A River That Could Not Be Crossed — Easter Sunday

✦ Never Yet Untied

Easter Sunday morning — and Bunyan opens with the most extravagant claim a soul can make about the mercy of God. Not scraps. Not leftovers. Not the remnants of what was given to others. Fully complete mercies, designed for you. Designed — not randomly distributed, not accidentally available, but intentionally crafted to meet whatever you need, whatever you long for, whatever you could desire.

And then the image that will not leave the mind: bags of mercies that have never yet been untied. Set aside. Held in reserve. Through a thousand generations. Waiting — not because God forgot them, but because the generation they were designed for had not yet arrived. The mercy for Abraham was untied in Abraham's time. The mercy for David was untied in David's time. The mercy for the woman at midnight in Lubbock was untied at midnight. And there are bags still tied. Mercies not yet seen. Blessings not yet opened. Provisions not yet revealed. Set aside through a thousand generations — for those He calls to hope in His mercy.

On Easter Sunday — the day the greatest bag of mercy was untied — Bunyan reminds us: there is more. The resurrection was not the last mercy. It was the proof that the bags are inexhaustible. 🙏

✦ Beyond Your Guesses

Bunyan meets the anxious soul head-on — the soul that calculates its own sin and concludes that the mercy cannot possibly be enough. The 500 denari debtor looks at the debt and thinks: surely the bag is not big enough. Surely the river is not deep enough. Surely God's mercy has a limit, and I have found it.

And Bunyan says: you must not trust your own guesses. Your judgment about the mercy of God is the worst measurement available. You do not know — cannot know — how He can cause it to overflow. What seems small and shrunken to you, He can stretch out beyond measure. Your imagination is too small to contain His mercy. Your calculations always come up short — not because the mercy is insufficient, but because your measuring tool is broken.

This is why Paul said exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. The ceiling of your imagination is the floor of His provision. The limit of your thinking is where His mercy begins. 🙏

✦ Swallowed Up — Drowned

Breadth. Length. Depth. Height. Ephesians 3:18 — the four dimensions of the love of Christ, now applied to mercy. And Bunyan says: when God opens this mercy up — when He unties the bag, when He releases the river — it swallows. Not covers. Not manages. Swallows. Not only all your sins — that would be enough. But all your thoughts and imaginings about your sins. The guilt. The shame. The replaying. The self-accusation. The lying awake at night remembering. All of it swallowed.

And then the final word — and can at last drown you in its goodness. Drown. Not sprinkle. Not dampen. Drown. The mercy is not a cup. It is not a stream. It is an ocean. And the 500 denari soul who thought she owed too much to be forgiven discovers that the river of mercy is so deep it drowns the debt entirely — and keeps rising.

Augustine said: perdoas dívidas sem que nada percas com isso — He forgives debts and loses nothing. Bunyan says: He forgives debts and then drowns you in the goodness that remains after the forgiving. The mercy does not stop at the cancellation of the debt. It overflows into blessing. 🙏

✦ The Golden Thread

Ephesians 3:20-21 — the verse that has woven through this entire Holy Week like a golden thread. In English on Wednesday. In Portuguese on Good Friday. And now Bunyan claims it as his own on Easter Sunday — the final word of his meditation on mercy, the doxology that seals everything.

Exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. This is what the resurrection proves. We asked for mercy. He gave the cross. We thought perhaps forgiveness. He gave the empty tomb. We imagined the bags might contain enough. He showed us they contain more than the universe can hold. And to Him be glory — in the church, by Christ Jesus, to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. 🙏

✦ The River That Cannot Be Crossed

Ezekiel 47 — the prophet is led into a river flowing from the Temple. The angel measures. At first — ankle deep. A trickle. A beginning. Then to the knees. Then to the waist. And then — water to swim in. A river that could not be crossed.

This is the story of every soul that has ever entered the mercy of God. At first it seems small. The ankle-deep mercy of the first prayer — God, if You're there, help me. The knee-deep mercy of the first forgiveness — I didn't know it could feel like this. The waist-deep mercy of the growing faith — He is real, He is faithful, He is enough. And then — the river rises beyond all measuring. Water to swim in. A river that could not be crossed. The mercy that was once ankle-deep has become an ocean. And it will be wondered at for all eternity.

This journal is the record of the rising river. Entry 1 — Nahum 1:12, though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more. Ankle deep. A beginning. A first step into the water. And now, forty-six entries later, on Easter Sunday — the river has risen beyond crossing. The mercy is deeper than the sin. The grace is wider than the debt. The love is higher than the imagination can reach. And it is still rising. 🙏

✦ Once You Walk on the Water

MacDonald gives us the choice that faces every believer: how deep will you go? Ankles — safe, cautious, one foot still on dry ground. Knees — a little deeper, a little more committed, but still able to turn back. Waist — serious now, the current pulling, the ground harder to find. Or — swim. Let go of the bottom entirely. Trust the water to hold you. Trust the mercy to be deep enough.

God's choicest blessings are for those who trust Him most fully. Not the ankle-deep believers. Not the ones who keep one foot on the bank. The swimmers. The ones who have proved His faithfulness and decided — I don't need the crutches anymore. I don't need the props and pillows of common sense. I don't need the backup plan. The river is deep enough. The mercy is sufficient. I will swim.

And MacDonald's final word — borrowed, perhaps, from Peter himself, who stepped out of the boat onto the water: "Once you walk on the water, you never want to ride a boat again." Once you have experienced the mercy that holds you when there is nothing beneath your feet — once you have felt the river carry you when you stopped trying to touch the bottom — the boat looks small. The common sense looks timid. The ankle-deep faith looks like a waste of a river that was designed to be swum in. 🙏

✦ Easter Sunday — The River Breaks Its Banks

On the first Easter morning, the stone rolled away. The tomb was empty. The women came and found what they did not expect — not a body but an angel. Not death but life. Not the end of the story but the beginning of the river that would flow from that empty tomb to the ends of the earth and to the end of time.

The river of mercy began at the cross — ankle deep, poured out in blood. It rose at the resurrection — knee deep, waist deep, the proof that death could not hold it. It rose at Pentecost — the Spirit poured out, the river flooding into every nation and language. It rose through the centuries — through Augustine and Luther and Bunyan and Spurgeon and Bowen and Smith and Lewis and Fosdick and Chambers. And it is still rising.

On this Easter Sunday, in Caldas da Rainha, the pilgrim who entered the water at Nahum 1:12 is swimming. The river that once seemed ankle deep — though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more — has risen and risen until it became water to swim in. A river that could not be crossed. And it will be wondered at for all eternity.

He is risen. The bags are untied. The river is uncrossable. And His mercies are new every morning — even this morning. Especially this morning. 🙏