The Water of Life!!! by Daniel Jolliff

The Judean exiles in Babylon have lost everything but their lives. Their homes have been destroyed, their temple has been destroyed, their king taken into captivity, and their capital was in ruins. All of their visions of the future of their people have been dashed against the rocks of recent history. The lives that they had dreamed of and prepared for no longer existed. Ezekiel had been prophesying of this for a long time, but no one believed him. His visions of doom did not fit their understanding of God and His people. They thought to themselves that they were the “chosen,” the people of God. They thought that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob could not allow the complete destruction of His chosen people and the promise land. They now realized that there was either something wrong with their God or there was something wrong with their understanding of God’s promises. Ezekiel had been telling them that the problem was with their understanding!
Ezekiel assures them that there was nothing wrong with their God other than His extreme wrath regarding the way the people thought that they could serve idols and other gods without any consequences. God is a jealous God who thought of Israel as His bride and demanded absolute faithfulness to His covenant.
How refreshing it must have been when Ezekiel now starts telling them about the new Jerusalem and the new temple. God had not allowed His people to be completely destroyed. He had saved this remnant of His people in Babylonian exile and would one day send them back to the promise land. In Ezekiel 47, the prophet’s vision of the new Jerusalem includes a river flowing out from underneath the throne of God. This river passes by the altar and down into the desert. In Ezekiel’s vision, the river brings life to the desert, life to the Dead Sea and life to everything it touches. John 4:10 tells us that Jesus will give us this life giving water. “Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The eternal power of God flows through this “life-giving” river. It has the power to regenerate, reconcile, redeem, resurrect, and radically transform everything that it touches. When we step into the waters of baptism, we have stepped into God’s river of life! We have been touched by the eternal, inundated with the grace of God and overwhelmed by the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. Everything changes as we adapt our lives to the presence of the Almighty God and anticipate eternity with Him! What should we being doing in the mean time? We need to be sharing the message of God’s condemnation of the world and the message of God’s grace that allows His people to avoid that condemnation. We should be showing others “the Way” to the river of life!

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