Living Water

Water. When I mentioned yesterday that bread was a basic of life, if I had compared it to water, bread would have come up short. Water is the essence of life.

Human bodies are made up of 61.8% water. A 2% loss of body water can cause symptoms of dehydration including fuzzy short term memory (so that's what's wrong with me!), headache, loss of appetite, and dry skin. Up to 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. (I don't give you a link to that factoid because it came in my email -- an email which also told me that Coke is used to clean out trucks. Who knows what is true in email, anyway).

Water is mentioned in the Bible 784 times, and that does not count the number of times thirst is mentioned. Another unsubstantiated email factoid -- the thirst instinct in Americans is so weakened that we mistake it for hunger. We don't even recognize thirst for what it is (and if that's not a topic for a blog post, I don't know what is).

A few choice water scripture references (I won't ask you to read all 784):

• Genesis 7:17-18 The flood continued forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the waters.
• Matthew 14:28-29 And Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water." He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus;
• John 4:13-14: (from the conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well)Jesus said to her, "Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
• John 7:37-38: On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, "If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, `Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.'"
• Hebrew 10:19-22: Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way which he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

As I look at these passages, the dual nature of water is what becomes apparent to me.

The song Flood, by Jars of Clay on the WOW #1 Hits CD has been played in my car many times today. If you go to that site, and choose Jars of Clay (CD2, track 1), you can hear part of the song.

Rain, rain on my face
It hasn’t stopped raining for days
My world is a flood
Slowly I become one with the mud

But if I can’t swim after forty days
And my mind is crushed by the thrashing waves
Lift me up so high that I cannot fall
Lift me up

Water can destroy -- as we see in the flood story in Genesis. Jesus saves Peter from the water when he starts to sink.

Conversely, Jesus talks about "living water." I did a little reading about it, and one explanation I found is that Jesus meant the Holy Spirit -- God within us. I can also relate it to a close, personal relationship or experience with God -- God around us. It reminds me of part of St. Patrick's Breastplate (which I blogged here).

I was thinking about this, trying to work through it after work today. I'm going to go through the boring timing of the evening, because it's important to the story (sort of). Anyway, I had an hour or so between work and a vacation Bible school meeting I needed to go to, so I stopped at Fazoli's for a salad and free internet access. While I was there, I worked on the first part of this post. Then I went to the meeting, thinking about living water, trying to figure out what I was going to write.

Annetta, the DCE for the church where we had the meeting, related this story about one of the confirmands in her class. During the children's moment one Sunday, their pastor gave each child a river rock, and explained that the rocks were made smooth by the flow of water. He told them that people are like that -- kind of rough around the edges, and then they are smoothed out by the flow of living water.

At confirmation class that evening, Annetta was talking to her youth about difficult situations in which they might themselves. One young girl (I'll call her Jill, to avoid pronoun confusion)related a story of a student at school (Katy) who wanted to each lunch with Jill's group. They didn't really like Katy, but she intimidated them, so they let Katy eat lunch with them. Jill got to talking to Katy, and realized that Katy's parents were going through a divorce. Jill told her confirmation class, "Katy is kind of like the rocks that Pastor Tim was talking about. She's rough around the edges, but if we are nice to her, maybe it will smooth her out.

Living water -- God moving through us, around us, to others from us, to smooth out our roughness.

Take a look at this piece of digital art (click here).