"He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross.  He asked me, “Son of man, do you see this?” Then he led me back to the bank of the river."  ~ Ezekiel 47:5-6

In the 1970s there was a flood across the globe. Not a flood of water but of people. After the Vietnam War ended, 3million people fled from  Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from 1975-1995. During this time, many people, including the church, could not accept this flow of people entering their land. I couldn’t find the data for Canada but in the USA polls showed 49% were against welcoming refugees. This number later rose to 62%. 

Sometimes, we do not know how to accept what the Lord is doing right in front of us. We see something powerful and scary, and we believe the Lord is behind it, but we don’t know how to respond or how to accept it. When our country and our church change in people or in values, we are uncertain how to adapt to it while still remaining faithful to Jesus. We wonder what God is doing in our land and what he wants us to do.

In Ezekiel 47 a flood in the form of a river appears with increasing force. What does this flood mean? Is this a sign of God’s glory or God’s punishment? Like Ezekiel, we too may have to swim through the waters in fear and uncertainty. Thankfully for Ezekiel, he is not overcome by the river. The Lord floods the earth with his healing. In fact, the word for “make fresh” (vs. 8 & 9) is the same word used at the end of vs. 12: healing (רָפָא).

The gospel writer John draws much from the book of Ezekiel, such as in John 7 when Jesus says: "whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive." As the Lord floods the earth with healing, Jesus floods our hearts with his Spirit. These healing waters would flow from Israel, to Samaria, and into the ends of the world. 

The extent of this river was foreseen even in Ezekiel. The river would go through Arabah. This is a Hebrew word for desert but it is the place Ezekiel’s audience would have believed to be where Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. This particular land, which was scarred by judgment to the nations, would be a place of healing for the nations. 

At the end of his apocalyptic book, John takes the image of Ezekiel and then adds one specific detail: Rev 22:3b: “...and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” As the Lord floods the earth with healing, Jesus floods the hearts of the nations with his Spirit. Above is a picture from an organization affiliated with the CRCNA called Healing Hearts Transforming Nations. It is of the healing river of the temple of God, flowing from Rwanda out into the rest of Africa.

At the sight of the great flood of immigration from Southeast Asia, the CRCNA saw God moving right in front of them and was compelled by the Spirit to engage in refugee ministry. My wife is a relative of the late Arie Van Eek, the first executive secretary of the Council of Christian Reformed Churches in Canada. When I met him, he told me that one of the most important accomplishments of his life was welcoming Vietnamese refugees. Though there was resistance to this, he discerned the Spirit encouraging the church to embrace this new flood. Being an immigrant church itself, Arie believed that the Canadian CRC would be understanding and empathetic to new people coming to a new land. And he was right. The CRC was the third church in Canada to sign up to welcome refugees and since then World Renew estimates that it has helped resettle 7,500 people from many nations between 1979 and 2019. What started as a trickle has overflowed into the vast Refugee Ministry of the CRC in Canada today. 

I am not necessarily saying that what the Spirit called the CRCNA to do then is what we are called to do now in light of our present global realities. But I am saying that even as we are called to follow the Spirit, it may be hard to know what the Spirit is doing right in front of us. As the Lord floods the earth with healing, Jesus floods our hearts with his Spirit. However, all creation, all peoples, and all hearts are not fully healed yet. There is actually a biological term for what we see in Ezekiel 47 – my friend, who is a professor in marine biology, told me this – the term is an estuary. It is the place where the fresh water of a river meets the salt water of the ocean. In this space of transition and flux, it is hard to know exactly what the Spirit is up to but he is definitely there, guiding, empowering and healing us. 

May the Spirit uphold, govern and submerge us in his grace and love so that we may see his great work right in front of us.

Image from Healing Hearts Transforming Nations, provided by the author.