Down to the River to Pray
September 30, 2017
Christine E. Burns
“Then the Angel showed me Water-of-Life River, crystal bright. It flowed from the Throne of God and the Lamb, right down the middle of the street. The Tree of Life was planted on each side of the River, producing twelve kinds of fruit, a ripe fruit for each month.” (Revelation 22:1-2)
Today’s special song, “Down in the River to Pray” is a traditional American folk song probably written by an African-American slave. You may remember it from the baptism scene in the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou, but the true meaning of the song can be understood on two levels. First, the song is about baptism in the river where the believers go down to the river to pray and be baptized. The second level is the coded message in the song sung by slaves directs individuals to walk in the river to hide their scent from white slave owners and bounty hunters chasing after them with dogs. The ‘starry crown’ referred to using the stars to navigate their escape path under the cover of darkness.
I love how this song invites us into the resonance and power of song to sing of freedom from sins washed away by baptism and freedom from the oppression of slavery on a deeper, coded level.
Today our theme is rivers and I invite you to open up to seeing the river as a symbol and literal force in our lives. Most of us probably have some memories of encountering something special at the side of a river or traveling along a river by boat, swimming or even inner tube. I invite you to think of an experience you have had heading down to the river. Perhaps you were heading down to walk the banks of the river with a fly-fishing rod in your hand or maybe you were off for an adventure rafting or kayaking. Whatever river comes to mind from your past, hold onto that experience during the meditation. Perhaps now I will have lost your attention for the rest of the meditation, but I trust that whatever way you are moved to contemplate God in this space will be a powerful part of your journey down the byways of the rivers of life.
In the Bible, we begin with the story of Genesis in the Garden of Eden and it was there that the first river flowed out from the Garden and divided into four branches. That was the beginning. Today’s reading takes us from Alpha to Omega, to the last book in the Bible, the Revelation to John of Patmos. We take up our reading from the 22nd chapter and hear about the New Jerusalem. In this vision of a holy city of peace on a hill that is filled with metaphor and symbols, we are invited to see how the river of life flows from the throne of God and the Lamb who is Christ down through the middle of the streets. This river of life flows with abundance and waters the tree of life for the healing of all the nations. Here God is seen as present in a city, the New Jerusalem, a city where all the nations are healed. There is no more war or suffering. Here the river runs through the streets as the waters of life.
The river from the beginning in Genesis to the final book in the Bible is a symbol of life and renewal. The headwaters, or birthplace of the original riverin the Garden of Eden, to the river of the Waters of Life invite us into meditating on how rivers can lead us towards God.
Rivers symbolize water and movement. At the headwaters, at the uppermost part of a stream that begins mighty rivers, there is a low lying marshland that begins as the source of the stream which will become a mighty river growing and winding across continents until it dumps out into the sea.
We know that in the time of Jesus, the central river was the Jordan. Today the Jordan remains a powerful force and is 156 miles in length and flows from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. This is the river that the ancient Israelites crossed to enter the Promised Land, and where Jesus was baptized in the watersof the river by John. Today, on the east side of the river the Golan Heights and Jordan are located and on the west side of the river Israel and the West Bank are located.
I invite you to return to your memory of a time at a river. Where was it? Did it carve the Grand Canyon out with the power of rushing water for thousands of years? Was it a creek near your grandparents’ home growing up? Did you hop into an inner tube and float out into the Cape Cod Bay? Where ever your memory of the river is consider how that can invite you today to see the river as a symbol of your journey from birth to death, all along the twists and turns of your experiences to find your way towards God and our final resting place.
Let us end our mediation where we began with the image of stepping into the river. Step into the river and experience the power of water flowing. Realize that the saying by Heraclitus is true, “You can never step into the same river.” In any given moment, the river is running through our lives. May we find places and spaces to step into the river and be washed clean of the past and renewed for the journey of life. And a river will run through it. Amen.
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