Monday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Going down to “the river” is where it all happens in both of our scripture readings today.
Patrick Marin wrote the following about rivers:
Rivers, as actual and as metaphor, are places of confluence and movement. People think differently and more deeply down by the river because permanence is passing by. The invitation to “go with the flow” to where it empties, or against it to the source, is always implicit. Our souls feel the fluidity of life near a river. A body of water is like a mother who rebirths and reminds us where we came from and where we are going.
Missionaries Paul and Barnabas go down to the river in Philippi because they knew that people gathered to pray there. They meet Lydia, a woman of spiritual depth. And in the “flow” of their discussion with her, her heart is filled with the same Spirit as they. Lydia, the first European convert of “the Way,” then invites the companions to use her home as a “house Church.” “Come and stay with me," she says.
Likewise, Jesus went “down to the river,” where John was baptizing. With similar words as those spoken by Lydia in the first reading, Jesus invites his first two disciples to “come and see” the place where he is staying.
As the Hebrews became God’s own (Israel) born by passing through the waters of the Exodus, and as they entered the Promised Land through the parting of the Jordan’s waters, so likewise did we come to our God through the waters of baptism.
Marin continues, “With each crossing our spirits surrender the past and welcome the future, moving toward newness, an ever changing promise of deeper life. It begins with our decision to go down to the river and enter the flow.”
The river. That place of “confluence and movement.” May we flow in life as a river flows. Permanence is not permanent. Life is fluid. Change is certain. We are always moving towards something else. What never changes, but is “the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow” (Heb 13:7-8), is Christ Jesus, into whose life we “passed.” Rebirthing baptismal waters remind us where we came from and where we are going. And always back to the source and to a deeper life.
Surrender the past and welcome the future towards a deeper life. Enter the flow as God alone is permanent. All struggle and suffering is temporary. That’s Easter good news, indeed!
—Timothy J. Cronin