(Preached on Sunday, May 16, 2010)
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. … “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” … And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift. - Revelation 22:1, 13, 17c
In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the first novel in that blockbuster series, the young hero, while wandering around Hogwarts, discovers the mirror of Erised. In its reflection, he sees not only himself, but also his deceased parents. Replying to Harry’s confusion, Professor Dumbledore explains this strange mirror: “It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge nor truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live; remember that.”
What is our deepest desire? To be loved? To belong? Whose face do you see in the mirror? Who is missing? I look into the mirror, and my parents lay a hand on each shoulder. Or I look again, and I see friends no longer in my life, or college professors long retired, or seminary professors who are gone, who have died, smiling, singing, together. I look harder, struggling to make out the contours of my future. The mirror clouds a bit, but I strain forward, hopeful.
What are you desperate for? Is it God? We believe in a God to whom “all hearts are open, all desires known.” Sometimes we have a lot of work to do – uncovering the desires of our own hearts – before we can hear clearly what God may desire for us. All of our individual desires, if we trace them back far enough, are rooted in the goodness of creation and oriented toward union with God. To be sure, they become distorted and we admittedly settle for lesser goods. What once was called idolatry is now more commonly called addiction: placing something essentially good (food, drink, sex, money, work, approval) at the very center of our lives. But we were not made for these, they were made for us. As Augustine, 400 years after Jesus, put it, “O Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.”
Whenever we try to fill the “God-shaped hole” in our being with something other than God, we confuse the giver with the gift. We invest ultimate trust, value, and expectation in persons or things too fragile to bear that weight. Even so, each longing is rooted in the subsoil of our God-given humanness. Remember, God has created the entire world and every day after completing the work of creation for that day, Genesis tells us that God looked at that day’s work and pronounced it good! All the desires of our hearts are given us from God. The only problem with them is when we make them our ultimate desire.
This is actually a natural action on our part. As Augustine said we were made for God and so we have this yearning, this ache, this emptiness inside our souls, our hearts. In trying to fill that emptiness we turn to all the things we know which we naturally desire: money and possessions, love of someone special, work and accomplishments, children and family. But that space never quite gets filled up. So, sometimes we turn to other things: alcohol and drugs, risks and thrills that pump us full of adrenaline, games and wagers, food and other pleasures. These make us feel good for a while, and we think the space is filled. But the feel-good feeling wears off, and it takes more the next time to make us feel good, and the empty space is never filled.
The truth is, the empty space is never supposed to be filled. Even God does not fill the empty space. The empty space is the place where we meet God. It is the space where we come to realize that God is always with us and is always there to guide us, guard us, help us, love us. It is the space where we learn the truth that Theophan the Recluse, a Russian spiritual master of the nineteenth century spoke: “Everywhere and always God is with us, near to us and in us. But we are not always with Him, since we do not remember Him …”
That is the true desire for which we are all searching: to constantly know the loving presence of God in our hearts and all around us in life, never feeling alone as we face the world, and assured beyond all fear and anxiety that all will be well. That is the final vision of the scripture. In the very last chapter of the very last book, the Revelation to John, Chapter 22, he describes the New Jerusalem, the Holy City of God, in the New Heaven and the New Earth which God is bringing about. At the very close of that vision God reminds the author, and through him, us, that God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of all things, the first and the last.
Think about what that statement is really saying. God’s presence has not limits, in space or time. God was there when the first breath was drawn. God was present in the rhythmic middle. God will be there when the final breath is expressed. God is there when demons hold fast. God is there when freedom is released. God is there when chains bind. God is there when bonds are loosed. God is there when stones are pelting. God is there when forgiveness flows. God is there when prisons confine. God is there when doors are opened. There is not a time or a space unknown to God, where God is not present. There is not a human movement, thought or emotion of which God is unaware. Our God is, truly, God. Our God is the One who is indeed infinite, ever present, all knowing and forever faithful. Loving us more than our minds can comprehend; our God is the one whose arms reach from universe to universe, whose legs stride from eternity to eternity.
And in the midst of all that, a river runs through it. A river that is life to which God constantly, freely, invites us to drink. It is a drink which is refreshing and fulfilling and life-giving. It is a drink which does not fill up the empty space inside, but which helps us to live with the empty space as a space of meeting. It is a drink which slakes our thirst and takes the edge off our fear. It is a drink full of life.
When we drink from the river of life then we are able to live without fear. When we know that God is always with us then we know beyond a doubt that there is no circumstance over which God does not rule, including death. Death holds no grip over the Easter faith. This is ultimate freedom. This freedom enables us to go to the empty space within our hearts with no fear and meet God there on a frequent basis. And the more we do that, the more we will have a freedom and a wealth that people will see and will want for themselves.
Anthony de Mello tells a story called “The Diamond” that describes this freedom. “The sannyasi (a Hindu holy man) had reached the outskirts of the village and settled down under a tree for the night when a villager came running up to him and said, ‘The stone! The stone! Give me the precious stone!’ ‘What stone?’ asked the sannyasi. ‘Last night the Lord Shiva appeared to me in a dream,’ said the villager, ‘and told me that if I went to the outskirts of the village at dusk I should find a sannyasi who would give me a precious stone that would make me rich forever.’ The sannyasi rummaged in his bag and pulled out a stone. … ‘[Here] I found it on a forest path some days ago. You can certainly have it.’ The man looked at the stone in wonder. It was a diamond. Probably the largest diamond in the whole world for it was as large as a man’s head. He took the diamond and walked away … The next day at the crack of dawn he woke the sannyasi and said, ‘Give me the wealth that makes it possible for you to give this diamond away so easily.’”
Where do we find that freedom, that wealth, that water of life? The vision of Revelation tells us that the river runs right through the midst of the city of God and it flows from the throne of God. God is the source. To drink of the water of life is to take into us the source: God. How do we do this? By praying. Not the prayers for help or health. Not just praying when things get hard. This is prayer that is simply sitting quietly in that empty space in our hearts, being there as openly and honestly as we can, to meet with God and to listen. It is not filling the space with fancy words or thoughts. God isn’t looking for fancy. God is just looking for you – as you are – as God created you. God want you to be yourself, open and honest, so that God can be God’s self with you. Are you thirsty? Come, take the water of life without price. Come, pray, and be filled.