Genesis 1:1-5 Psalm 29 Acts 19:1-7 Mark 1:4-11
You will know if you meet an open water ocean swimmer. You will know in seconds, especially if it is winter. You will know because they will tell you. We can’t help ourselves. We swim first thing, usually, and we carry that ocean experience with us all day; the waves, the temperature, the movement, the ocean life, the saltiness, it sticks to us, flows through us and it somehow continues to wash over us, in meetings, in the supermarket, in the street, so it’s not surprising that it also features in our conversations. A lot.
This week, I’ve been thinking about this morning’s readings while I was in there.
I was thinking about the dawn of creation where the Genesis God ‘swept over the
face of the waters’ and it was from that place that God said ‘”Let there be light”; and
there was light’. And it was good. At the beginning of all things, there was water.
And the amount of water on the planet hasn’t changed since God first swept over it. it hasn’t changed since that first burst of light – we have just moved it about, harnessed it, drank it, wasted it, swam in it, watched while it evaporated, and sheltered – or danced – while it poured.
The water we swim in is the same water the Spirit brooded over. The water in our taps is the same water that Paul and Apollos and John baptised in. The water of our own baptism is the same water that Christ was baptised in. The same water that the dove descended onto. The same water that God’s voice spoke over, and proclaimed “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
The same water that made up 70% of the body that God came to earth to inhabit, makes up 70% of each one of us too. And God loves every drop of it – every single atom of which we are made up.
The same combination of hydrogen and oxygen – colliding together to form H2O – is in and around us, as it was in and around the Creating God, and as it was in and around the human God. And as I have immersed myself in that water each morning, so I have marvelled so deeply; it’s no wonder we are drawn to the water’s edge. No wonder we thirst for it. God made it and it makes us. Incredible.
Several years ago, there began a trend for choosing your word for the year. I was a committed eye-roller at this fad. I was utterly resistant to choosing a word, even more disparaging about the notion that God might give me a word for the year and I perfected my displeasure in people sharing their word with me.
If you’ve read the newsletter this week you will see that two years ago, my word was ‘healing and wholeness’. Last year my word was ‘light’ and this year my word is adventure. But additionally, this year, I have begun to wonder, even daring to ask, what is God’s word for our church for the coming year?
(For those who are still at the eye rolling stage of this type of thing, get ready…)
I wonder, I might even be so bold as to say I believe, that our word here at St Paul’s, for 2024, is flow. Flow. I’m not fully sure what that means but I think it is entwined, saturated even, in the sentiments of this morning’s readings.
God brooded over the waters and proclaimed light in the darkness.
The same God brooded over the waters of baptism and proclaimed great pleasure.
From the moment of creation, through the incarnation, during the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, until here and now, and beyond, God has streamed through history, cleansing and healing and nourishing and inviting each and every person to get into that slipstream and go with the flow of God’s grace and favour. And water is the source of life. Life does not and cannot exist without it.
And I am believing that God, in 2024, is inviting us to swim deeply, with the flow of God’s love – for the good of our own healing and for the life of those in and around this place.
Usually, on this day in the church year, we do a symbolic act of renewing our baptism vows – often I spatter you with holy water and encourage you to ‘remember your baptism and be thankful’. But this word – flow – is a holy invitation and we need to choose whether we will accept it, individually and collectively, rather than just being recipients of a soaking, whether we want it or not.
So, I’m going to bless this water and when you come forward to receive your communion, you can do whatever you choose as a symbol of your yes to the invitation of God to be part of God’s flow of life and abundance this year. And, if you want to begin the year by receiving prayer – perhaps for a fresh outpouring of the living waters of God – people will be at the font during communion, offering to pray for you.
We give you thanks that at the beginning of creation your Holy Spirit moved upon the waters to bring forth light and life. With water you cleanse and replenish the earth; you nourish and sustain all living things.
We give you thanks for your Son Jesus Christ: for his baptism by John, for his anointing with the Holy Spirit.
And now we give you thanks that you call each of us to new birth in your Church through the waters of baptism.
Pour out your Holy Spirit in blessing and sanctify this water so that as we approach this water, we made be made one with Christ, and move ever more closely in the flow of the Spirit. Bless us, your church, that we may be a blessing for others. Amen.
Holy Adventures 