December 19: The Fountain
♫ Music:
Day 20 - Friday, December 19
Title: The Fountain
Scripture #1: Zechariah 13:1 (NKJV)
“In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.”
Scripture #2: Jeremiah 2:13 (NKJV)
“For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, And hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
Scripture #3: Joel 3:18 (NKJV)
“And it will come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drip with new wine, the hills shall flow with milk, and all the brooks of Judah shall be flooded with water; a fountain shall flow from the house of the Lord and water the Valley of Acacias.”
Poetry & Poet:
“The Fire, The Fountain”
by Etta Blum
The fountain, the fire,
the smoldering,
and the embrace of love.
I touched fingers lightly
to all of these.
I became a tree among the trees
(my leaves pretending to be wings)
before going to sleep.
I said to the birds:
"Who will tire first,
you or the fountain?"
The Fountain
As a kid on the playground, I ran myself to exhaustion as I played tag, four square, dodgeball, and baseball. In the hot, humid Illinois sun, I was so thirsty. The drinking fountain was a sweaty kid’s savior. The thirst-quenching water flowed up out of that fountain and revived my soul. I would linger at the fountain as long as possible, drinking in its life-giving water until the guy behind me shoved me out of the way.
In the same way, Jesus is our Fountain—he quenches our thirst, our needs, our desires, our longings. He brings life and revives our soul. We search all around to fill our empty souls, but usually we are looking in all the wrong places. Recent polls show that 52% of Americans are lonely, 41% of marriages end in divorce, 31% struggle with anxiety, 91% of men and 60% of women consume pornography, and nearly 100% of us are connected to our phones and social media, seeking satisfaction. We are seeking to quench our thirst from dry deserts that offer no lasting solution.
Jesus is the only life-giving Fountain that meets our needs.
Zechariah 13:1 states that the fountain will be for the house of David and Jerusalem, but the Old Testament prophets extend this water blessing to all the world. This fountain imagery is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus, who offers us living water—water that cleanses, bringing life and forgiveness. Jesus says, “whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14).
This life-giving water imagery fulfills Ezekiel 47:1-12, which talks about water flowing out of the temple in Jerusalem until it is a deep river. This life-giving water is accessible to all. In Ezekiel, the water flows out and brings healing and life to everyone and everything it touches. Even the salty Dead Sea is brought back to life. The salty water becomes fresh, clean, and pure, filled with fish. Fruit trees for food and healing abundantly grow along the banks of this life-giving river.
This is the Fountain image: Jesus the Fountain brings life, healing, and purity. He is our refuge and place of rescue. Jesus is the only one who can perfectly quench our thirst and longings. Why would we look anywhere else?
Prayer:
Lord, as our hymn for today requests, we ask, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. Come be our Fountain of hope on hopeless days, our friend when we are lonely, our peace when we are anxious, our forgiveness when we feel shame. Lord, we look to you for life, healing, and restoration. Help us to desire you instead of wandering as the hymn says, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; here’s my heart; O take and seal it; seal it for thy courts above.”
In Jesus our Fountain’s name,
Amen.
Dr. Matt Williams
Professor of New Testament
Director, Accelerated Masters Programs
Undergraduate New Testament Studies
About the Artwork:
Fountain (no.1)
Jonathan A. Anderson
2012
Oil on canvas
60 × 48 in.
Private Collection
Used with permission from the artist
Artist Jonathan A. Anderson relates that the first marks made on the surface of his painting were those of the fountain of light blue oil paint. A representational image was then painted around those initial marks, depicting a fountain in an anonymous garden. There is only one layer of paint but two orders of mark-making: one corresponding to the flatness of the canvas and one corresponding to the pictorial volume of the garden.
About the Artist:
Jonathan A. Anderson is the Eugene and Jan Peterson Associate Professor of Theology and the Arts at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. His scholarship explores the interrelations of art history, theology, and religious studies, with a particular focus on modern and contemporary art. He is the author of The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art (2025), Modern Art and the Life of a Culture: The Religious Impulses of Modernism (with William Dyrness, 2016), and many articles and book chapters on related topics, including “Modern Art” in The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion (2021). Trained as an artist, art critic, and theologian, Anderson has a Ph.D. from King’s College London and an M.F.A. from California State University Long Beach. Prior to his chair at Regent College, he was the postdoctoral associate of theology and the visual arts at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and an associate professor of art at Biola University in La Mirada, California.
https://jonathan-anderson.com/bio
About the Music: “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” from the album Jubilee
Lyrics:
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of joyful praise.
Where the hope of endless glory
Fills my heart with joy and love
Teach me ever to adore thee
May my spirit by goodness grow.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy grace now, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy wondrous grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.
Hallelujah to the Lamb
May He soothe the great I Am
Amen
Composers: Lyrics by Robert Robinson, music by John Wyeth, arranged by John Leavitt
Robert Robinson (1735–1790) was an influential English Baptist and scholar who made a lifelong study of the antiquity and history of Christian baptism. He authored many published works in his lifetime, including his work on baptism in History of Baptism and Baptists, which appeared the year of his death. He was also author of the hymns “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” (1758), which he wrote at age twenty-two after converting to Methodism, and “Mighty God, While Angels Bless Thee” (1774), which was set to music by organist John Randall of Cambridge University.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Robinson_(Baptist)
John Wyeth (1770–1858) was an American newspaper and book publisher in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who is best-known for printing Wyeth's Repository of Sacred Music, Part Second (1813), which marked an important transition in American music by appealing to a wider audience through the inclusion of American folk tunes and folk hymns.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wyeth
John Leavitt’s (b. 1956) career has included more than three decades as a practicing composer, conductor, and educator. He holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts in conducting from the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He is a lifetime member of the American Choral Directors Association and a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, from which he has received annual recognition for his achievements in composition. He has served as music professor at several universities in North America, winning awards for teaching excellence. He has served as a regular guest conductor in major venues, including Carnegie Hall in New York and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. As a composer and arranger, Dr. Leavitt has published across all media and genres. Many of his compositions and arrangements have become standard repertoire being performed in countries across the globe. As a performer, he has recorded more than two dozen albums of choral, orchestral, and piano music.
https://johnleavittmusic.com
About the Performers: The Jubilee Singers
John Leavitt's musical ensemble, the Jubilee Singers, perform an eclectic variety of music including serious Art Music, Folk Music, Broadway Show Music as well as Sacred Music. The Jubilee Singers have been performing since 2014. The group's home base is Atonement Lutheran Church located in Overland Park, KS.
About the Poetry & Poet:
Etta Blum (1908–1981) was an American poet. She attended Hunter College and Columbia University and for years worked for the New York City Board of Education. She published two books of poetry (Poems and The Space My Body Fills) as well as translating from Yiddish poems and short stories written by her husband, Eliezer Blum-Alquit.
https://nmarchives.unm.edu/repositories/22/resources/2493
About the Devotion Author:
Dr. Matt Williams
Professor of New Testament
Director, Accelerated Masters Programs
Undergraduate New Testament Studies
Matt Williams came to Biola University in 2002. Prior to that, he taught as a missionary in Spain. Williams was awarded professor of the year by Biola University, and continues to preach and teach in various churches and conferences throughout the United States and Spain. He has published What the New Testament Authors Really Cared About along with Kenneth Berding, and video Bible studies, which have sold over 200,000 copies: Gospel of John: Finding Identity and Purpose, The Parables of Jesus, The Forgiveness of Jesus, The Life of Jesus, The Last Days of Jesus, The Prayers of Jesus, The Miracles of Jesus ; and co-edited What the New Testament Authors Really Cared About. He is also the general editor for Spanish biblical and theological books, which have sold over 110,000 copies: Comentarios Bíblicos con Aplicación: Serie NVI, Biblioteca Teológica Vida, and Colección Teológica Contemporánea. He has authored various chapters and articles, including The Synoptic Problem: Three Views of Gospel Origins and La Epístola a los Gálatas, and The Synoptic Gospels.