4 August 2006

Today is a bit more on this look at the power of death and the pull of new life in "The Cross in Our Context" by Douglas John Hall.

When Paul in Romans 6 writes of our baptism into Christ's death, he surely has in mind precisely this debilitating concealment (the power/sting of death) and the profound need in all of us to be able at last to bring to consciousness this confining, draining, subconscious awareness of our total vulnerability, our nothingness, that we expend so much psychic energy holding down. The God of Israel and of Jesus the Christ wants life for us, and we are kept from life on account of our preoccupation with death and all that death stands for by way of life negation. So, say Paul, we are thrust down beneath the waters of baptism - we are brought that close to death - so that we may at long last face it and see through it to the life that is God's gift for us.

I could move into a discussion about baptism. Maybe I will. It is the one about how much water needs to be used for baptism. Is it enough to be able to plunge someone into the depths...or must it be a stream of running water...or a pool in which one can stand and there have water pour over one's head...or is a font over which we hold a child or lean our head? In reality, no water is enough and yet any water will do. It is the story that brings life. It is the saving story of God's love that is so for us that it brings new life to us now. We are a community that faces the truth about itself - each member - and then in the face of that truth of brokenness and lies and how death controls us, we then turn from the power of death to live again. I often wonder if the wetness at baptism is a sign that we have just come from the power of death over us...or is it that we now walk within the wetness of a refreshing new Reign. Maybe it is both...in fact, it must be both. We must be able and willing to face off with the power of death that we let rule us and also face and walk into the power of life that God makes available in each moment.

Connection: I have never heard of a study that has been able to show the difference in how one lives and faces death and how it correlates to the amount of water in which one was baptized. I hope I never hear of such a study. We would try to make a rule as to the quantity of water and then we would argue over whether enough or too much was used...and death would always be the winner - dividing us again. Instead, let us simply try to daily remember that we are baptized and now we can be ready to face the day and all that it brings.

Living Water, as we pause to enter this day, hold us again within the story of your saving love so that we will start all things within that embrace that never ends and always is ready to shape us into something new. Amen.