Water: a sacramental element

We all need to breath oxygen, our atmosphere is such that we can do this safely provided other pollutants have not overtaken the air; however, for the longest time air was a mystery, it is invisible. Where as water is this common symbol of life, cleanliness, refreshment and enlivens the Spirit within us.

Australia has a special relationship with water. I grew up in the millennium drought, I watched the dam levels drop, water restrictions were the pure normal. I was used to a brown paddock, feeding our few cows plenty. Green grass was reserved for parks and the spring storms but life was dry; water was not plentiful it was precious. With this I grew up on a "hobby farm" and I had no true understanding of how disastrous these conditions were when your life depended on the land: farmers culling livestock, harvests failing, farms collapsing and worse. The drought lasted pretty much my entire life until I had nearly finished high school, I was born in 1994, the drought was preluded from 1996 until it broke in 2010.

The basic definition of a sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward spiritual grace. In this life as Christians we experience this all the time at church but I recognise that Creation experiences this too and it can bring joy to the whole of creation. Recently it has been very dry where I live, we had a lucky storm a couple of weeks ago there was patchy grass and a few more birds. After good solid rain for a few days this week my yard is overgrown and I could take it as a burden of mowing but the birds have been so much more active. To see the parrots come back out as there is food and water in the general area is just lovely. Water gifts a new life.

I am talking a lot about water but the readings today particularly, Exodus 17.1-7 and John 4.5-42 so the grand importance of water. The reading from Exodus upholds water as a basic need of life as it springs forth from the rock. John, with the Samaritan woman shows Jesus indicating the greater need then just water in this life; eternal water. Water in many ways is a blessing.

Water can be bad too; a reader and friend has had many recent poor experiences with water which hopefully have been resolved. I live in a land of droughts and flooding rains where people's lives are destroyed and some lose their life.

For a long time Baptism was practiced with great care, fearing that baptising someone too early may mean they sin after baptism or reject their faith; at the same time, in a globalised yet fractured church a practice of re-baptism is adding greater division, for some this is rejecting a person's prior baptism as invalid or maybe limiting the grace gifted in that first baptism. Like with any sacraments great care is given in its free provision —preparing not just the elements but the receiver— for we know the greatest grace is beyond any material element we can hold onto in this world but rather the death and resurrection of Jesus; that is a flood of goodness that only he can prepare us for.

The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming... When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’
John 4.25-26