Revelation 21:1, ‘…and the SEA was no more.’
Revelation 22:1, ‘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.’
(There’s also a video version of this description) The Sea is chaotic, rebellious, and without form (cf. Gen.1:2). In this way, the Sea can depict the ‘vanity’ or ‘meaninglessness’ or chaotic intractability of life under the pall of sin.
The River is, like the Sea, made of water. However, it is made of ordered water, formed water, water gathered and turned toward a specific telos. It is, therefore, obedient, structured, and meaningful. More than this, the eschatological consummation of River imagery sees the River as ultimately flowing from—and communicating—the presence of God Himself (Is.35:6-7; Zech.13:1; Ezek.47:1-12).
With these two contrasting images in mind, it is intriguing to note Revelation’s juxtaposition of the Sea and the River (cited above). I would suggest that at least part of what is intended by the absence of the Sea and the presence of the River is that, in fact, the Sea *has become* the River. That is to say, the chaos, the confusion, the rebellion and meaninglessness of the SEA of human history has been FORMED, NAMED, HARMONIZED by the Spirit of God to the heart of God such that it now flows as a River of Life into all the world.
How did this happen? I think we get a hint when we note that the River flows from the Throne of God in the midst of which stands the slain and living Lamb…Is there anywhere else in John’s writing that we see a Lamb on a Throne pouring out a River of Life into the world? Yes, at the cross.
In John’s Gospel, the Pierced Jesus is presented—through a rich interweaving of symbolic and typological threads—as the Paschal Lamb of God, enthroned upon the cross, so that the blood and water from His side become—to the eyes of faith—the eschatological River of Life. I’d suggest that the Evangelist intends us to see this vision of the Crucified Jesus from whom water flows down into the dust of Calvary as parallel to and visually exegeted in the vision of the Lamb on the throne from whom the river of life flows out into all the world. The two visions are the same
With this in mind, we can answer the question as to how the SEA has become the RIVER. On the cross, Jesus bears in Himself and in His own unbounded experience as the eternal son of God ALL the drowning meaninglessness of this world….He is, as it were, crushed under the waves and the breakers of the absurdity of mortality.
All the chaos of war and violence…All the indignity of violated innocence…All the searing absurdity of beautiful things destroyed by blind, cold, dead ‘fate’…All the battering flood of loss, sorrow, sickness, and pain…And all the monstrous Leviathan of human sin and cosmic rebellion against the designs of God….This entire Sea is gathered up and borne in the Arch-Absurdity of the crucifixion of God Himself.
But then, with Jesus’ resurrection, that same Sea of chaos is raised up with Him and named by Him. Just as the resurrection names the absurdity of the cross and so turns its seeming meaninglessness into the supreme meaning of reality—revealing the naked shame of the Crucified to be the radiant glory of the Love and Beauty and Name of God—just as the resurrection names the crucifixion, so too does it name / seal / harmonize the entire ‘Sea’ of absurdity borne in that crucifixion.
In this way, the the Sea of intractable, deathward Chaos that drowns all this mortal world of rebellion is transformed—through the redemptive agonies of Love—into the life-giving River that flows from the Pierced Heart of our Lord as He hangs on the resurrection-illuminated cross, which is the throne of the redeemed cosmos.
So, Christian—Bride of Christ—come to the fountain opened in the side of the Risen Lord and fill the cup of your soul. And find that, the sweet waters of God’s own presence for you in Christ are, in fact, the bitter waters of this broken, mortal world *as they have been borne for you in love on the cross, and thus transfigured by the resurrection.*
When we are thus able to taste the Sea of seeming ‘meaninglessness’ in this life as the waters of that River whose meaning is “God given to me in love through Christ,” the Sea is no more.
