Water of Life­ Plunging into the True Meaning of an Ancient Christian Sacrament

Many religions honor the sea as the place from which all life emerges. Yet, the sea is a dark and mysterious place. The Hebrew Scriptures speak of the Leviathan (sea monster) that plays in its deep places (Psalm 74). We are fascinated by the sea's power and make movies about perfect storms and unsinkable ships. We are compelled to dive into the ocean's depths. We watch movies and read books as a way of entering into the depths of our own psyches and that primordial churning sea from which we all came from.

And why? We do this so that those things that keep us from experiencing "real life" may be drowned and that we may emerge to new life­ gasping for air as we come to the surface and riding the wave of holy compassion onto the shore of ever-new beginnings. Every step of this internal process is very much a part of the plunging/washing/birthing ritual of Christian Baptism.

The sacrament of Baptism has a torrent of flowing water behind it­ water that receded from the earth and brought forth dry land in the ancient Hebrew account of creation, the flood of Noah that washed the earth for a new beginning, and the parting of the Red Sea so that an oppressed people might be liberated.

One of the earliest instructions for Baptism is found in the document called the Didache (circa 60AD/CE). It requires that candidates for the Christian sacrament be baptized in living water, not standing or stagnant, but water able to wash, hydrate and refresh. An ideal baptism is more akin to a wave that one can ride into the heart of God than a puddle in a finger bowl.

Why not still water? Because the sacrament is a call to enter the river of life with God: to take the plunge into the ever-moving stream of re-creative grace. Many churches today have baptisteries in which the water in the font is flowing freely­imaging the ever-moving life of God.

As a pastoral psychotherapist and collegiate chaplain among post-post-GenXers swimming in a sea of existential questions, I sometimes recoil at the presentation of this vital rite as a mere washing away of past transgressions or as a sign of the believer's zealous choice for God. Those are but consequences of the life-changing cataclysm of Divine Love. This Love cascades into the world without the will or invitation of humanity, drowning old, deadening paradigms and awakening the believer to the bracing spray of life-giving and life-changing love. It is this flow from God that is at the heart of the mystery of Christian faith. Now that is imagery able to quench the thirst of a generation that desires to drink in a new and renewing vision of this small oasis on which we live in the middle of the star-lit sea we call our universe!

There is little wonder why the Didache called for baptism to take place in running water. This "living water" baptism was originally a call to be carried along in the stream of new birth that flows from the womb of divine grace. So to be "born from above," to use the language of the Gospel of St. John, is not so much about choosing a set of propositions to say yes to, but in finding that God's Divine "Yes" overwhelms the baptized in the flood of gracious love, acceptance, reconciliation, affirmation, and new life.

In other words, the vital part of this living stream is not so much the believer's "yes" to God, but God's "yes" that births the newly baptized into a new relationship with God, self, and all of creation. For those of the Christian tradition, it is high time to realize the course-changing torrent of re-creative grace that is this sacrament and not to "water it down." It is time to permit this water to flow through us to refresh those who thirst for justice, to quench hearts parched for peace and to refresh with grace those who long for relief from the scorching heat of fear, guilt or shame.

In Baptism, we are named as God's own and commissioned to serve all of humanity. For those in other spiritual traditions, every encounter with water-splash, sprinkle, downpour or dive­ can be a call to return to the depths of the sea from which we first emerged, to recognize the mysterious grace of life that connects us with all other water-sustained creatures, to permit compassion to wash over our hearts and to drink freely of that deep river that connects the souls of all of humanity.