1st Sunday of Advent (December 1). WHERE the RIVER GOES

Prepare to Listen.  If using an Advent Wreath, light the 1st purple candle.  Be still and let these words focus your attention: Everything will live where the river goes.
 
Prayerfully Read Ezekiel 47:6b-12
Then [the angel] led me back along the bank of the river.  7As I came back, I saw on the bank of the river a great many trees on one side and on the other.  8He said to me, ‘This water flows towards the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah; and when it enters the sea, the sea of stagnant waters, the water will become fresh.  9Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish, once these waters reach there.  It will become fresh; and everything will live where the river goes.  10People will stand fishing beside the sea from En-gedi to En-eglaim; it will be a place for the spreading of nets; its fish will be of a great many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea.  11But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt.  12On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food.  Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary.  Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.’
 
Prayerfully Wonder and Reflect
Reflect on the symbolism and possible implications for you of: everything will live where the river goes.
 
When Ezekiel had this vision, he was in captivity in Babylon.  His country and God’s temple were in ruins.  Life and worship were difficult, if not impossible.  Ezekiel wrestled with how to encourage his people to faithfully follow God in a very broken and troubled world.  God didn’t promise a quick and easy restoration.  Instead, the prophet was given a vision of the future as God sees it, encouragement to live hopefully despite the disorder of life in exile.
 
We too live in a broken and troubled world and church.  We wrestle with how to faithfully follow Jesus.  Ezekiel’s vision is refreshing, one we seldom hear because few of us read this ancient prophet.  It begins at the temple,[1] the symbol of God’s presence on earth.  Water, an indispensable commodity, flowed from the temple to become a mighty river.  When the angel took Ezekiel back along the river he saw that everything will live where the river goes.  The Dead Sea (stagnant water) became fresh and teemed with fish, attracting peoples from En-gedi to En-eglaim, that is from east to west, inclusive of all people.  Trees flourished, bearing fruit every month.  “Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”
 
We can’t create the river, neither can we rush or manipulate it.  We wait, trusting Jesus to guide us to “springs of the water of life.”[2]  We can only follow the river, staying close to Jesus our Guide.
 
What caught your attention in this passage?  What surprised you?  What gave you hope?
 
Prayerfully Respond
Lord, keep me close to the river that I may live and be life-giving to those I meet today.  Amen.
 
Live obediently.  Follow the river.
[1] Read vv. 1-6a for the beginning of the vision.
[2] Revelation 7:17.