Our Mission is to preach Christ and Him crucified and risen from the dead for you!

Go Forth in Peace Lutheran Parish is made up of three congregations along the #1 Highway in Saskatchewan.

(Peace-Grenfell; Zion-Wolseley; St. Paul’s-Broadview – no building, worships in Grenfell)

We are members of Lutheran Church–Canada (LCC).

Our Pastor is Rev. Gerald Andersen

The Monthly Devotion for April 2024 is from Good Friday

EZEKIEL 47:1–12

WATERS OF HEALING, WATERS OF LIFE

Artists sometimes portray the words of Scripture with more imagination and creativity than theologians and preachers.  Thus, when the soldier opens Christ’s side with the puncture of a spear, and the water and the blood come flowing out, artists picture a chalice capturing the blood, and a font capturing the water.

Ezekiel had a vision.  The temple of God had been rebuilt, grandly and gloriously.  From the temple on the east side water flowed.  And this was not just any water!  It was living water that grew.  The trickle, grew to a stream, first deep enough to wet the ankles, then enough to wet the knees, then enough to wet the waist, then too deep to even cross.  A mighty flowing river.  And where it went, it brought healing.  As in Paradise, trees of life grew where this river flowed.

John’s Passion account is the only one that refers to the water that flowed from Christ’s side.  In John’s Gospel we also see that Jesus identified Himself with the temple.  He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”.  The Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”  The evangelist adds, “He was speaking about the temple of His body” (John 2:19–21).

At the Feast of Tabernacles, the Jews enacted the prophecy we heard from Ezekiel.  Water was drawn from the pool of Siloam and carried in great procession to the door of the temple where it was poured out, just as Ezekiel had prophesied.  However, this water didn’t turn into a life-giving stream that flowed deeper and stronger.  But as the liturgy was going on, Jesus stood up and announced, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.  Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’ ” (John 7:37–38).  The evangelist adds, “This He said about the Spirit” (v 39).

His body was the temple.  That is the meaning of Ezekiel’s vision.  In the flesh of Jesus, the Godhead dwells in bodily form.  He is truly the temple.  When He died and the soldier pierced Him, a life-giving fountain of water began to pour from His side.  It didn’t look like much initially, but that’s the water that flows into Baptism.  The water of Baptism flows from Christ’s side to make us alive and restore us to Paradise.

Intentionally, the early Christians chose the Greek word “fish” to identify themselves: ichthus.  The letters of the word form an acronym of the phrase “Jesus Christ God’s Son our Saviour.”  But that isn’t the only reason that fish came to be the sign for Christians.  The words of Ezekiel resounded in their ears, and they delighted to think of themselves as little fish who swam in the living water of Baptism.

Tertullian, one of the founding Church fathers, wrote: “But we little fish, like our Fish Jesus Christ, are born in water, and it is only by remaining in water that we are safe.  Therefore . . . [the enemies of the faith] well knew how to slay the little fish by removing them from the water” (Tertullian, De Baptismo, para. 1; translated Alexander Souter, 1919).

The fountain that Christ opened up by His dying in our place on Calvary’s tree grew from a trickle to a river.

The promise of the river of life was not for Jews only, but for all.  Christ’s act on the cross bore the sin of all, and so the water that carries the new life and the forgiveness of sins flows out to all!

You can trace the growth of this river in the Book of Acts.  St. Peter in the first Pentecost Day sermon urged the people to plunge into the river: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself” (Acts 2:38–39).  Three thousand people took the plunge that day!  The trickle had already turned into a mighty river, and it only got bigger along the way.

It flowed into the desert, where an Ethiopian eunuch was brought to faith by the preaching of Philip.  Immediately upon seeing water he shouted, “See, here is water!  What prevents me from being baptized?” (8:36).

This river flowed on, reaching the shores of Philippi in Macedonia, where Paul and Silas brought the word of forgiveness to a Roman jailer and his family, who plunged into the river in the middle of the night: “He was baptized at once, he and all his family” (16:33).

From the side of Christ, life flows to all the world — a healing stream for all humankind, a life-giving stream.  Baptism is the gift of forgiveness and new life that flows from the side of Christ.  Amen.