SEEING JESUS IN THE RIVER

Seeing Jesus in the River

The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads Genesis 2:8-10    

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        A schoolfriend and I, when we were ten-year-olds, planted a small garden in a corner of the woods. We transplanted little trees and shrubs and what have you, all of which quickly died. Turns out that when you uproot plants and trees you need to make sure you don’t snap off roots in the process. Between that and a lack of watering, thorns and thistles taking over, we soon lost interest.

“The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden” (Gen. 2:8a). Eden means pleasant, delight(ful). Therefore, unlike the garden with the withered trees and shrubs my friend and I had planted and neglected, God’s garden was pleasant. It was well watered. “Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan towards Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the LORD…” (Gen. 13:10a).

Now, though different words are used in the original Hebrew, watered well and well watered can mean the same thing in English, i.e., that the garden was watered well as in good or that it was watered from a well as in from a spring. Both are true! “Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads” (Gen 2:10).

We shall look at the four rivers that flowed out of the garden more closely in a moment. However, we notice that a river out of Eden flows east through the garden that the LORD had planted and had placed the man. So now we are beginning to see Jesus of whom it can be said. “He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper” (Psa. 1:3). Yes, “there He put the man whom He had formed.”

Like a river out of Eden, the motif of being planted next to a river flows through the Bible from beginning to end. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose hope is the LORD. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit” (Jer. 17:7-8). “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” (Ezek. 47:12, NIV). “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7).

        In Scotland, uisge beatha is Gaelic for water of life. It is where we get the English word whisky from. Be that as it may, Jesus is the true water of life. We can clearly see His face being reflected in the river out of Eden. He said to the woman at the well, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14, NIV). “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37b-38). So, the idea for us today is to make sure we are planted next to the last Adam so that, like a river out of Eden, out of our hearts will flow rivers of living water.

I read the following in a book with the attractive title, A River Out of Eden,  

 

In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no other good. Nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. As that unhappy poet A.E. Houseman put it:

‘For Nature, heartless, witless Nature

Will neither care nor know.’

DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.[1]

Wow! Talk about the blind leading the blind! Has the author of that book been overindulging in the uisge beatha? “A universe of blind physical forces”?! We’ve noted already that, like Mr Magoo reading Genesis, not everyone is able to see Jesus’s reflection in the river. However, this reading of the Bible is so far beyond the “myopic proof-text hermeneutic” that it is gone down the river and has become totally lost at sea! Send the lifeboats!

            There’s a scene in the movie The Perfect Storm that perfectly illustrates what it means to be lost at sea. A man escapes from his sinking boat in the middle of an enormous raging storm. We see his head bobbing in the water as the camera retreats to show the vastness of the man’s lostness. The Bible often uses the raging sea to show the hatred and rage that fallen man has against the Creator.

 

Woe to the multitude of many people who make a noise like the roar of the seas, and to the rushing of nations that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters! The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters; but God will rebuke them and they will flee far away, and be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, like a rolling thing before the whirlwind. Isaiah 17:12-13.

            Though the pain is searing and real, because they have seen Jesus in Scripture, like Horatio Spafford who lost four daughters at sea, Christians can sing the hymn he wrote afterwards,

When peace like a river attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll,

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

It is well, it is well with my soul.

Surely the Biblical imagery in the following is not hard to see. Unbelievers are unlike the eight who were baptised in the ark but are like those immersed in the Flood. They are unlike those “children of the mist” who were baptised in the cloud but are like Egyptians in hot pursuit who were immersed in the sea. They are unlike the man planted by the rivers of water, whose leaf shall not wither but are like “the ungodly … [who] are like the chaff which the wind drives away” (Psa. 1:4).

The Bible begins with God bringing order to His creation and ends with everything totally in order forever because of Jesus.

 

The earth was barren, with no form of life; it was under a roaring ocean covered with darkness. But the Spirit of God was moving over the water … The sea was no more … Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations” Genesis 1:2; Revelation 21:1b, 22:1-2, CEV.

        So, surely even Mr Magoo is able to see the reflection of Jesus in the river flowing out of Eden in the following words spoken to Ezekiel,

 

He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen this?” Then he brought me and returned me to the bank of the river. When I returned, there, along the bank of the river, were very many trees on one side and the other. Then he said to me: “This water flows toward the eastern region, goes down into the valley, and enters the sea. When it reaches the sea, its waters are healed. And it shall be that every living thing that moves, wherever the rivers go, will live. There will be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters go there; for they will be healed, and everything will live wherever the river goes. Ezekiel 47:8-9.

“And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people” (Matt. 4:23).

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[1] Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden, Phoenix, 1996, 155.