Nothing but Net

Fishermen will stand beside the sea.

Ezekiel 47:10

If Ezekiel’s visions are bananas, his last one is the cherry on top of a Sunday split for the Lord’s Day. In it, water flows from the altar and becomes a healing river which issues eastward into the Dead Sea, turning its salt waters sweet. The Book of Revelation mirrors this mighty stream as the water of life, flowing clear as crystal from God’s throne through the city with the tree of life in its midst (Revelation 22:1-2, can’t wait).

Anyway, all types of fish now swim in the sea and Ezekiel sees fishermen pictured there. Perhaps another New Testament passage comes to mind, even the legendary seaside scene where this whole party got started: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt 4:19). A Church Father named Ephraim the Syrian had this to say about Ezekiel’s Fisherman:

He was baptized and came up who draws all things into his net. Out of the stream from which Simon caught fish came the fisher of men, and he took him. With the cross, which catches all robbers, he caught that robber up into life.

Amen. And may the Lord of the catch use us in the ongoing family business.