I have been in church all my life, and until I listened to a message recently by a young pastor named Tyler Staton, I had never heard anyone tie the threads together that I will discuss in this post. I subsequently ordered his new book, “The Familiar Stranger,” which invites the reader to a deeper experience with the person of the Holy Spirit. I will quote directly from the book at times but also want to make clear that most of these thoughts are a summation of chapter three of his book. I would highly recommend that you get the book because this attempt is really just scratching the surface of all that is there.
The first thread is the at the very beginning, where the Spirit is introduced in the first verse of the Bible, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” He brought order to the waters of chaos, as creation came into being, teeming with goodness and life. But soon afterwards, chaos came again with the acceptance of the lie of the enemy and the disobedience that followed. Adam and Eve went east, banished outside the beauty and fellowship of the garden.
The next thread is a prophesy from Ezekiel. In his vision, Ezekiel saw a river that started as a trickle down the steps of the temple. The trickle became a river that flowed, east, the same direction Adam and Eve headed after the fall.
“Then he led me back to the bank of the river. When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds- like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea. But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt. Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing” (Ezekiel 47:6-12).
Staton says, “A river flowing east means this vision is for you and me and everyone else who’s ever lived in chaos.”
He goes on, “The river flows east, bringing overwhelming life wherever it goes. Alongside the river, fishermen gather because fish of every kind are swimming in its current. Just as people of every nation, tribe and tongue and of every socioeconomic bracket, every background, every degree of having it together and falling apart, make up the family of God. Fruitful trees line the banks, yielding fruit that feeds the nations and leaves that heal diseases.”
Are you beginning to get the picture? The river ended at the Dead Sea, and in Ezekiel’s vision, the water once incapable of sustaining life was now overflowing with it.
Staton beautifully writes, “Into the very place of fear, confusion, darkness, and disorder, there’s a promise: I’ll pour out my Spirit, and it will be like an unstoppable current of life and peace.”
Fast forward to Jesus, where the third thread of this story is interwoven with the first two. It was the Feast of Tabernacles, where faithful Israelites celebrated God’s past provision in the wilderness. The party lasted for a week, with the culmination being a ceremony on the 7th day, reenacting Ezekial’s vision. It would be hard to overstate the meaning and drama of this moment, the climax of the festival, as the priest stood at the altar and poured water down the Temple steps, toward the east, symbolizing new life in dead places.
It was at that very moment that John 7:37-38 tells us, “Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’”
Jesus is interrupting the drama of that moment to let them know that HE IS the very fulfillment of the prophesy they are enacting.
And as Staton observes, this statement from Jesus is both an invitation to “come,” and also to “become.” It’s an invitation to come to Him, the source of the living water, and then to become the source of that water to the world.
He says, “Everything the river exemplified in Ezekiel’s vision, Jesus became in the world. He left paradise to come after us, who had wandered east.”
The church became the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s vision of everything in the river, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, proclaiming the good news. Not a “holy huddle in a sacred building,” but “a river flowing east- overwhelming dead places with unstoppable life.”
Beloved, the living water is now flowing through us – through broken, wounded people who were wandering east.
The invitation still stands.
Come and drink.
Life By The Way 