Washed in- an Invitation to Abundant Life-Water
Good Morning Friends,
Yesterday we sang in worship and then later attended an English Handbell concert of the Raleigh Ringers at the Moorings. They played The Coventry Carol, several great classical pieces arranged by our friend Bill Griffin, original works they had commissioned, Stars and Stripes, the Flight of the Bumblebee and even a rock and roll composition by the Eagle’s called Hotel California. It was a sea of handbell music taking us on a journey and carrying us away cleaned. They even had Shaker organ bells. Sam, a friend of mine, commented that it was well performed but more amazingly engineered with great detail. As it rained outside it brought to my mind (warning this is a dangerous place of non sequiturs) how amazingly God has engineered creation and the attention to detail in not just the birds that sing but how even molecules are formed and in one, in particular, that was engineered in such a way that we might be Washed in -an Invitation to Abundant Life-Water.
Scripture: 55Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Isaiah 55:1 (NRSV)
4Now when Jesus* learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’— 2 although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— 3he left Judea and started back to Galilee. 4But he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)*
10Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ 11The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ 13Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but 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.’ 15The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’
John 4: 1-15 (NRSV)
Message: No we did not hear Handel’s Water Music as it was performed on the River Themes back in 1717 on July 17 for King George. Still the connection between water, the word and music seems to linger. And yet there is an ominous note of coming catastrophe that I do hope God will use for good. Scientists now think that our world is heading for a disruptive event. Some scientists warn that by 2030, as the world population tops 8.3 billion, it will cause a “perfect storm” of food, energy and water shortages. Demand for food and energy will jump 50% and for fresh water by 30%, creating a crisis and mass migration of poor hungry people. This is not a pretty picture and undoubtedly prompts us to think about our future and that of our families and yes of the poor who will be affected by some type of crisis at some point in the future. It will bring a whole new meaning to the phrase “stay thirsty my friend.”
Indeed water is a miraculous substance and part of the reason that we have life on this planet. Its shortage could be serious. Thankfully water has some unique properties that sustains life. Because water sticks to itself and to other things it has the ability to move up plant stems hydrating the plant. The slow change of thermal energy in water tempers our climate and makes our planet livable. Life exists on this planet because of water and its unique molecular shape and properties. 70% of the planet is covered in water and most of you and me is water as well. It is miraculous as the music of life. So too in today’s scripture story of the Samaritan woman at the well we learn about the satisfying water of life…water for the dehydrated soul and face the tension of who will be in and who will be out of the solution. It is not just a drop of water on a towel cleaning the feet of a disciple, a cup of water shared with a woman at the well of Jacob or a shallow river you can touch bottom as you are baptized, but a mighty ocean with great waves breaking on the shoreline that extends beyond the horizon connected, connected and joined in the deep, deep waters. All you can do is to fall into its flow of eternity saying, “I believe.” So dive into this unfathomable parable and be swept into its cleansing waters and hopefully some insight into how God builds His church and the world. Listen to the music of its engineering.
Pray we come to the water. Pray we drink deep of the life giving relationship with Jesus. Pray we learn the priority is to water the garden of our being, to soak our souls in the presence of Jesus. Pray we let it spill over us in the joy and love in others as we drink deep of the promise of the living water. Pray that through prayer’s watering of the earth that wisdom would sprout…that the music would go on…
Blessings,
John Lawson
Water makes up most
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