God’s Changing Waters
Water makes a good boundary. Within the United States, several states are divided by rivers. You know when you’ve crossed from Nebraska into Iowa because there is a bunch of water in the way. Furthermore, to go from this country to visit our English speaking friends in the United Kingdom, requires us to “cross the pond,” otherwise known as the entire Atlantic Ocean. Of course, water can naturally function as this kind of barrier. As it is difficult for humans to live on top of the water and not many of us do, land is the natural place for us to be, and crossing a river can be difficult. Without the assistance of a bridge or boat, crossing a massive stream with a strong current can not only be an arduous task but also remarkably dangerous. Moving across a couple miles of open country can be done in a half an hour or less, even without a vehicle. Moving across two miles of river can be exhausting enough to be a day’s work without the assistance of a boat unless someone is a very well trained swimmer.
In addition to physical and geographical barriers, water can also define a temporal boundary, a moment of change in a person’s life. Baptism is a life changing and life giving sacrament. Learning how to swim can change a person’s outlook on and confidence in the water. Seeing and touching the ocean for the first time can help put things into perspective for someone or at least give them a profound love for the sea. Of course, there can also be negative effects. People who have lost property and/or loved ones in floods or drowning accidents can have their lives entirely turned around by a bad encounter with water. Additionally, water can be a time of good and bad coming together. When the floods of 2019 hit Nebraska, tragedy struck but kindness and charity rose in response. People organized internal mission trips and raised money to relieve people in need. Nebraska came together in a powerful way as the people responded to disaster. Water changes things.
For the people of Israel, the Red Sea and the Jordan River represented both physical and temporal boundaries. With the Red Sea before them, they had to worry about the Egyptians running them down and killing or capturing them, but God used the water itself against the Egyptians. The sea became a weapon to liberate the Hebrews, and upon emerging from it, they became free. Passing through the water was a rebirth for them. After the Red Sea, they no longer needed to worry about the Egyptians and their gods. Now, the LORD was their only God and they could begin their new community journey.
In Joshua’s time, the Israelites also experienced a miraculous parting of the Jordan River. Though it perhaps wasn’t as difficult of a barrier as the sea, it would have been impossible for them to cross with their children, livestock, and baggage. Of course, they didn’t really need to worry about water barriers anymore. As the bearers of the ark moved into the stream, it ceased to flow, allowing the people to pass and collect river rocks on their way out. This crossing wasn’t simply a physical miracle though. Just as the Red Sea crossing marked the moment at which they became free from Egypt, the crossing of the Jordan marked the moment in which they became inhabitants of the promised land of Canaan. Though they would need to conquer the land, they could already begin to taste the sweetness of their new home, and they began to eat the produce of the land.
By the time Isaiah 43 was written, God was looking to do something completely different with water. In the past, water was used as a weapon of God, or at least a barrier between places, at this point, God is using water for an entirely positive purpose. God promises rivers in the desert and water in the wilderness. God is going to provide a safe and comfortable way for the exiles to return home. Water is changing from blocking the way to guiding and supporting along the path. Nonetheless, this journey is a life changing one. The exile lasted around seventy years. Many of the people who were originally taken were either dead at this point or had been very young when initially removed from their homeland. The journey home would completely change their lives. They were returning to an ancestral homeland, away from what they had become familiar with. They were voluntarily taking a longer journey than many of them had taken up to this point. They were going to try to rebuild the home their parents and grandparents had told them about, and they would seek to reunite with God in the land God had promised to give them so long ago. This would change everything. Passing beside God’s miraculous desert streams, they could undertake this journey of a lifetime, into a home that was ancestrally familiar but personally unknown.
But this isn’t just something new for the exiles returning home, this is new for God. Isaiah 43:19 records God saying that God is “about to do a new thing.” God is moving away from the need for water to block and divide. Now water is supporting and guiding. God decided to change things for the sake of the people to meet the needs they were currently experiencing.
It’s nice to see God not being brittle and inflexible. God adjusts to context. When the people need a dividing line so that they can start a new life for themselves after a fixed point, God brings them to the Red Sea and the Jordan. When the people need gentle guidance and nourishment, God brings forth springs of water in the desert. The interesting thing this tells us about God is simply that God listens. God understands what is happening and plans accordingly. When people need a hard boundary, God miraculously splits an otherwise uncrossable body of water.. When people need water to drink to stay alive, God makes rivers in the desert.
Some characterizations of God, describe God as a disembodied consciousness that is the same throughout time and space. If this is correct, why would God adjust to fit the needs of people in the world? Surely God would have the power to just make people experience exactly what they need to, bringing their needs to God rather than moving to meet their needs. God wouldn’t need to adjust to the context. However, that isn’t the God portrayed here. God decides to do something completely different. Perhaps the most important thing to take away here is that no matter how different things in the world may be, God is listening and acting in new ways. No matter how much we change, we will always be trying to catch up to God, through whose holy waters we are a newly reborn every day.
