Holy Water
Genesis 9:8-17; Mark 1:9-15

March 9, 2003

During Sydney’s baptism I read a longish prayer about how water intrudes upon our sense of who we are as a people of the Book. Water keeps seeping into the exciting parts of the Biblical narratives.

While everyone is talking about the Big Bang of creation, and trying to explain how there was nothing, yet something to make a bang, the ancient Hebrews already knew that in the beginning there was water. “Before the world had shape and form, your Spirit moved over the waters.” Water has no shape and no form, and when you look out upon the vastness of the ocean, as the Hebrews did, it is chaos personified, ready to swallow you up.

Then God formed the sky to separate the waters and formed dry land and put water in its place. Water now was no longer chaotic. It had a purpose, and having a purpose water gave life. Even when the great flood “washed the earth,” water was no longer random. After the flood we heard read how God promised that such chaos would not happen again, the rainbow being the sign of God’s covenant with all of humanity.

Water is chaos and violence, a flood waiting to drown us, but water is necessary for life everyday. Water is a basic element of life. So the beginning of the Christian story is depicted standing in a river, starting a new life and a new world wet up to who knows where.

Baptism is the word we use for this new life in the midst of water. You can be baptized by the Holy Spirit and baptized by fire, but baptism always begins with water. Sydney was baptized with a little water from Regina and the Jordan, her parents affirmed their own baptisms, while the rest of us reaffirmed our baptisms around the presence of water. Baptism is a sacrament, a holy action and event, in which God is poured over us, sometimes sprinkling, often dripping, occasionally completely immersing us.

Let me go slightly on a tangent: in New England the Congregationalists who are part of our United Church legacy never built churches. They built instead those wonderful steepled all-white “meeting houses.” They called them that because during the week, the building would be used for town meetings, often quite unholy affairs with lots of unholy discussions. Only on Sunday did the room become again a sanctuary. When it was used for worship, it was a sanctuary; when it was used for political debating and decision-making, it was a meeting house. The meaning of the place depended upon how it was used.

Water is not particularly holy. It can give life, it can cause death. When baptism by water is conducted in our church, it is never done alone, for it is always accompanied by the laying on of hands and the reception of the Holy Spirit. Baptism is not just a certain amount of dripping water; it is alive giving life.

The same Spirit that descended like a dove upon Jesus in the Jordan River drove him out into the wilderness for forty days. In the wilderness where no human lived, Jesus did stuff. He endured temptation by Satan to live a different kind of life. He fasted and prayed and prepared himself for the long task of demonstrating to all sorts of people that the kingdom of God had arrived. He was with the wild beasts, and in a way the violent way of this world in which we have to kill other creatures for food was being reversed. Eden and Paradise were recreated. Then he went back to civilization and preached the Good News. No end to this baptismal Spirit.

It’s only baptism when you keep doing something with it, and then it is a holy event. When you fight evil and injustice, it’s still baptism. When you keep learning and teaching a child or an adult about the uncommon way of life in Christ, then you keep on being baptized. When you help those who are afflicted with all manner of disease and tragedy, then you keep on feeling the dampness of baptism. When you find yourself forgiving those who have afflicted you, then the Spirit has drenched you with the living power of your baptism.

There is a little bit of subterfuge going on when in our tradition we insist upon baptisms taking place in public worship. In full view of the water being poured on a child or on an adult, hearing the promises and challenges, and accepting our role in supporting this family in their journey through the wilderness, you and I are reminded that you have to keep up with your baptismal tasks and I have to keep acting like this water has made me different, a non-conformist to this wild violent world.

You are baptized with water and the Holy Spirit only when you keep acting and living like you are meant to be different.

“In the time of Moses, your people Israel passed through the Red Sea waters from slavery to freedom and crossed the flowing Jordan to enter the promised land.

“In the fullness of time, you sent Jesus Christ, who was nurtured in the water of Mary’s womb.

“Jesus was baptized by John in the water of the Jordan, became living water to a woman at the Samaritan well, washed the feet of the disciples, and sent them forth to baptize all the nations by water and the Holy Spirit.”

Use water like that and even if it is Regina water, it is holy. Use you and me like that, and even if we are from Regina, we are holy people, the saints of God.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan