Ezekiel 47:1-12
“Flood in the Sanctuary”
February 9, 2014 - Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

         We arrived for Sunday evening worship and found a small flood in our sanctuary. I was maybe fourteen years old. In preparation for a baptism that night, the baptistry had been overfilled. Water ran under the platform, out below the communion table and down the aisle of our little Baptist church, somewhat like Ezekiel pictures in the temple in our text this morning.

         Our pastor really knew his Bible, so that night was the first time I ever heard this part of Scripture. While our deacons ran around with mops and buckets cleaning up, Pastor McWhorter remembered and found the verses, then managed to preach a pretty good extemporary sermon on Ezekiel 47. And whoever it was got baptized that night. It all made an impression on me.

         Ezekiel’s flood in the temple is part of a larger vision regarding a new, restored Temple. In 587 B.C., Jerusalem was destroyed and its youngest and brightest inhabitants carried off to Babylon to live in exile. Psalm 137 shows them there, not beside God’s river as we heard last week, but by the waters of Babylon, weeping, remembering Jerusalem and cursing their captors who destroyed their city.

         Still in Babylon, the prophet Ezekiel was given a vision of a new temple rebuilt in Jerusalem. Chapters 40 to 46 tell us the plans. An angel guided Ezekiel around the structure, measuring all its dimensions. It was a fantastic plan. It was never built.

         Yes, a second temple was constructed when the Jews returned from Babylon seventy years after the destruction and exile. You can read the story in the book of Ezra. But it was not the temple Ezekiel describes. It was smaller and different in style and furnishings. Ezra 3:12 and Haggai 2:3 suggest that it was poor replacement for the first temple.

         450 years later Herod the Great did a major remodel of that poor little second temple, but still nobody imagined that it was the temple Ezekiel saw. That was still bigger, still more grand and glorious. And Ezekiel’s temple included plans for the whole city, for the whole country. It was urban design to the max. And it hasn’t happened.

         You can Google and find plenty of people telling you Ezekiel’s temple will be the third temple, or maybe even the fourth temple, to be built just before Jesus comes back, or just after, or something like that. There’s even one guy who shows you computer-generated images of what it will look like. He invites you to meet him in third room by the northeast corner of the temple on the third day of the third month of the third year after the kingdom is established.

         And you can find fringe Jewish and evangelical Christian groups just waiting for the destruction of the mosque which now stands where the temple stood, so construction on the new temple can begin. Maybe I’ll be surprised one day after Jesus arrives, and everyone is getting together on 3/3/3 of the new era, but my impression is that it’s all pretty silly. Ezekiel saw his new temple in a vision. Like much of what you find in the visions of the second half of Daniel or the book of Revelation, it is symbolism, not serious architecture.

         So when we come today to Ezekiel 47 and find him telling us how a river will flow out east from the threshold of the temple, south of the altar, running out eastward until it reaches the Dead Sea, we are pretty surely talking symbol, not literal prophecy.

         Our sanctuary has the same orientation as the temple in Jerusalem had. Imagine a door at the back, behind you toward the east. Water would flow from beneath the threshold of that door, then turn slightly to the right to flow south of the altar out in the temple courtyard, which would be where our oak grove sits.

         Talking about real geography around Jerusalem, the stream would keep going southeast, down into the Kidron Valley, past the entrance of the Hinnom Valley and through a wadi onto the east to enter the Dead Sea. Alternatively, some Bible students have tried to tie in Zechariah 14:4 which tells us the Messiah will touch down on the Mt. of Olives and split it in half. That would make it possible for Ezekiel’s river to flow directly east, to enter the north end of the Dead Sea.

         All of that seems to conveniently forget Revelation 21, which states that when Jesus comes and sets up His kingdom, the New Jerusalem will come down from heaven and in verse 22 that there will be no temple in that City. So all this speculation about architecture and geography in the final kingdom of God doesn’t quite match up.

         What Ezekiel saw is best understood as a vision of the fact that God will restore the blessings of Paradise to both human beings and the earth we live. You remember we saw a river flowing out of Eden that spread out four branches to water the world and bring life. Ezekiel heard God’s plan to once again pour life and hope out into our world and heal both our souls and the environment in which we live.

         This river here in Ezekiel comes from the source of life, from the presence of God, from God Himself. Back in chapter 43, part of the story of measuring and viewing the structure was a scene in which the “glory of the Lord,” returns and fills that temple. It’s a building which symbolically houses the living presence and divine glory of God. So the river flowing out from there is carrying that divine life, that glorious healing life which is God’s.

         That’s why another literally impossible thing happens in verses 3 to 6. What begins in a mere trickle down the temple steps, starts growing fuller and deeper as it flows. The angel takes Ezekiel a thousand cubits downstream, that’s 500 yards, then leads him into the water. It’s ankle-deep. Another 500 yards on, its knee-deep. Then 500 yards farther down Ezekiel wades in with the water reaching his waist.

         No tributaries to this river are mentioned. The only water source is what’s coming out of the temple, yet it’s growing fuller and deeper along its length. The hymn we sang a few weeks ago, “Like a river glorious, is God’s perfect peace,” has lines which say, “Perfect yet it floweth fuller every day; Perfect yet it groweth deeper all the way.” That hymn writer caught the spirit of what Ezekiel experienced. The river of God streams out from His presence and is not diminished, but instead increases and grows as it flows.

         Ezekiel saw what I’ve been repeating from Psalm 65 verse 9 each week, “The river of God is full of water.” God has enough for us. Whether it’s love or forgiveness or peace or joy or whatever good thing you care to name, there is an abundance flowing out from God. His river can only increase, never diminish.

         In an ad hoc discussion group in graduate school, we sat down to analyze what it means to say God is good, whether He must be good, whether His goodness is part of God’s nature or whether He could choose to be evil if He wanted. We never finished the discussion, though I know it sparked a number of published papers for some participants. What I carried away was the idea proposed by one member, that God’s goodness overflows. God is so full of goodness and love that like one of reservoirs filled with runoff in the spring, His love just overflows out into His creation.

         Of course, God is different from a reservoir. His overflow is no accident, no natural consequence of some divine dam breaking or being overrun. God chose to create a world into which His abundance of love could flow. He didn’t have to do it, but wanted to do it, wanted to share the fullness of His love with people like you and me. That’s why there is a divine river flowing from God out into the world bringing life and love.

         As we will see next week in a reading from John 7, ultimately that river flows to us through the grace of Jesus Christ. Since the river flows from the temple, from the presence of God in this world, God chose to be present in the fullest and best way possible. God became human, became one of us, became a living and present source of goodness and love and life flowing out into our world through His death and resurrection.

         The river of God flowing to us is always full, no matter how far it flows or how much is drawn from it. It is totally unlike the rivers around us. Here in Oregon we are used to thinking we have plenty of water, especially after a week of precipitation like we’ve just experienced. But check figures and you will see we have rain deficit that even all this snow and rain will not erase.

         Oregon’s water seems abundant, but it’s a finite resource. On several of our rivers, hydro-electric power generators compete with fish habitat which competes with farmers who need water to irrigate which competes with our larger cities that need clean, safe drinking water. Interest groups arise around all these water needs and lobbyists and politicians scuffle over how our water will be used.

         Yet God’s river flows ever fuller, ever deeper. It’s not going to run out. Draw from it all you like and His love will still be there, ready to forgive, to heal, to create new life, both in us and in the world around us. Our human water economy and all our economies have to deal with scarcity. God’s river, God’s economy, flows with abundance.

         So in the last part of our passage, verses 7 to 12, we get a vision of how God’s abundant water supply brings life where it flows. The image is that river from the temple flowing on east until it runs into that body of water we call the Dead Sea.

         The surface of the Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth, lower than Death Valley in California, 1,400 feet below sea level. Water from the Jordan River Valley, the Arabah as Ezekiel calls it, runs in, but nothing runs out. The Dead Sea is nearly ten times as salty as ocean water, so nothing can live in it, no fish or plants, nothing except a few bacteria and fungi. That’s why it’s called “dead.”

         Occasionally, when there are winter rains and floods, the Dead Sea comes a little more to life. With fresh water rushing in, the salinity drops. During such a rainy winter in 1980, the sea which is normally dark blue turned red with an algae that temporarily blossomed in the less salty water. But that’s it. No fish, no other plants, no birds or animals grazing along the shore, finding water to drink. It’s dead.

         So Ezekiel’s vision pictures a miracle. Water from the temple pours down through the desolate valley leading into the Dead Sea and transforms both the lake and the land around it. Trees grow up on either side of the river in verse 7. Animals and fish begin to thrive in and around that water in verse 9. And—I especially like this—in verse 10 the Dead Sea becomes a fishing paradise.

         Crowds line the banks of popular rivers and lakes on the opening day of fishing season here in Oregon, like at one of my favorite destinations, South Twin Lake. Verse 10 imagines it happening all along the bank of the Dead Sea, from En-gedi on the west bank near Masada to En-glaim, which may be further up on the northwest bank near Qumran. They will catch a huge variety of fish, like the variety of the Great Sea, the Mediterranean.

         You might imagine that sort of environmental change to have some negative impact, maybe on economics built around the salt traditionally mined in the area. But Ezekiel says even that resource will remain, with salty swamps and marshes being preserved while the larger lake becomes fresh water.

         The last verse of our text turns back to those trees mentioned first in verse 7, growing along the banks river. They are miracle trees, which do not lose their leaves and which bear fruit every month. Their fruit is food and their leaves are medicine for healing. Ezekiel says the reason is the water these trees absorb, the water which flows from the sanctuary, the water which flows from the abundance of God’s love. In a couple weeks we will see again this river and those trees, which are the Tree of Life, growing along the river of God in Revelation 22. As I will say then, it’s the same river. Ezekiel’s vision will be completed in the new heaven, the new earth, and the new Jerusalem God will create.

         For now, though, please see what Ezekiel is telling us. The river starts in the sanctuary. Originally it started in Eden. It starts wherever people come together and meet God and discover that His love and life is flowing out to them. This sanctuary right here can be a place like that.

         Last week men and women who slept in this sanctuary during cold, snowy weather looked up and saw the Cross hanging over them, looked at our banner and saw the river flowing out from the Cross. I pray that they felt and will continue to feel the abundance of God flowing toward them. It’s a flow which can transform their lives, like Ezekiel’s river transformed the Dead Sea.

         If you feel dead, whether it’s weariness from work, or from guilt, or from pain, or from sorrow and loss, there is abundant life flowing out from God’s presence in this sanctuary to you. May that new life come to you, give you new hope, some new friends, a new start, because you met God in prayer and worship today.

         New life in Christ is possible for anyone. That’s the abundance of God’s river. A few months ago, an acquaintance at Court Sports pressed a book on me that he wanted me to read. As it’s been since I was in school, the best way to get me not to read a book is to ask me to read it, so I took it, but set it aside. But then I saw him again a couple months ago and he asked what I thought of the book. So I picked it up and started to read. It’s entitled Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Father Greg Boyle. It’s about his twenty years of ministry among Hispanic gang members in Los Angeles.

         I don’t agree with all the theology, but as I read I discovered that Father Greg had an enormous confidence in the boundless love and compassion of God which can find something good, something worth saving in every person. I read how one boy’s life was changed simply because Father Greg remembered and called him by his name. Another young man became himself a channel of compassion when he kept fellow gang members from killing an enemy from a rival gang.

         If God can change and bless and send life-giving water flowing to hardened gang members, He can change and bless and fill you and me with His life. He has all the love we need and more. And that “more” is the thought I’d like to conclude with.

         In a little bit we are going to get up and leave this sanctuary, flow out from here back into the channels of our daily lives, back into the world we live in. God wants His abundant love to flow with us, to flow through us. Right now, that’s where the river of God is running, through you and me to the people around us.

         I talked with someone this past week who spent the last few years trying to make a business survive in the recession. He focused all his energy and time on his work and left out things like church and helping others. He kept thinking he was going to finally arrive at a point where he was comfortable. Then he would have time and resources to relax and maybe start giving something back as they say. But it hasn’t happened, and it doesn’t look like it will happen anytime soon.

         God’s river grows full and deeper, but it’s possible to stop that flow, to resist it. The Dead Sea in reality is dead because, as I said before, it has no outlet. All the water that runs into it carries salt and other minerals and none of it goes anywhere. The water just evaporates in the desert sun and the lake grows saltier and more poisonous to life.

         You and I most truly receive and enjoy the abundant life our Lord gives in Jesus Christ when it not only flows into us, but flows out of us, as we will read next week in John 7. Don’t wait until later to give something back out of all that God has given you. You may find your own heart has grown hard, even toxic, like the water of the Dead Sea. Instead, let it flow into you and through you and out to someone else.

         Let there be a flood in the sanctuary. Let there be one in this sanctuary. Let there be a great flood of people who have received life in Jesus Christ and now send that life flowing like a river to dry land, like streams into a dead sea. There are children who’ve been abused. There are teenagers who contemplate suicide and killing. There are husbands and wives who find no life in their marriages. There are folks all around us who feel their lives are at a dead end. We have the life, we have the water to refresh those lives. Let there be a flood of life in this place that does not stop here because it is God’s life, God’s abundant life.

         Jesus poured His life out on the Cross so the river of God could reach us. May we receive and wade in that river so that it can reach everyone else. You can be a flood in the sanctuary, a flood streaming out from this sanctuary. You can be a stream of God’s love that will only grow deeper and wider and stronger because it flows from the sanctuary of His presence in Jesus Christ.

         As the song says, “Flow river, flow. Flood the nations with grace and mercy.” And may it flood our lives and the lives of all those we know, because the river of God is full of water.

         Amen.

         Valley Covenant Church
         Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
         Copyright © 2014 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj