Some people pray for rain to saturate drought-stricken land. Some pray for the rains to cease: watching crops (life) die as they are drowned. I certainly try to drink “the right” amount of water to keep my body hydrated each day. Yet, with the incessant availability of sugar-packed and “calorie-free” beverages that are just more… exciting… than plain water, I probably don’t actually drink enough pure water for what my body needs.
In our Baptism, simple water is used by which “the triune God delivers us from the forces of evil, puts our sinful self to death, gives us new birth, adopts us as children, and makes us members of the body of Christ, the church.” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship, p. 225) Indeed, it matters not the quantity of physical water because Jesus promises to us in John 4:14: that “those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
Praise to the One who calls and names us up from the waters into life!
Soli Deo Gloria,Joshua LindgrenDirector of Worship and Music