Mid-week Lenten Meditation

The Simple Gift of Water

Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.

After a funeral, I was moving the baptismal bowl and staring straight down in a bowl of crystal clear water.  It inspired me to reflect on the simple gift of water.

Water – the miracle substance that is both life giving and destructive of life.

Life-giving

Destructive

This reading from John is pretty gruesome.  Jesus being pierced in the side and blood and water gushing out!  That paints a rather stark picture of the death of Jesus.

But lest we get caught up in this off putting account of the piercing of Jesus we need to look at St. John’s message in the context of the entire Gospel.   John uses metaphor throughout.  Jesus speaks to Nicodemus and says how one is to be born from above out of the ‘water and the word.’ 

Jesus has the longest recorded dialog with the woman at the well.  John speaks of the living waters that Jesus gives and the women’s eyes are open to see the Christ.   Jesus invites those who are thirsty to quench their thirst through him.  His life will spring up like a well of living waters.

The prophets speak of living waters and Amos spoke:

“Let justice flow like waters and righteousness like a never ending stream….”

Baptism – Luther – in the Small Catechism teaches:

What then is the significance of such a baptism with water?

It signifies that the old person in us with all sins and evil desires is to be drowned and die through daily sorrow for sin and through repentance, and on the other hand that daily a new person is to come forth and rise up to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.

Where is this written? St. Paul says in Romans 6, "We were buried with Christ through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life."

Water is transformative.  It initiates us into the new life in Christ.  God in Christ is baptizing the whole world.

Here is a Prayer I wrote for this Simple Gift of Lent:  Water

Prayer for the Waters

Break, break,

oh waves of justice,

and mark the sand

that our land

may be born again.

Baptized by tidal waves

from moonstruck bays

overflow our cities.

Flow and cut canals

for those who know

no freedom – bound

by class, wealth, race.

Blast a sound –

crush walls, crumble barriers.

Flood us furious waves,

streams of living waters,

break and come!

Amen.