At the heart of the Feast was a daily pro­cession. Priests carrying Golden Pitchers would lead a parade or procession through the city to the pool of Siloam singing the words of Isa. 12:3, “Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salva­tion.” The great crowd of people would parade back to the Temple and the Priests would pour the water from the pool of Siloam down upon the Altar and the peo­ple would shout and wave palm branches.

This procedure went on for seven days, but on the last day the procedure was repeated with two significant exceptions. First, when the parade of people returned from the pool of Siloam, the Priests would march around the Altar seven times com­memorating Joshua’s victory at Jericho. Secondly, the Priests would raise the gold­en pitcher over the silver funnels as they had done each day previously, but this time there was no water — only an empty pitch­er. This signified the disobedient genera­tion that died in the Wilderness. Instead of a shout and the waving of palm branches as the people had done each day, they now stood in silence.

Advertisement

It was in the moment of silence — this moment of bewilderment, emptiness and meaninglessness — that Jesus cried out. You must get the picture. Our Lord had been watching the people go through the motions, perfectly following the order of service, but there was no meaning, no power, no life. They found themselves right where they had started. Nothing was any different.

I often think of the great crowd of peo­ple who gathered annually for this obser­vation of the Feast of Tabernacles. I think about their lives, their homes, their jobs, their communities and their churches. I think about what they brought with them to the great Feast: their hopes, their dreams and their expectations. I think about what they took away when they returned to their homes. Were they any different? Or did they just go through the same old motions only to conclude with an empty pitcher?

What happened to that crowd over two thousand years ago still happens to people in our world every Sunday. People go to church filled with hopes and dreams and expectations. And all too often they go away unfulfilled and empty.

Fellow pastors and church leaders: are we sending our people away empty? Do they come to the House of God in search for the Water of Life only to hear the clanging of an empty pitcher? Do they hear the dipper banging against the bottom of your bucket?

E.M. Bounds wrote this statement regarding the anointing of the Holy Spirit: “This unction comes to the preacher not in the study, but in the closet. It is heaven’s distillation in answer to prayer. It is the sweetest exaltation of the Holy Spirit. It impregnates, suffuses, softens, percalates, cuts and soothes. It carries the Word like dynamite, like salt, like sugar; Makes the Word a soother, an arraigner, a revealer, a searcher; Makes the hearers a culprit or a saint, makes him weep like a child and live like a giant; Opens his heart and his purse as gently, yet as strongly as spring opens leaves. This Unction is not a gift of genius. It is not found in the halls of learning. No eloquence can woo it, no industry can win it. No prelactical hands can confer it. It is the gift of God—a signet set to His own messengers…It is given to those who have sought this anointed honor through many an hour of tearful, wrestling prayer.”¹