This year my New Years resolution for both intellectual and spiritual growth is to learn some Biblical Greek. I thought I would find a nice online Interlinear reading and start there. I found a Greek interlinear online and started in the book of John. The first chapter of John in Greek is breath taking. You feel like you have never really read the Bible before. Now this is the Greek for Dummies version where you have the words in in the best amplified for meaning version without the sentence order. The section that has had me off on a Lectio tangent all week is the verse that goes....And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us .....the Greek word there for dwelt is booths or tabernacles . Now I wondered whether that was both the old tabernacle and the festival of booths...sure enough Peloubet's Bible Dictionary ties them together...but what the real eye opener is the study on the Feast....If you are going to read John with any amount of enthusiasm it really helps to get a picture of the feast....Now we know that Jesus liked to use object lessons when he spoke to people. In fact he used everything around him as a lesson. My Holy Land visiting friends tell me it is one of the peak moments in their experience to stand in the spots where Jesus told his parables and be surrounded by for instance ...fields where people are sowing seed for the sower went out to sow, or let the little children come to me..all of them have some missing piece we don't get unless we probe deeper and look for the pictorial , situational context of the story...So apparently the Feast of Tabernacles has a lot to do with joy, camping out with your family and friends for a week, welcoming visitors and water and light....During the peak of the festival the priests and those thousands watching take golden pitchers of water and pour them out with great rejoicing over the altar of sacrifice...and the place is lit with these great burning lights. The pilgrims wave palm branches actually specially prepared wave offerings of four parts,,,as an anticipation of the coming of the Messiah....the symbols alone in this section you could spend a couple of lifetimes on....and here in the middle of this ceremony is the raised voice of Jesus saying" Let anyone who is thirsty come to me..and let the one who believes in me drink..."
Well it makes the whole water and light themes woven throughout John come to life when you see Jesus there at the feast....becoming the fulfillment for the reason for the Feast and the continuing Christ with us who booths with us and in us...and from whom we come to thirsty and drink of his life and light.....For you really brilliant shining ones you might want to back this up by the wonderful coincidence of then opening a book called Jesus by someone called Ratzinger or better known to us now as Pope Benedict, who has some wonderful insights on the Feast and the themes of water , light , wine and vines and lots more. but I haven;t finished the book yet and my wondeful visit into these golden flashing pitchers full of water light , joy and music has me off with the Pilgrims on the Feast...