All Streams Flow to the Sea

Qoheleth, the world-weary narrator of Ecclesiastes, often thought to be the voice of Solomon, Israel’s sage king, looked on the phenomenon of rivers flowing to the sea and saw in them evidence of the tedium and futility of life.

All streams flow into the sea,

yet the sea is never full.

To the place the streams come from,

there they return again.

All things are wearisome,

more than one can say.

Ecclesiastes 1:7-8

The Scent of Water - Wells of Hope

In Job 14, the beleaguered wise man asks a lot of questions trying to solve the riddle of life and death.

Using a string of similes, Job ponders our human mortality – we’re like flowers that wither, fleeting shadows, day laborers (here today, gone tomorrow), lakes and rivers that evaporate, soil and stone eroded by running water.

But knotted into this string of death images is the intriguing thing called hope. Is it a mirage? Is it a false dream, a futile longing, that our lives have meaning and significance? Or does the world contain hints that point to a reality bigger than death?

At the Scent of Water

One of the signs of global climate change is that many places in the world are becoming drier by the year, though not always a result of decisions as reckless as the Aral Sea (see last week's post). Climate change is taking its toll and desertification is encroaching on many communities around the world.

It’s not just happening in Africa, Australia and California. Climatologists and meteorologists in central Europe have said that the region is seeing more and more extreme weather including long periods of dry and hot weather in the summer, severe flooding and bitter winter weather.

Baptism and New Life

In the New Testament - 1 Corinthians 10:1 – St. Paul imagines Israel’s crossing of the Red Sea as a baptism. The imagery is obvious – water, death resurrection, new life - a defining event that birthed Israel’s national life as God’s people.

Today in churches, friends will often burst into applause when a friend is baptized, so it’s no surprise that Israel erupted in spontaneous worship and celebration on the far side of the water. Miriam led the women in song and dancing to celebrate their new life, their freedom.

Surprise Pathway

'History repeats itself', they say; 'what goes around, comes around.'  But Isaiah says 'don’t limit your imagination to what has happened before. Keep looking ahead because God is as much a God of tomorrow as a God of yesterday. While God is consistent and faithful, God is not predictable. Yahweh is full of surprises!'

This is what the LORD says—

he who made a way through the sea,

a path through the mighty waters,

Forget the former things. See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the desert

and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:16, 19

Beyond Fishing

When Jesus rose from death in Jerusalem, he surprised his friends by meeting them in various places – on country roads, in urban gardens, closed rooms, on mountain tops - but only one of these recorded events occurred near water. You can read the story in John 21.

I suppose it was inevitable, really. Most of Jesus' disciples hailed from Galilee as did Jesus, so it was only natural that he would re-connect with them back in their familiar haunts.

The angel-in-the-tomb told the disciples Jesus would meet them in Galilee, so they left Jerusalem and went back north. One night eight of them went fishing – except that the fish didn’t cooperate. It was a fruitless outing and as dawn broke over the horizon, their nets were empty and their arms ached. No doubt they talked a lot about the recent events and the puzzling whereabouts of Jesus. Their whole sense of mission seemed as vague and futile as this fishing venture.

Taking the Plunge

Easter is on the horizon, so for the next three weeks, we’re going to follow water-stories that revolve around Jesus. Today, Jesus takes the plunge.

Ah, the amazing wonder of water!  Many religions practice ritual washing. Hindus plunge into the Ganges. Shinto worshippers in Japan seek cleansing under waterfalls, orthodox Jews use a mikvah to represent a flowing stream.
  

Baptism is an act of abandoning yourself to the water and embracing the purity, healing and renewal the water represents. It calls for courage and resolve. It says, ‘forget decorum, to hell with face-saving, a new life beckons, it’s time to answer the call’.

800 years before John the Baptist, the Syrian general Naaman, who had a dire skin disease, came to Israel looking for help. The prophet Elisha told him to wash seven times in the Jordan River and he would be healed. At first Naaman was offended - the Jordan was a mediocre river, quite inferior to the rivers of his homeland. But in the end he humbled himself, plunged in, and the God of Israel healed him.

World Water Day - Imagine This!

Tomorrow, March 22, is the UN's annual World Water Day. This year's theme is "Water for Cities". 1000 delegates from 66 countries are gathered at a UN conference in Cape Town to address issues related to water, poverty, politics and urban issues.

The Bible describes a magnificent urban river scene in the last chapter of Revelation – a dazzling river with crystal clear water flowing down the middle of a great avenue.

The river flows from the throne of God which tells us that God loves this city* and sustains it as a place of refuge* and safety and where its citizens are being spiritually renewed* and nourished. Jesus is the spring of living water for the thirst and cleansing of the world.

New World Comin'

A river runs through it – from start to finish, from the Garden of Eden to the last chapter of Revelation, the story of God and Earth is told as a river-story.

At one of the lowest points of the story, in exile far from their homeland, the prophet Ezekiel (Ch. 47) imagines a trickle of water bubbling out of the dry ground in Jerusalem. It flows from the temple of God across the desert hills to the Jordan valley and into the Dead Sea.

The further it flows, the deeper and wider the current grows and, astonishingly, the more lush the barren landscape becomes. Everything is refreshed and renewed. Fishing and agriculture burst into life. Trees flourish along the banks of the river. The Dead Sea becomes a fresh-water lake.

Noah Part 4 - Fresh Takes on the Old Story

The story of the Great Flood is powerful and timeless. Every generation hears its echoes in the upheavals, urgencies and opportunities of their own day.

I wonder how its ancient melodies sound in our 21st Century ears?

According to Peter, Jesus’ apostle and water-walking protégé, the climactic event of human history was the coming to earth of Jesus to save his doomed creation. He was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan, but he spoke cryptically of another ‘baptism’, when he was engulfed by the flood of God’s judgment against sin. On the cross, he embraced that deadly torrent as God’s truly Righteous One, suffering to rescue the unrighteous ones and rising from death to give us living hope!

Noah Part 3 - The Rainbow Connection

Photo Credit: Marcheta Gibson

My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky.  William Wordsworth

I remember waking up the morning after a rain-storm aboard a yacht in Desolation Sound, British Columbia. My wife had died seven months earlier and despite the majestic beauty of the scenery, the name Desolation Sound echoed the recent deluge of loss in my life.

As I raised the deck hatch that morning I stared up at a magnificent double rainbow arched across the sky above the shrouds and mast of our boat. My heart leapt as those rainbows silently but eloquently proclaimed promise and hope to my soul.

The ancient story of Noah and the Flood is crowned with a rainbow.  By sheer mercy and grace the ark and its inhabitants survived the devastating flood. And by sheer mercy God does this over and over again in our lives. There are experiences in life that overwhelm us and change our world forever. But God is a master of new beginnings.

Land and Sea

“God said, ‘Let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place, so dry ground may appear.’”

Genesis 1:9

Photo Credit: Distantpeak.com

It’s the second dazzling water event in the great Genesis Song of Creation – the emergence of the earth out of the Sea at the voice of God - the transformation of a featureless ocean into a sculptured landscape!

Antrim Coast Northern Ireland

Imagine the forces that came into play that day, as tremors ripped through the earth’s crust, trenches gashed the sea-floor, hollowing out deep marine basins - and elsewhere giant crags of land thrusting up through the surface of the sea, catching the glint of the sun.

The dry land gives us a place to stand, to build and grow. The earth buffers us from the ocean waves, yet it drinks in the rain and holds enough water to sustain grasslands and cedar forests. Trees and people need to be rooted, as do cities and civilizations. We need the land just as we need water.

► Day One gave us Light;
► Day Two, Air and Sky;
► Day Three divided Land from Sea.

Journey of the Magi

Whether you’re traveling this Christmas or staying home, I wish you the joy and wonder of
“a running stream and a water-mill.”

Let me explain. In his poem “The Journey of the Magi” T. S. Eliot describes the difficult journey of the Magi across the deserts of Arabia on their way to Bethlehem:
"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year . . .
The very dead of winter."

The camels were uncooperative, he says, lying down in the melting snow, the night-fires continually going out, the towns unfriendly and dirty, charging high prices, and always the voices of derision, mocking their journey. Until . . .

You Can't Stay Under-Water

It happened in San Francisco on December 13, when I was twelve years old.

My family watched without protest as someone plunged me under water, performing a ritual death and burial. They held their breath - as I held mine - while water filled in over my face.

In another place and time, that ritual might have ended my days. Fish breathe quite freely in water, but people don’t. If death had been the object that day, I would not be writing these words.

But in baptism, death and burial are just prologue to resurrection. When the ritual was over and I stood again on my own feet, everyone celebrated.

The Wild Kisses of a Lion

In the last chapter of The Silver Chair. . . .

Jill and Eustace stood beside a beautiful fresh-flowing stream in bright sunshine. The only sound was heart-breaking funeral music from a faraway world. Aslan and the two children looked into the water.

"There on the golden gravel of the bed of the stream, lay the king, dead, with the water flowing over him like liquid glass. His long white beard swayed in it like water-weed. And all three stood and wept."  Like Jesus weeping at the tomb of Lazarus, "even Aslan wept - great Lion-tears."

If you’ve ever lost a loved one, you know the sadness that is deeper than words. The river of death is the inevitable end of every person’s life, but Lewis shows us that Death does not have the last word.

Aslan told Eustace to bring a rapier-sharp thorn and pierce his lion’s paw. A great drop of blood, “redder than all redness you have ever seen” splashed into the stream over the dead body of the king. And a transformation began.

The funeral music stopped. The king’s white beard turned fresh and then vanished. His sunken cheeks became round and red. His wrinkled face brightened - until the king leapt out of the water with boyish laughter and flung his arms around the Lion. “He gave Aslan the strong kisses of a King, and Aslan gave him the wild kisses of a Lion.”

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

It’s a story for anyone who has ever been caught between danger and disaster, between a rock and a hard place. It's the ancient story of Exodus.

Beyond their wildest dreams a tribe of slaves found themselves free at last, heading east on the Desert Road towards their long-promised home.

Two days later, camped by Yam Suph, the Sea of Reeds, they saw the dust of Pharaoh’s army with 600 chariots bearing down on them. Yam Suph posed a formidable barrier - too wide to circumvent and too deep to cross; it blocked their only path of escape. If they were chosen people, they appeared chosen to die.

Through Water to New Life

An un-named infant floats precariously in a papyrus basket among the reeds along the Nile, condemned by imperial edict, guilty of being a 3-month-old Hebrew man-child. Miraculously, he’s rescued by an Egyptian princess who names him Moses meaning ‘water-son’ or ‘drawn out of water’.

The Finding of Moses,  Edwin Long, 1886

He will grow up to become liberator of the Hebrew slaves, but first he has to undergo his own rescue, his own exodus, experiencing on a personal scale the rescue-through-water* which God would later accomplish through him for the whole nation at the Red Sea.

Many commentators note the courageous women who are heroines of this story: the Egyptian midwives who defy the Pharaoh’s edict, the mother and sister of Moses who risk their lives to protect him, the daughter of Pharaoh who finances his day-care and gives him his name. They lived in a patriarchal world, but it's impossible to ignore the vital role these women played.

Buried Alive - Almost!

Photo Courtesy of BBC News

In honor of 33 Chile miners and their families . . .

As one man after another emerged from a shaft in the dark earth and embraced his loved ones, we all choked back tears of joy.

Trapped so deep under bed-rock and then, against all hope, plucked from the grave - it must seem for them like being resurrected from death.

"Deep calls to deep", the poet wrote. Something deep within us connected us to these men and their families - the drama of rescue, the relief of not being buried alive. But there is something more. The human soul is a deep and mysterious like a gold-mine or a deep-water aquifer.

Resurrection

I got my feet soaked this morning walking barefoot in the grass - not from rain or puddles, but from dew - cool ... refreshing ... delicious dew!

My posts this week explored two of over thirty references to dew in the Bible. Here's one more to finish the week.

Isaiah saw the morning dew as a fore-shadowing, a sign from the earth that can’t keep its secret, a hint to anyone who is listening between the lines, a promise of resurrection.

Many Biblical scholars maintain that Israel had no theology of life beyond death until shortly before the time of Christ. But eight hundred earlier Isaiah had a vision: