Ezekiel's stream is the grace flowing with people leaving church.

Tuesday, 3/20/12

Ezekiel’s vision of the water flowing from the east side of the temple is a metaphor for the graces believers carry with them leaving church.

Ezekiel’s ever-widening, ever deepening, stream flowed down into the Arabah which is a crevice in the earth’s surface at the meeting of two tectonic plates. Called the Great Rift Valley, it runs from the valley of the Jordan, through the Dead Sea, down into the Gulf of Aqaba, the Red Sea and into upper Ethiopia.

Ezekiel gives two wonderful images to represent the good accomplished by grace-filled people going out into the world. The stream of grace flowing with them gives helping hands, healing, and warm friendship which Ezekiel compares to fruit trees bearing fruit all year around.

As well, the stream of grace flowing with people coming out of church brings peace, concord, and mutual understanding which Ezekiel compares to the clear stream's turning the Gulf of Aqaba into fresh water.