Israelis refer to it as the Salt Sea. Arabs call it the Sea of Death. Roughly the size of the Isle of Man, the Dead Sea is really a salt lake, fed from the north by the river Jordan on the Israeli-Jordanian border. 

Human activity, i.e. the partial diverting of the river, has led to water levels dropping and the Dead Sea shrinking over recent decades. Yet when the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel proclaimed the symbolic transformation of the Dead Sea into a freshwater lake, it was even lower than its present-day level and only the northern shores were inhabited. 

When he and his fellow-Jews were deported to Babylon in the sixth century BC, Ezekiel spoke: Jerusalem had fallen. God had judged his people, but he had not abandoned them; one day, Jerusalem would be restored and God’s living waters would bring new life. 

A survivor of a World War Two death camp reflected on his experience and spoke of a fellow survivor who made it through because he had believed his deceased wife was looking down on him in the camp. That belief made him not want to give up and disappoint her. Now that’s hope; it can get you through unfathomable suffering. 

Secular hope revolves around career, popularity and family, but if you were to enter a death camp, they’d all be destroyed. We need a bigger hope to handle true difficulty. 

Jerusalem's walls were smashed, and its people marched hundreds of miles as captives to the city of Babylon. Imagine the trauma and loss. But God was not done. Ezekiel’s prophecies came out of the hopelessness and loss of exile: God was bringing hope and life. 

Today we have Jesus to look to. He is every prophecy of God come good. His resurrection gives us a transcendent and realistic hope to believe in. Next time clouds are brewing above you, remember his resurrection, read Revelation 21.1–5 and be reminded that future hope is yours. 

Read Ezekiel chapter 47 to find out more about his vision of healing and renewal.