imagine the Hoover Dam. We’re not talking about a creek. We’re talking about a river, something that is moving, something that has inherent power, enough to shape the landscape, enough to affect the world around it. From our soul will come these living waters in the form of something that will have a profound impact on the world around us, so strong you can’t even hold it back. This is what He’s promising us if we have faith in Him. This is the potential that we have as Christians. If we do what? We trust in Him. We trust in Him. He’s not speaking about the dead heart’s belly, okay? He’s talking about all of us, okay? This is the potential that we have, and I want to challenge you as we go into this great Lenten season. Let’s put our trust in God. It’s very difficult. It’s the one thing we have to do, but it’s hard.

Look at that guy right over there. Both of them are good examples, but for us now, with the feast of St. Vartan coming up in four days, join us at St. Vartan on the twenty-seventh of February to celebrate it. That man right there in the red cloak, that’s Saint Vartan Mamigonian. He went out to the battlefield, the Battle of Avarayr. The stakes of that battle were inconceivable, and the utter ridiculousness of the scale, the disparity of the scale of power on both sides is remarkable. There was no way he could win. But what did he do? He put his trust in Christ. “I don’t know what will happen, but he’s with me, and I’m gonna go out there because that’s what Christ is calling me to do.” And do you know what? He died. A lot of people died that day. But he was serving something bigger than himself, because if he hadn’t put his trust in Jesus Christ and gone out onto that battlefield, you and I would not be Christian today. You and I would not even be Armenian today. He did not know that that’s why he was following Christ, putting his trust in Christ, and paying the ultimate cost. He did not see this vision, but he knew that it was God’s will. He put his trust in Him, and he acted. This is the example that we are meant to follow now, during Lent especially, and in general in our lives. So in that same spirit of Vartanants, and in the hope of that same powerful river of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that can flow forth from each of us as we go forward into the Lenten season, I pray that we, too, can put our trust in Jesus Christ. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.