Beloved in the Lord,

Something strange caught my eye as I approached the water’s edge at Lincoln Park last month.  One hundred yards down the shore I saw what looked like a man walking parallel to the beach in chest deep water.  Was he in distress? Was he coming to the aid of someone or something else—man or beast—that I couldn’t see?  Was he some latter day Moses seeking a way to cross the sound?  Did he require rescue?  My mind raced through a dozen scenarios that might explain why someone would be wading in Puget Sound on a sub-40 degree January day. The polar bear plungers had done their thing on New Year’s Day—most of them dashing into the water and then out again in a matter of seconds.  But this guy (yes, I could see now he was a guy) seemed in no hurry whatsoever as he walked steadily further away from me in no apparent distress. Convinced that no action on my part was required (thank goodness!), my caution turned to curiosity and I simply watched him.

A few minutes later he turned and headed for shore, and then, when he hit land, began jogging on the path in my direction wearing only a t-shirt, shorts and running shoes—and, oh yes, he wore a smile on his face, too.  As he headed for the men’s bathroom, I turned to follow him—I had to find out what made this guy tick!

YOU DO THAT OFTEN? I asked him, trying to sound nonchalant as we stood in the restroom taking care of business. ABOUT ONCE A MONTH, he said; and before I could get out another question, he was out of the restroom and gone.

Since that encounter 10 days ago, I’ve been wondering what could explain how wading in water in the middle of winter brought this man such deep satisfaction.

As we begin the season of Lent this month, we hear God’s summons to Wade in the Water of baptism.  Each year, with ashes on our forehead, we respond to God’s call to return again to the basics of our spiritual lives:  to the covenant God made with us in baptism; to an acknowledgment of our earthbound existence; to the practices of prayer and fasting and acts of love and generosity which lead us back to the core of who we are and why we’re here.  The loss of four Peace elders in the first month of this year drives the truth home: dust you are, and to dust you shall return.  How, then, shall we live?  I didn’t talk long enough with the man who waded in the water of Puget Sound to find out if he was a Christian or not, but the scene of him wading there has become a new and powerful image of the baptized life—complete with smile.

Preaching to new converts preparing for baptism, 4th century Bishop Maximus tells them:

“In the baptism of the Savior the blessing which flowed down like a spiritual stream touched the outpouring of every flood and the course of every stream.  We must be baptized by the same stream as the Savior was. But in order to be dipped in the same water, we do not require the regions of the East nor the river in Jewish lands, for now Christ is everywhere and the Jordan is everywhere. The same consecration that blessed the rivers of the East sanctifies the waters of the West. Thus even if perchance a river should have some other name in this world, there is in it nonetheless the mystery of the Jordan.”

Waters threaten death and bring life. They protect us in our mothers’ wombs and then bear us out into the world. They are full of danger and full of promise.

We in the Northwest are fortunate to have plentiful water resources. When I look west on clear days and see the snow pack on the Olympics I breathe a sigh of relief.  The Earth Summit event I attended recently affirmed again that in years to come, as water resources become more and more precious, the bountiful waters of this region will draw people here as never before.  But the quantity of water isn’t the only issue. The quality of these waters, and how they support life that’s also at stake.  What St. Maximus knew in the 4th century we are coming to see now in a new way, that the waters of the Jordan—full of danger, full of promise—make all waters holy, all streams sacred, and protecting the water that fills our font and the fonts of every Christian community around the world is the vocation of every Christian congregation and community wherever they may be.

Like the man I saw in the waters of the Sound, we too are drawn, by the Spirit’s call, to wade in the waters and find our lives reinvigorated and renewed.  Our baptism isn’t something that just happened to happen to us at one time in our lives; it’s the core of who we are and whose we are now.  When Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit affirmed his identity as a beloved son of God and then sent him on his mission to the world.  That mission took him first through the wilderness, a 40 days sojourn that shaped his public ministry in profound ways.  Now, once again, it’s our turn. 

The water that touched us—and touches us still—is that same water, and every day, every moment it blesses our lives by calling us back to remind us who we are. Once we pass through these waters, our lives cannot remain the same, for to wade in baptismal water is to answer God’s invitation to go deep with Jesus Christ.  And when we wade in those baptismal waters, we never wade alone. Christ wades in the water with us, and gives us a name and a destiny and a community to surround us and to buoy us up when we get in above our heads.  Trusting this promise, we journey together once more.

Pastor Erik