Water was flowing out from under the altar. I’ve liked this week’s text from Ezekiel 47:1-12 ever since I was introduced to it at the age of 14. We literally saw water flowing out below the steps to the altar, because of a baptistery malfunction in our little Baptist church. Our pastor then was a great Bible student. He remembered this passage and pulled off an extemporaneous sermon on it for the evening service.
Ezekiel’s river effects a bit of a divide among biblical scholars, all of whom acknowledge its symbolic significance, but some of whom also insist on it as literal prophecy. They are quite convinced that, when Christ returns, part of the geographical features of the earth at that point will be a river flowing down from the (rebuilt?) temple in Jerusalem to the Dead Sea. I’m not quite sure how they make that literally consistent with Revelation 21:22 and the indication that there will no temple in the new Jerusalem.
Yet even the hyper-literalists agree that what is most important here is what is symbolized by the river Ezekiel is shown. It’s ever-deepening flow and its life-giving properties show us the grace and love of God flowing toward us, toward all the world to restore and heal not only human beings, but all the natural order.
It’s symbolic eschatology, apocalyptic vision, but it is also truth about how the grace of God in Christ flows out into the world today. It begins in the sanctuary, the place where God’s people meet God’s presence. We worship and then go out, carrying the love and grace of Christ with us into the world around us, just like Ezekiel’s river flows out of the temple to water even the most desolate land around it.
That river from the temple restores life to the Dead Sea in verses 8-10. God’s grace restores life to all of us who are dead in our sins and failures and hopelessness. May we receive that refreshing flow into our own hearts and then carry it along to everyone around us.