The River and the Tree That Heals the Whole World

Do you know what an angel showed John, at the very end of everything?

A river.

A river so clear you could see all the way to the bottom, bright as glass with light caught inside it. And it came pouring right out from the middle of the throne of God, where the Lamb was sitting. The water was alive. It ran down the middle of the great street, sparkling, singing, going everywhere.

And on both sides of the river there grew a tree.

Long, long ago, at the very beginning, in a garden, there had been a tree like this one. The Tree of Life. And then came a sad day. The gate was shut. The way to the tree was lost, and for a long, long time, no one could find it again.

But look now.

Here it is, growing again by the river. Heavy with fruit, fresh fruit every single month, never running low, never running out.

And its leaves, John saw, were for healing.

Not for one person only, or for one town. The leaves were for the healing of the nations. Every people. The whole wide world. Everything that had ever been broken. Every scrape and every sorrow. Every land at war. Every child who cried in the dark. The leaves were for all of it.

You have felt this, I think. The wishing. When something is broken and you ache for it to be put back, truly back, the way it was always meant to be. A wishing so deep it can almost hurt.

John saw that wish come true.

For he heard a word spoken over the whole city: no longer would there be anything cursed. No more of the old sadness. None. And he saw the people of God, and on their faces there was no fear at all. They saw God himself, close as your own breathing. And his name was written right there for everyone to see, the way you write your name on what is yours, on the ones you love.

There was no sun in that place, and no lamp, and no little candle. They did not need one. The Lord God himself was their light, shining and shining and never going out. And they would reign with him, forever and ever.

The garden we lost had come home, brighter and wider than before, with the Lamb himself as its light.

And that river has already begun to flow. The healing has already started, gently, in everyone who belongs to Jesus. You can feel the first cool of it today, if you are his.

The fullness, the whole world made new and the gate flung open wide, is still on its way, and it is coming, as sure as water running down from the throne.