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Where there is no water, there is no
life. That is what it comes down to. The earliest of the
Greek philosophers and men of science was Thales of Miletus.
He lived about 650 years before Christ. It was his belief
that water was the original substance of the universe, that
out of which everything had been made. By modern scientific
standards, much of the cosmology of that ancient time may
not hold up very well, but this emphasis on the vital role
of water has not gone away. Modern scientific research also
suggests that life began in the sea.
But the idea is older than Thales of
Miletus. A careful reading of the Genesis story of Creation
suggests that water was the primeval source of the rest of
creation, almost as though it was there in the beginning.
That is, there is no specific report of the creation of
water itself. There is mention of heaven and earth and of
the making of a vault between the waters above and the
waters beneath, and the calling forth of dry land, but no
specific reference to the making of water.
And wherever we turn in Scripture, water
continues to hold a central place in its story. One of the
wonders of the Garden of Eden for the people to whom the
Creation story was given was that it was watered by not one,
but by three great rivers. Later in Genesis, when we read of
the travels of Abraham, we are told that he marked his
journey by the wells of water that he dug. When the Children
of Israel were being led out of Egypt, part of the appeal of
the Land of Promise was that it was a land of flowing
springs and rivers. Water was even an acceptable offering to
God. When King David was in exile and expressed a longing
for water from the well of his boyhood, some of his valiant
men overheard him and risked their lives to bring him some.
And David considered it so valuable and so precious that he
offered it to God. And the image of the hereafter in Book of
Revelation closes with a scene in which the River of Life
flows through the midst of the city. Throughout history,
water holes and springs and rivers have marked the path of
civilization and the course of human life. Where there is no
water, there is no life.
Nor do we ever really get away from those
origins. Water accounts for almost three-fourths of our body
weight. Specifically, 90 percent of our blood, 80 percent of
our brain, 75 percent of our flesh and 25 percent of our
bones is water. I know that is difficult to believe,
especially this time of year. It wasn’t too much water in
the last month that put an extra notch in our belts, was it?
But that is what they tell us, nevertheless.
Furthermore, in spite of the fact that
our bodies are nearly 75 percent water, we can go longer
without food than we can without water. In spite of the
yearnings for chocolate or ice cream, dehydration will do us
in much sooner than hunger.
Surrounded by the Great Lakes and living
in a part of the world that is used to getting water by
opening a tap, we can easily take water for granted. Not all
of the world is like this. The story is told of a meeting in
the 1930s in which some of the international delegates were
for the first time in a hotel with running water. Some of
them tried to take the water faucets home with them because
they thought they were somehow the source of the water.
Although you might ask the people of Japan or Arizona who
want to buy the Great Lakes, or more recently, the people of
Atlanta, about the value of water today.
In view of all of this, there should be
little wonder that so many religions have turned to the
symbolism of water for part of their ceremonies. In the
Jewish faith, ceremonial washing was the sign of cleansing
and purification. Hindus believe that there is spiritual
power even in the horribly polluted waters of the Ganges.
Buddhists have a sacred journey around a mountain in Tibet,
which is the headwaters of the Ganges. And while there is a
difference in opinion among the denominations about the
method, baptism with water is the universal sign of
admission into the body of Christ.
The Bible makes much of this life-giving
quality of water. Water was no more essential in that land
than in ours, but it was much less available, so its
importance was more readily recognized. And the invitations
of Jesus that we read this morning are rooted in that long
history of water.
In Jesus’ words on the Feast Day and to
the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus is repeating an
ancient and repeated invitation from the words of the
prophet Isaiah (“If anyone thirst, let him come unto me and
drink...”). The gift of Water from the rock had preserved
the Children of Israel in their wanderings. It echoed the
Prophet Ezekiel’s image of the river flowing from the Throne
of God, renewing the wilderness, giving life to all that it
touched. When we see a city with a river flowing through the
middle of it, we are likely to ask about a bridge across it.
But the author of the Book of Revelation has the Angel of
Last Things pointing to a river in its midst as a mark of
greatness of the Heavenly City to come.
But what has this to do with us? If we
want water, we go home and turn a tap. We can even choose
between hot or cold. We can mix them to something in
between, just the temperature that we want. If we decide to
take a twenty minute shower, it is no big deal. What is the
point?
The point is that Jesus was using water
as an analogy of the gift of meaning and purpose for the
life that he offers through the spirit. What water is to
the human body, meaning and purpose are to the human spirit.
And like water, where that is missing, there is no life.
Dennis Waitley, in his book, The
Double Win, gives a beautiful example of the power of
purpose. He says:
I was watching the Today show one
morning and my attention was captured by an interview
between Jane Pauley and a ‘Mr. Smith’ who was celebrating
his 102nd birthday. Mr. Smith had brought his potted plants
and was proudly referring to them as his upstarts during the
brief conversation.
Jane Pauley was becoming a bit
frustrated. Time was running out and all Mr. Smith was doing
was making a fuss over his chrysanthemums and night-
blooming cirrus. Jane tried to bring him back to the main
point.
“But Mr. Smith,” she said, “we all would
really like to know to what you attribute your long life.”
Mr. Smith, not the least bit senile,
still went ahead showing off and talking about his flowers.
He touched them, watered them, and concentrated on them
while the audience watched and listened patiently at one
hundred thousand dollars per minute.
“This little lovely won’t bloom for
another two years,” he chuckled, as Jane made one last
attempt, before the cutaway to a commercial, to discover the
elixir for longevity.
“What’s your secret for living so long
and staying alive?” she asked. The old man replied with a
question of his own: “Who would take care of these beautiful
flowers?”
Jane sighed, turned a little pink, and
Today took a time-out to sell something.
(New York: Berkley Books, 1985)
We see this thirst for meaning all around
us. Just watch the evening news. They even interrupt the
regular broadcasts to tell us the latest episode in it:
suicides among those who would seem to have the most to live
for; the use of drugs and alcohol to take away the
emptiness, only to end up with the hollowness accentuated
all the more; the beauty and joy of sex turned into nerve
end gratification; the frantic running after more and more
for the sake of power or of simply “getting,” when
everything would never be enough to fill the hole in our
soul. In one of the Humphrey Bogart movies, Key Largo,
there is a scene in which Bogart says to a man by the name
of Rocky, played by Edward G. Robinson, “Rocky, what you
really want out of life is more.” Rocky’s face lights up and
he says, “Yeh, dat’s what I want—more!”
Don’t misunderstand me. I am not knocking
high achievement. But “more” cannot satisfy the human spirit
anymore than sand can satisfy our thirst. Dostoevsky once
said that the mystery of human existence lies not in staying
alive, but in finding something to live for. Where there is
no purpose, there is no life.
It is a bold claim, the eternal
satisfying of the soul, but that is Christ’s promise. I do
not mean to suggest that all the Christian life demands of
us is that we snip the dead blossoms off of chrysanthemums
for a hundred years. It is not as if giving our lives to
Christ results in some easy contentment that is less
demanding or less inspiring. Indeed, a life in Christ may be
more demanding upon us and it may lead us where we would
never have dreamed of going and call us to deeds that we
would never have otherwise attempted.
The water that Christ offers is an
eternal spring; one that continues to flow, not some
seasonal seep that never has enough to slake our thirst and
keeps us running to other springs to try to get a little
more.
Jim Thomson of Otis Orchards, Washington,
relates a fictional story by Harold Bredesen about some
scientists who decided to develop a fish that could live
outside of water. The selected some healthy red herring and
they bred and crossbred, hormoned and chromosomed until they
produced a fish that could exist out of water.
But the project director wasn’t
satisfied. He suspected that though the fish had learned to
live on dry land, it still had a secret desire for water.
“Re-educate it,” he said. “Change its
very desires.” So again they went to work, this time
retraining even the strongest reflexes. They finally ended
up with a fish that would rather die than get wet. Even
humidity filled this new fish with dread.
The director was quite proud of his
triumph and took his fish on tour. Well, quite accidentally,
according to the story, it happened: the fish fell into a
lake. It sank to the bottom, eyes and gills clamped shut,
afraid to move lest it become wetter. And of course it dared
not breathe. Every instinct said no, yet breathe it must. So
the fish drew a tentative gill-full. Its eyes bulged. It
breathed again and flicked a fin. It breathed a third time
and wriggled with delight. Then it darted away. The fish had
discovered water. As I said, a fictional story, but a
parable nevertheless.
In a world bent on conditioning us to
reject and ignore God, some discover that it was for God
that we were created, that in God we live and move and have
our being.
This is Christ’s gracious invitation:
“You that are thirsty, come, and I will give you the water
of life; and whoever drinks of the water that I give will
never thirst again.”
This morning, as we share the Sacrament
of Holy Communion, pass the bread and juice, as you return
to your seats, there will be someone holding a bowl of
water. If you choose, you can dip your fingers into the
water and remember your baptism and as a reminder that as
our bodies need the water that we touch, so our souls need
the Living Water that Christ offers freely to all who would
accept it.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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