Romans 2.10-16

Matthew 4.18-23

The prophet Ezekiel sees a vision of the Heavenly Temple at the top of the Mountain. The Temple he saw was a vision of the Holy Virgin Mary, for She is the living Temple of God. In his vision, he saw a mighty snow-melt river flowing down from the Temple. It flowed down the mountain toward the East, into Galilee, it says, all the way to the outlet of the water. And the River healed the waters, and raised to life every living creature it touched. (Eze 47.1-9)

What do we read in our Gospel this morning? ‘And Jesus went about all Galilee, healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.’ (Mt 4.23) Clearly, the River of Ezekiel’s vision is Jesus Christ.

Isaiah sees in a vision the same River and confirms for us its identity as the LORD Jesus: ‘Thus saith the LORD. Behold, I turn toward all who love Jerusalem [the Virgin Mary] as a snow-melt River of peace.’ (Isa 61.12) In another vision, Isaiah describes the River’s, i.e., the LORD’s “Living Waters” (His Holy Spirit) like this: ‘As rain shall come down, or snow from heaven (i.e., like a ‘snow-melt river’), and shall not return until it has saturated the earth, and brought forth, and bud, and given seed to the Sower, and bread for food, so shall my WORD be that proceeds out of my Mouth. It shall not turn back until all the things I willed shall have been accomplished; and I will make your ways prosperous, and you shall go forth with joy and shall be taught with gladness.’ (Isa 55.10-12)

Jesus ben Sirach, in the apocryphal book called Ecclesiasticus, also saw in a vision this same river. The LORD says to him: ‘I [Wisdom – i.e., Jesus Christ] also came out as a brook from a river and as a conduit into a garden.’ This is the Garden of Eden. The Holy Virgin Theotokos is the Garden of Eden – so the Church teaches us – for She held in the ‘Garden’ of Her womb the LORD Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God who is the Tree of Life to all who lay hold of ‘Her’. (Prov 3.18)

The WORD of the LORD goes on: ‘I will water my best Garden.’ Who is the LORD’s ‘best Garden’? Again, it is the LORD’s Holy Virgin Mother. ‘I will water abundantly my Garden bed.’ This would be the sacred womb of the Holy Virgin when the Holy Spirit, the LORD’s Living Waters ‘overshadows Her’ and she conceives, in the ‘Garden bed’ of Her womb, the Wisdom of God, the Tree of Life. (Prov 3.18) ‘And lo,’ the LORD goes on to say, ‘my little brook became a river, and my river became a sea,’ just as we read in Ezekiel who sees the snow-melt River going forth from the Temple toward the East and getting deeper and mightier as it flows to the outlet of the sea. And finally, the LORD says, ‘Behold, I have not labored for myself only, but for all them that seek wisdom.’ (Ecclesiasticus 24.29-34) We read in Proverbs Wisdom saying: ‘I love those who seek Me. Those who seek Me diligently will find Me.’ And when Wisdom becomes incarnate as the LORD Jesus Christ, He says: ‘Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened to you.’ (Mt 7.7) He who comes to Me I will in no wise cast out.’ (Jn 6.37)

It could hardly be more clear: the prophets are seeing in their visions the All-Holy Virgin, the LORD’s Living Temple, conceiving in Her sacred womb the Son of God as the Son of Man. He is the ‘Mighty River’ the prophets see in their visions, who becomes, through the Theotokos, bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh. He becomes one with us, even to the point of death on the Cross – that is, following Ezekiel, He is the Mighty River who flows all the way to the outlet of the sea – His death and burial –healing and giving life to all who receive Him. (Jn 1.12) It is a vision of the LORD Jesus Christ ‘increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man’ [Luk 2.52], and of the LORD, when He was grown into a man, ‘departing into Galilee and coming to dwell in Capernaum, which is by the sea, so that those sitting in the region and shadow of death saw a great Light rising upon them.’ [Mat 4:12-16]

I’m quoting just now from St Matthew in the verses immediately preceding our Gospel this morning. He is quoting Isaiah in order to bring us, through the prophets, to this morning’s Gospel which, in turn, with the LORD calling Simon Peter and Andrew, James and John to become His ‘fishers of men,’ takes us back to the vision of Ezekiel I set before you a moment ago, to show that the Life-giving Waters of the prophets’ vision is Jesus Christ, the WORD of God become flesh and dwelling in us, in our flesh and blood. For in the vision of Ezekiel with which we began our sermon this morning, it says: ‘Fishermen will stand there.’ They will stand by the snow-melt River flowing from the Temple all the way to the outlet of the sea. ‘They will be spreading their nets,’ it says, to draw in ‘the fishes of the Great Sea, which are exceedingly many.’ (47.10)

On the Feast of Pentecost just three Sundays ago, we sang: ‘Blessed art Thou, O Christ our God, Who has revealed the fishermen as most wise. By sending down upon them Thy Holy Spirit, Thou didst draw the whole world into Thy net!’ The Church is the boat in this morning’s Gospel. The boat is the Holy Virgin Theotokos who holds the LORD Jesus Christ as did the boat in this morning’s Gospel. The boat, as an icon of the Theotokos; Jesus stepping into the boat is the Snow-Melt River descending from above into the womb of the Theotokos. He issues forth from Her womb, He increases in wisdom and stature (Lk 2.52) to become a Man, and on the Cross, He flows all the way to the outlet of the sea, to His Tomb and into the Garden, which is the Garden of Eden. The Boat is the Holy Orthodox Church in whom the Snow-Melt River flows all the way into our soul – if we would but receive Him – healing us and raising us to eternal life in His Resurrection, and glorifying us, deifying us in His Holy Ascension.

From the Boat of the Church, the Holy Apostles spread out their nets. Their net is the Holy Spirit who is woven into the words of their doctrine. Their words are ropes all made from the same material: the WORD of God, the LORD Jesus Christ. It is the apostles’ doctrine, not our own, that is proclaimed in the Holy Orthodox Church. The apostolic doctrine of the Church is the Net of the Holy Spirit, not the net of our own ideas. It therefore carries the WORD of God that is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword and that pierces all the way to the heart (Heb 4.12) – ‘to the outlet of the sea.’ That WORD is the Snow-Melt River that comes down as ‘Living Waters’ from the Mountain Top above; that is, it comes directly from Our LORD Jesus Christ who is seated at the Right Hand of the Father in the Heavens above. It does not come from us here below.

The doctrine of the Church, then, made visible and audible and palpable in Her icons, Her prayers, Her sacramental mysteries and liturgical worship – all of these are the net of the LORD’s Holy Spirit, and they carry Christ, bringing Him to us right where we are. To ‘swim’ like fishes into the net of the Church is to be taken up into the mighty current of the Snow-Melt River and to be borne on the ‘better and changeless Path’ – the LORD Jesus Christ – ‘that ascends to God.’ It is to be immersed in the Living Waters of the Church’s Baptismal Font, and to be made soaking wet with the Living Waters of the Holy Spirit that heal every living creature they touch, and illumine with the Robe of Light and Life everyone who rises from the Font and puts on Christ.

I think we ourselves can bear witness that those fishes who resolve to live and swim in the Living Waters of the Snow-Melt River of Christ – that is, who resolve to live in the Life of the Church, to build their house on the Rock that is the crucified and risen and ascended and glorified Body of Christ, who walk in the Light of the LORD’s commandments, and not in the stagnant waters of the world that do not receive Christ (cf. Eze 47.11) – these are the fish who do indeed find healing and life. They do indeed go forth in joy, being taught daily by the LORD’s Holy Spirit Himself in the apostles’ doctrine of Gladness – i.e., in their words that carry the WORD of God, Jesus Christ Our LORD, God and Savior, and the Only Lover of mankind. Amen! Glory to Jesus Christ! Most Holy Theotokos, save us!