Water of Baptism

Water of Life

Grace Parish Retreat, March 4, 2006

The Rt. Rev. Mark MacDonald

Bishop of Alaska

A summary of Bishop MacDonald’s presentation

prepared by Jaime Sanders, Candidate for Holy Orders

Task as Disciples Today

Water is the beginning of discipleship.  We are invited to enter a new world of meaning.  For the indigenous peoples of North America, of this geographic place, water of baptism was used as a water of death: death of a people, of a way of life, of their sacred water such as the Columbia River.  If we want to be faithful to our baptism, we must find a way to transform the water of baptism from something that hurts to something that gives life to all.  This is a huge task, but it is what is bubbling up in our time; it is our prophetic task.

Scriptural Stories About Water

We are called as Christians to put the gospel in the center of our circle.  Consider Jesus’ baptism, as told in the gospel according to Luke:  

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.  And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’
Luke 3:21-22

The early church saw this as one of the most significant events in history.  Early liturgical poetry wrote about Jesus’ baptism in almost erotic terms – the joining of heaven and earth at the dawn of a new world.

To understand baptism, we need to understand the role of miracles in the New Testament world of meaning.  In our recent Enlightenment tradition, we have tended to look at Scripture as describing the outrageously extraordinary intervening in the ordinary: as “magic.”  But when one reads them from context of a traditional, oral, culture, one understands them as an uncovering of the inner power and true meaning of the everyday.  An unveiling or opening up of the true reality, in which everything is a gift from God.  If we truly understand the world, the character of God’s provision for our everyday needs is each as miraculous as manna in the desert. Our relationship with God is always mediated through material creation.  And the Christian life is all about redefining our relationship to the rest of creation.

If all this is true, we should be able to gather something of importance from water in the Bible.  Consider all the Scriptural stories in which water appears.  In no particular order, these include: Creation; Exodus, in which water springs forth from rocks – even rocks are there to sustain life; the parting of the Red Sea; the flood and Noah’s ark; John baptizing for repentance; Naeman the Assyrian being healed of his skin disease; Jacob’s well, which was also the well at which Jesus met the Samaritan woman; Moses in the Nile; water being transformed into wine; Jesus asleep in the boat; Joshua crossing the river Jordan; Jesus washing his disciples’ feet; Gideon’s fleece; the Waters of Babylon; the baptism of the eunuch in Acts; Revelation; John 7; Peter trying to walk on water; Jonah; Paul’s shipwreck; Jesus’ pierced side; the Dead Sea; monsters of the deep in Job; the rich man wanting a drop of water from Lazarus; Psalm 23 “still waters.” As Tertullian said, “Christ is always with water.  What privilege water has in the sight of God and the eyes of his Christ.”  Jesus’ test for who is worthy of the kingdom of heaven is whether they “gave me a cup of cold water.”

“Reading” Scriptural Stories

We try to fit stories that operate in “spiritual-realm time” into “western chronological time,” and they don’t fit.  Most of stories from cultures long ago don’t have the same sense of time that we do, and that includes Biblical stories.  Things in the Bible don’t happen in sequence, although they are presented in sequence.  The point isn’t to portray sequential reality but spiritual reality.  In the creation story of Genesis, if water appears mystically out of nothing, something is being said about water that is deeper than can be said in our everyday thought.  A lot in the Bible is non-sequential and has a dream-like quality to it, to teach us what we need to know about life.  

If we take off our cultural blinders, we see that the Bible stories are teaching us that water equals life.  Water is life personified, showing up at the most critical moments.  The profoundness of God who pre-exists all things looking into water and saying “Let there be light” exceeds words.  It is not meant to convince us, but to transform us and to call us to act in an absolutely committed way in life.

Some Things Water in the Bible Says to Us

The early church considered the Baptism of Jesus the most important way to look at the world and water.  Jesus enters water, like fire or heated iron, and heals the woundedness of creation.  Water had been infiltrated by things that tear us apart, that taint its created sacredness; water re-sacralized in the baptism of Jesus, and with it the whole world was re-created.  So in baptism Jesus undoes the dismembering of our lives, and reproduces life in profound unity.  

Baptism is a symbol of our profound unity with God and the rest of the universe.  It is a re-ordering of our relationship with each other, God and the created order.  Water symbolizes the common life of all humanity, and Christians are called to enter deeply into the life of the community around us – all people around us, not only Christians – particularly those who suffer.  This is the second baptism, that of the cross, to submit to the community and honor its sacredness.  Sacredness is not something that Christians have and others don’t; it is in all creation, all humanity.  Sacred water is not only the water of the baptismal font; it is the water of the whole world, symbolized by the water of creation and the water of re-creation through Jesus’ baptism.

Ignoring of Idolatry Leads to Betrayal of Jesus’ Baptism

Remember, we started with some history; a history of baptism shattering culture and community.  And a question: how can we change water of baptism from water of death for some people to water of life for all?

There is a bi-polarity in the gospel; a tension between an affirmation of God’s presence on the one hand and a call to repentance on the other.  A call to confront those things in us that deny the universal presence of God.  “God has come near to you; turn around and believe the gospel.”  Too much of modern Western Christianity has been a debate between these two poles: a debate between those who see the gospel as affirmation and those who see the gospel as denunciation.  In either camp, we see only half the gospel.  The full gospel opens the heavens over us: “You are my beloved.  Now, turn around and believe the gospel.”  

There are some huge climate shifts going on around the world.  In the physical climate; but also in the church.  A change from a mindset in which “God is in the church; we bring God to people,” to “God is everywhere; let us discover God’s presence together.”  When two people come together, God’s transforming redemptive presence is made present.  The gospel is waiting to be discovered in creation, also; in the unity of all life.  In the encounter with God in the natural world, and with Christians of other cultures, we gain a place from which to critique our own culture; we gain eyes to see our own idolatry.  

Idolatry is putting something good, but that is not God, above God.  It is a source of spiritual, moral and physical deterioration of society.   It is a source of misery, hatred, and environmental destruction.  Idolatry was Jesus’ biggest issue.  Greed is secondary to idolatry.  When we put our “way of life” (meaning consumer “freedom,”) above God; when we think we can ignore or deny the sacredness of other waters, we are idolatrous.  We seek to control, and end up a slave.  Instead of having dominion over creation, we become wicked jailkeepers of creation.  

If we as a church do not recognize the bi-polarity of the gospel, we have nothing to say to our own culture.  Without the moral analysis, environmental degradation is framed as “the inevitable result of progress.”  With the moral analysis, we can see it as the result of not enough progress and too much greed.  The Bible unmistakably teaches that if all share, there is enough for all and more; if we don’t share, there is not enough for any of us.  Where Christian life begins and ends is transformation and connection: connection to all people and to all creation.  We are to be a site for living water to restore nations and restore creation.