Midday of the Great Day of the Feast

His brothers therefore said to Him, “Depart from here and go into Judea, that Your disciples also may see the works that You are doing. For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world.” For even His brothers did not believe in Him.

Then Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready … I am not yet going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.”

Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught.

Then Jesus cried out, as He taught in the temple, saying, “You both know Me, and you know where I am from; and I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. But I know Him, for I am from Him, and He sent Me.”

(John 7:3–6, 8, 14, 28, 29)

On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive;

(John 7:37–39)

Here we are, in the midday of the great, extended day of Resurrection—Mid-Pentecost.

This feast day holds a very significant and precious place both in my heart and in my journey along this beautiful living stream called Myrtle & Oil. My heart leaps to say, how deeply tender the Lord is!

On this day, in the gospel account’s Jewish day the Feast of Tabernacles, in our eternal day with the Lord the Feast of Resurrection and Mid-Pentecost. Through the gospel account of John 7, which is teeming with mysteries nestled deep in its lines, our Beloved One takes us on a journey calling us to truly know Him on this day, this Great [extended] Day of Resurrection, the Eve of Pentecost. For just as the Jewish feast was extended to span seven days, so our Resurrection feast is extended to span 50 days and we are living within this extended feast with our Risen Lord, having just come to its midday.

Dawn

Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, (Matthew 28:1)

Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, (Mark 16:2)

Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, (Luke 24:1)

Now the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, (John 20:1)

Early before the dawning of this New Day, this Great Day of the Resurrection Feast, our Messiah arose in glorious splendor with an otherworldly nature, an ethereal beauty of heavenly victory and liberation—yet a nature we were yet to discover and become familiar with. Indeed, after our precious Savior harrowed the Hades of our fallen souls, He pulled us up from death to life—and not just any life, but life eternal in fellowship with His very divinity. Just as one who once lurked in total darkness emerges from dark to light struggles in attempt to get acquainted with this new material which is light, so we too at first arise and emerge not quite knowing Him who is the Pure Eternal Light who shines into the darkness and whom the darkness does not comprehend.¹

Imagine Lazarus, four days dead and in Hades, emerging from the sepulchre into the light of day and moreover the light of the Lord’s countenance. The Lord’s beloved apostles knew Him not after His resurrection—for look at those disciples whom He met on the road to Emmaus! Look at Thomas who needed to see and touch in order to perceive and comprehend and then believe and know Him who is Himself the Resurrection and the Life! Oh the mysterious dawn which brings a totally new knowledge of Him whom we love and have already given our lives to!

Midday

Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught … Then Jesus cried out, as He taught in the temple, saying, “You both know Me, and you know where I am from;” (John 7:14, 28)

Now, about the middle of this Great Day of the Feast, the Beloved comes into the liberated temple of the soul and cries out midday, saying, “Know Me! Come to Me and know Me! Really know Me!”

Yes, our Beloved cries, “You both know Me, and you know where I am from!” Dear ones, our Beloved cries, “KNOW ME!” He desires to elevate our low, poor, debilitated knowledge of Him into a transcendent, eternal, divine knowledge of Him.

Our Beloved stirs our memory of exactly what His holy lips uttered for our sakes—His one, deep, stinging preoccupation—as He was approaching ever-closer to the redeeming slaughter of the cross for us, His beloved disciples:

“That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us …And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”

“Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me.And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

(John 17:20–25)

Oh how my heart stirs within and stings me! Beloved One, the entirety of Your desire from eternity unto eternity is for man to know You and be one with You!

Close of the Day and Eve of the New Day

On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive;

(John 7:37–39)

Behold, the evanescent day is quickly passing and the evening is coming clearer into sight, as we enter the latter half of this Great Day of the Feast. We wonder, what will our Master hasten to do at the last light of the closing day?

By now, our Beloved Teacher is already present within our inner temple, as He was then in Jerusalem’s temple, so He will then stand there and cry out, “Are you thirsty? Come to Me and drink! You, O my beloved disciples who know Me and are one with Me, come latch onto my living stream of Spirit water, drink—yes, drink deeply—that it may not only quench your thirst, but enter into you and transfigure within you itself into a source of abundantly flowing rivers of Spirit water.”

My beloved Father once taught us, saying:

The first 25 days of the Resurrection the Church teaches us to take of the grace of Resurrection to work and prepare the land of the soul in order to receive properly the water of Pentecost. This grace burns the thorns and doubts of the land, exposes the deception of the enemy and casts it out, cleanses it, and prepares it for the Day of Pentecost. Then, during the second half of the Resurrection, the focus is to desire and long for this flowing water. God desires to outpour it with abundance into our souls.

Now, a deep question arises: How can I receive the living water in abundance?

One
Essential
Mystery:

THIRST.

As much as I thirst is as much as I’ll be quenched or given to drink. If I don’t thirst I’ll be given only a few drops. For the Lord does not deprive nor does He withhold the good things He is able to give to His children; He desires to give in infinite abundance—for He created our vessels to be filled with an infinite God. However, He honors our desire and the extent of our longing.

To understand this, my beloved Father taught it to us through Isaiah 41:17–20:

“The poor and needy seek water, but there is none,
Their tongues fail for thirst.
I, the Lord, will hear them;
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
I will open rivers in desolate heights,
And fountains in the midst of the valleys;
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
And the dry land springs of water.
I will plant in the wilderness the cedar and the acacia tree,
The myrtle and the oil tree;
I will set in the desert the cypress tree and the pine
And the box tree together,
That they may see and know,
And consider and understand together,
That the hand of the Lord has done this,
And the Holy One of Israel has created it.”

He taught us, saying:

The Lord says that the ones who thirst extremely, with dry tongues, will find pools of water and springs of water. The dry land will bring forth springs of water. This means He will change the nature and circumstances for the sake of His people, if they are truly thirsty. The one who receives this water will have these seven types of trees in the desert because of the abundance of water.

In the parched land of such a thirsting soul, the hand of Lord, the Holy One creates:

• The cedar: for strength and steadfastness
• The acacia: for lack of corruption and holiness
• The myrtle: for the fragrance of Christ
• The oil tree: for greenness and continual fellowship with God
• The cypress: for strength of war and holy zeal
• The pine: for a shadow of refuge for others
• The box tree: for extended branches of growth outwards and helping others

Because of the abundant waters, these trees of manifold virtues come forth.

“For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 1:8)

These virtues ought to spring up and flourish lushly in our souls, and they are sourced by these waters which spring up and flow abundantly for those who thirst extremely and remain patient, not allowing the waters of the world to enter and quench the spiritual thirst only to replace it with a foreign and corrupt thirst. These souls are the ones who preserve the intense thirst for God and are then completely transformed, transfigured with the Lord into a totally new creation—eternally risen from the dead with Him and in Him.

Finally, the Seed He Waters

The final word I’ll share, my dear friends, is that this great feast day six years ago marks the spiritual inception of Myrtle & Oil when the Beloved Lord ensconced it as a little living seed (a mere idea/impression) that He would then work hard to nurture and prepare for some years before birthing into this beautiful stream He has now manifested in the fullness of time, and into which He continues to infuse His breath to nourish me and other special souls with me on this wondrous mystical journey of ever-growing knowledge of and nearness to the Beloved.

Maranatha!

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1. John 1:5 ↩︎