Tuesday, February 12, 2002
Tuesday, February 12, 2002
As the scripture has said, "Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living
water."
On the opposite corner there is a newer hydrant. The concrete is whole and solid. The paint is
fresh. And when disaster strikes, the fire fighters will attach their hoses to it, rather than its
forlorn-looking cousin across the way. For deep underneath the street, the hydrant with the
faded paint and the black band is connected to broken, empty pipes. I thought of that broken
hydrant when I read these words from the prophet Jeremiah: They shall be like a shrub in the
desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the
wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.
That's a pretty desolate picture. Jeremiah compares the person without faith as a shrub in the
desert struggling to survive. He could have said such people are like a broken fire hydrant that
is disconnected from its supply of water.
Stay connected to the life giving water of Jesus Christ.
(John 7.38
NRSV)
At the corner of East 179th Street and Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio, there stand two fire
hydrants. On one corner, standing in cracked concrete, is an old hydrant, faded and rusty.
Litter and weeds crowd around its base, all but obscuring a black band painted around its
middle.
God of faith, draw me close to the fresh and living water of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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