A River Runs Deep

“A River Runs Deep”

Psalm 46

September 7, 2014

Mark S. Bollwinkel

            So often we bring the meaning of an event, a possession or a relationship with us.  We do so in a myriad of ways.  The date of a calendar may mean birthday, anniversary or retirement while the same date to another means just another day.  To the listeners of a piece of music may bring back memories of first-love or a broken heart.   Two students get a “C” on their test and for ones is a miracle and for another it’s a failure.

            For me the last pitch of the 2012 World Series between the Detroit Tigers and the San Francisco Giants will remain with me until my dying days; Miguel Cabrera striking out with a full count in the bottom of the ninth as he watched a surprise fastball from Sergio Romo come streaking across the plate.  For others here this morning you may be thinking, “What is he talking about?!”

            We supply the meaning to an event, a possession or a relationship.

            It’s true of history as well.  If we look we may find God right in the middle of the most mundane.

            Hezekiah was a pious and powerful king of Judah (727-698 BCE) during one of its most difficult periods of history.   He watched as the Assyrian armies routed the armies of the northern Kingdom of Israel and sacked its capital Samaria (722 BCE).   He paid a vassal tax to the great empire to the north to keep the southern Kingdom of Judah and its capital Jerusalem safe.   When Assyria’s great king Sargon died, Hezekiah openly rebelled (705 BCE) in an alliance with Babylon which would prove to be disastrous in a number of ways (2 Kings 20:16-19).   The Assyrian king Sennacherib led his armies to capture all of Judah and surround Jerusalem itself (701 BCE).  The siege would fail due to a sever illness of Sennacherib which required him to return home and in no small part to Hezekiah’s well.

            In preparation for his resistance to the Assyrian empire, King Hezekiah ordered that Jerusalem’s water supply be secured by the drilling of the Siloam tunnel (2 Kings 20:20, 2 Chron. 32:3-4) through 1,749 feet of solid rock under Mt. Zion.   This aqueduct connected the spring of Gihon, the principal source of water for Jerusalem, with a series of cisterns within the city walls.   Part of this reservoir system can still be seen today.

            In ancient warfare walled cities could often survive a siege by a much powerful army if they had a source of water.  Without it there would have been no hope at all against the mighty Assyrian army.

            When they returned home frustrated in their attempts to capture Jerusalem along with all of the other cities of Judah with which they had already been successful, the Hebrews behind the walls of Jerusalem saw their salvation from immediate destruction as the work of God.   King Hezekiah was highly praised.   Later prophets (Note Isaiah 22:11-f) would see Hezekiah’s gamble in international politics,  rather than his trust in God, as laying the seeds of the eventual destruction of Jerusalem and exile of Israel by Babylon a century later (586 BCE).

            But in the year 701 BCE with the Assyrian army returning north and Jerusalem saved from destruction behind its stone walls and underground aqueduct, the people rejoiced in the power of their God.   Scholars suggest that such a moment helped to inspire the writing of Psalm 46, our scripture lesson for this morning.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
   the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
   God will help it when the morning dawns.
The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;
   he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us;
   the God of Jacob is our refuge.

             The walls of a fortress and the life saving waters of an underground well became symbolic of God’s constant presence in the lives of the faithful.  We hear that same imagery in Martin Luther’s classic hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”.   The imagery of “still waters run deep” or “a river runs deep” used by poets, songwriters and sages speak of inner spiritual resources available to all that can make all the difference when times are difficult.

            For the people of the Judeo-Christian tradition such imagery symbolizes the God found within each heart that may protect us from assaults from without.

            In the gospel of John (chapter 9) Jesus healed a man born blind.   The man was minding his own business, hadn’t called out for help, and didn’t know who Jesus was.  That he must beg for a living suggests that he has been abandoned by his family of origin to fend for himself.   To answer a theological argument among his disciples about the nature of suffering (“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”) Jesus heals the blind beggar to prove a point.    God doesn’t cause anyone’s suffering to punish or to teach a lesson.  Suffering isn’t inherited because of what your family did or did not do in the past.   Indeed, there may be no logic to suffering at all but with the God of Jesus there is always a reason to heal. 

            After Jesus applies a mud made of spittle and dirt, he instructs the blind man to go to the pool of Siloam to wash and there he regains his sight (:7).   Once again, like seven hundred years before, the symbolic ‘waters of salvation’ are used to restore and give a second chance.  This time the man takes it and finds a new relationship to God through Jesus (:38).

            Just as the Samaritan woman found at the well when Jesus offered her “living water….those that drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty again.  The water that I will give will become a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” (John 4:10-14). 

            No one can deny the power of symbol and image to articulate that which is true.  Consider Robert Frost’s classic poem “Spring Pools” for its ability to express the timeless cycle of birth, death, change and growth inherent within life itself:

 “Spring Pools”, by Robert Frost (West-Running Brook, 1928)

 These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods --
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.

 

As we take Holy Communion together this morning what is this ancient rite and its elements symbolic for you?   The comfort of ritual long practiced?   The story of the God who will pour out love and grace in the life, death and resurrection of an innocent carpenter?   A well of sweet water that can quench a thirst deep within?

In the sacrament we are offered the symbols of nourishment that only God can provide.   Yet in many ways it will be each of us who bring to the table the meaning of this moment.  

I pray it connects with the river that runs deeps within us all.

Amen.