The annual festivals given to ancient Israel (Leviticus 23, etc.)  involved certain biblically commanded rituals such as the blowing of the ram’s horn shofar on Yom Teruah, the Day of Trumpets.

As time progressed, certain other rituals also became attached to the festivals.  These were traditions which were part of Israel’s understanding of the purpose and meaning of the days and provided ways in which the priests and people could participate in them. Many of these additional rituals were in place in Jesus’ time, and in some cases Jesus used them as background for his message and even compared himself to them in his teaching.

Until the second temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70, each day throughout the Fall festival of Sukkot or Tabernacles a special water pouring ritual was performed.  The priests descended the hill on which the temple stood, dropping down to the pool of Siloam in the City of David. There, they would fill a golden pitcher with pure sparkling water from the spring and carry it back up to the temple where the water was ritually offered by pouring it into a silver cup at the corner of the altar.  The people of Jerusalem lined the paths along which the water was brought and thronged the court in the temple to witness the ritual which was performed with celebration and great joy.

The waters poured out in the ceremony held a number of meanings for festival goers of the first century. The ritual was connected to the rainfall of the coming year and was accompanied by prayers for rain and for blessings on the earth and its produce.  On a spiritual level,  the water offering was also associated with the waters prophesied to flow out of Jerusalem in the Messianic kingdom:  “And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem....” (Zechariah 14:8, and also Ezekiel 47:1-12).  But perhaps most importantly, the ceremony was also connected to the giving of God’s Spirit.  The waters were tied to the promise found in Isaiah 44:3: “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground:  I will pour my spirit upon your seed, and my blessing upon your offspring.”

If we read the Gospel accounts carefully, we find that it was on the seventh day of the festival (called “Hoshana Rabbah” in Hebrew – the “Great Hosanna” or “Great Salvation”) that Jesus stood up in the midst of the crowds thronging the temple courtyard and called out:  “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them” (John 7:37-38).  When Jesus’ words are seen in the context of the water ceremony, they come alive – and the way they were perceived by his ancient Jewish audience becomes much clearer.  Jesus’ statement was doubtless received with amazement and perhaps in some cases with disbelief or doubt, for rather than making a simple analogy using water in an abstract sense, Jesus clearly was tying the water ceremony and its meanings to himself – as the One from whom blessings flowed, and as the One who would make the  Spirit of God available.

But Jesus did not stop there.  Each night of the Feast of Tabernacles, in the outer temple courtyard, thousands of worshippers would gather to watch another ritual unfold.  Once darkness fell, pious citizens carrying lit torches would dance in the court to the musical accompaniment of instruments played by the Levites.   Even more impressively, great lamps of gold were raised, with four golden bowls at the top of each lamp.  It is said that all of Jerusalem glowed with the light from this ritual celebration in the temple courtyard.

Knowing about this ritual helps us to understand why, on the morning of the day after the last day of Sukkot, on “the 8th day festival,” Jesus used the ceremony to explain his own role to the crowds of worshippers remaining in the temple courtyard. This is recorded in the Gospel of John that tells us: “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’” (John 8:12).  For those who had not heard Jesus’ statement of the day before – and for those who had – this new statement was momentous.  In comparing himself to the brightness of Jerusalem with its awe-inspiring ritual of light, Jesus was making a clearly Messianic claim in calling himself the Light of the whole world. These were truly profound statements.

So these rituals of water and light provided the themes of two of Jesus’ most important  “sermons” on his own identity.  But  Jesus’ words not only identified him, they also remind us that we are called to participate in spiritual events that go far beyond  physical rituals – to let God’s Spirit flow through us like water, and to reflect the Light of the world in our own lives.

​There are some areas of life where understanding needs to precede action.  When we visit a doctor or other medical professional, for example, we want them to understand what the situation is and what is needed before they take any action in prescribing medications or treatments.  In cases like that, understanding obviously has to come before action. 
     
But in other areas of life we find situations where this “normal” way of things is reversed, and we simply have to act before we understand, counterintuitive as that may sound.  Falling in love might be a good example – we have to experience love before we can really understand it.  Following God’s instructions is often one of these situations. No amount of philosophizing can help us understand why it really is more blessed to give than to receive, for example – it is only when we do give that we begin to understand how we are blessed in giving. But it is easy to forget that sometimes action has to come before understanding. We may make the mistake of not acting on what we see in the word of God because we don’t understand why we should do or not do a certain thing.

Yet the Bible is very clear about the reality of “action before understanding” when applied to its teachings.   Notice, for example, how David expressed this fact in the Psalms: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding” (Psalm 111:10). This is not saying that if you have good understanding you will follow God’s ways (though that is true, of course), but that following God’s instructions leads to understanding them.  Another verse that makes this same point is found in the book of Exodus. According to many translations, directly after God gave the Ten Commandments and other laws to ancient Israel the people said: “All that the Lord has said we will do, and be obedient” (Exodus 24:7 NKJV). But the Hebrew literally says “we will do and we will hear” or “we will do and we will understand.”  Here again, as in many other instances, doing comes before “hearing” – action before understanding.

In the New Testament the principle is spelled out even more clearly. The Gospel of John records Jesus saying: “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them” (John 14:21).  This does not mean something esoteric and mystical – by “showing” himself to those who are obedient, Christ simply meant that they would come to understand and know him, just as we say “Ah! I see it now” when we come to understand something. But once again, the order is action before understanding.

In fact, this principle lies at the very heart of much of what the New Testament tells us. Compare these two very important verses in the book of Acts: “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38); “And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit which God has given to those who obey Him” (Acts 5:32).  The apostle Paul taught very clearly that: “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:14). When we put these verses together we see that we cannot understand spiritual things until we receive the Spirit of God, and we have to act – to repent and be baptized – before we can receive the Spirit.  So action must come before full understanding even from the very beginning of the Christian life.

The important thing for us to remember is that this principle does not only apply to us as new Christians – it applies to us every time we see some new guidance in God’s word.  The instruction may be clear as to what we must do, but we may only understand the guidance once we follow it – that is simply the way God often teaches us.  

Many of the individuals mentioned in Hebrews’ great “Faith Hall of Fame” chapter (Hebrews 11) understood that faith means we must sometimes act before we understand – we must obey before we fully comprehend.  These people seem to have learned a lesson we all must learn in the course of the Christian life: that faith often enables our obedience and our obedience often enables our understanding. 

​It’s clear that we have entered the age of the infographic. So it makes sense that the publishers of the New International Version of the Bible brought out the NIV Quickview Bible which (usually) effectively summarizes many aspects of the Biblical narrative into easily accessible and interesting infographics.  

The infographic we look at here, “Teachings of Jesus in the Gospels,” provides a good example of the value of this kind of presentation for rapidly conveying important data.  The first thing we notice in this graph is the huge preponderance of Christ’s teachings regarding “Spiritual Life” – far greater in number than even those on the Kingdom of God. Yet herein lies a problem in that we don’t know what criteria the producer of graphics of this nature utilized in dividing the verses on these topics – many of which overlap. For example, many of the verses where Jesus is speaking about “Spiritual Life” are clearly in the context of what has been called “Kingdom Living” – living according to the principles of the Kingdom of God in this life now, and when this is taken fully into account, the balance between the “Kingdom of God” and “Spiritual Life” categories might be quite different. Further, many of the verses regarding “Last days and judgment” may actually be relevant to the Kingdom of God.

On the other hand, the graphic is successful in showing us several things. Even if we ignore possible or probable overlaps, we can still see the centrality of some of these great themes of Jesus’ teaching; and some – such as marriage and family – may come as a surprise.

As with any other infographic, we must always ask ourselves what other ways the pie could have been sliced. For example, if we made a category for “Prophetic statements,” it would have to include many of those in the “Kingdom of God” category, as well as all those from the “Jesus' death and resurrection” and “Last days and judgment” categories. As such, at as many as 480 verses, it would clearly become the second largest category. But we can do some of this re-cutting of the pie by simply adding relevant categories to form new ones.  If we are willing to take the time to do that, graphs of this type become even more significant.    
Most infographics are also limited in the ability they give us to distinguish between real and apparent significance. I would presume that the Parable of the Lost Coin is included in the section on “Money and Treasure,” but if we read that parable we find it is not about money as much as it uses money as a metaphor for something else.  In cases like this we need to be careful that we do not think that Jesus put more stress on the importance of money than he really did – something an infographic can’t really show us.

Ultimately, then, by their very nature, infographics are always going to be limited in the degree that they can be specific about details, but the one we have chosen here represents particularly difficult data to present.  The graph still shows us interesting and important things, however, and if we think about it, we can see just a little bit more clearly what Jesus talked about.