+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Those who attended our adult Sunday School series on the Book of Revelation may remember that we talked about the fraught nature of water, and particularly large bodies of water (seas and oceans), in the ancient world. While water is necessary for life, while forty years in a desert is less than ideal, water was reckoned the realm of chaos and the demonic.
Naturally, this found a prominent place in the imagery of the Apocalypse, considering it was written at a time when the great anti-Christian power, Rome, expressed its violent might on the Mediterranean, which they called mare nostrum—“our sea.” It’s why that book leaves aquatic life out of its vision of the totality of life represented by the four living creatures and why the New Jerusalem is not surrounded by raging waters but by a sea of glass.
This aquaphobia is not by any means unique to apocalyptic literature in the Jewish and Christian traditions, though. The realm of Leviathan is separated by the firmament at creation, and the immense power of the Creator would have struck ancient people profoundly when they learned that his voice moved over the waters, a place where even the angels would fear to tread. In short, best to stick to dry land, because for an ancient person, the seas were not only a place of natural peril; they were literally a realm given over to the demons.
As a child, I was fascinated by something that happened every year on Epiphany in our city. The local Greek Orthodox church had a service at the port at which the priest sprinkled holy water into the river to bless it. I thought this was strange; of course I found a lot about Orthodoxy a little strange, unlike what we completely normal Episcopalians did. (It didn’t occur to me then that to the hordes of Southern Baptists in town, what we “normal” Episcopalians did was probably just as strange, if not outright degenerate.) What, I thought, did this guy think he was accomplishing by sprinkling a few drops into so large a body of water?
Well, he was blessing it—I have no doubt now, effectively—in the same way that Christ blessed all water when the baptist helped him fulfill all righteousness so long ago at the Jordan. He has subdued the realm of chaos; no longer must a firmament separate it from us. He has cleansed the waters that they may cleanse us in baptism. And in that holy sacrament we are submerged into a death like his that we might be lifted out to breathe new life, in this world and the next.
In his commentary on Matthew, St. Hilary of Poitiers wrote the following:
In Jesus Christ we behold a complete man. Thus in obedience to the Holy Spirit the body he assumed fulfilled in him every sacrament of our salvation. He came therefore to John, born of a woman, bound to the law and made flesh through the Word. Therefore there was no need for him to be baptized, because it was said of him: “He committed no sin.” And where there is no sin, the remission of it is superfluous. It was not because Christ had a need that he took a body and a name from our creation. He had no need of baptism. Rather, through him the cleansing act was sanctified to become the waters of our immersion.
You see, in the Incarnation we have a two-way street, as it were, an equal and opposite reaction. In condescending to the material world, God has lifted nature up to the spiritual realm. This he does with water. This he does with bread and wine. This he does with flesh and blood and hearts and minds, enlightening us with wisdom from on high and the very righteousness of God.
I’ve been asked before if I go to church when I’m on vacation, and I say “of course.” But why? Sometimes I say, “well it’s just nice to sit in the pews with my wife” or “I like to sing hymns” or “I’m up anyway” or something like that. But that’s not the reason. I hope you’ll forgive me if this sounds “arch” or something, but I mean it 100%. What I want to say, what I rarely screw up the nerve to say but probably should, is this: If you knew a miracle was going to happen somewhere at 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning, wouldn’t you show up for it? I believe that’s what happens here, so I’m not gonna miss it. Christ giving himself for us in bread and wine, lifting the common elements of material existence up to a heavenly table and sharing his own substance with us? Gee whiz, I wanna see that! Christ taking a fallen creature and, with the application of a bit of water and the triune name creating something new and beautiful and luminous? Count me in!
On this Sunday we have the option in our prayer book to replace the Nicene Creed with the renewal of baptismal vows, and the pious practice of asperging the faithful with Holy Water at the conclusion of that renewal has become more-or-less assumed. (I’m not sure if that is strictly rubrical, but the bishop always does it, so I think I won’t get in trouble). After the reaffirmation of what we believe as summarized by the Apostle’s Creed, and the renewal of those promises which rehearse what we ought to be doing about it, that sprinkling highlights something even more important. Yes it’s terribly important that we believe the right things, and it’s also pretty important that we try to live in such a way that those things affect ourselves and others for the good. But even more important, I think, is what we have been made through no effort of our own, simply as a free gift of God’s grace, effected by a little water and the name of the Holy Trinity. We have been made something new, we have been raised to the divine life, we have been called beloved children with whom the Father is well-pleased, and I, for one, am here for that.
+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.