Living Water

A couple weeks ago I baptized my nephew at his home church in Chicago.  Per his parents' request, we used freshly imported water from Lake Michigan.  Let's just say that we certainly followed the ancient advice to use "living" water.   

His parents were eager to do this because their families -- on both sides -- have deep connections to the "Big Lake" as home. In the service, I pointed to the appropriateness of the link the water made between family initiation and initiation into the larger family of God. 

But more than that, I suggested that using water from this natural resource -- so dominant and precious to us in the midwest -- highlights the deep connection between the grace of God offered in baptism and the responsibility we gratefully take on as Christ's disciples to care for the world in which that grace is manifest.  It says something damning to us if the water in our backyard streams, or rivers, or lakes is so polluted that we cannot in good common sense bathe in it, or in good conscience call it "living" water.  Perhaps my nephew Samuel will grow up, in service to Jesus, to be a biologist who concerns himself with the health of Lakes Michigan, Superior, Huron, Ontario, and Erie. 

I was thinking about all of this yesterday as I visited a local Children's Sculpture Garden and watched my own children play in a large reproduction of the Great Lakes.

As I splashed my head with the cool, clear water (it was a hot day), I thought to myself: "What a great place to have a baptism service!"  There is easily room around the perimeter of the scultpure for an average-sized congregation  -- maybe 100 people.  (In the real world we call this the "fourth coast," and it is home to about 30 million, or 1/10 the US population). 

A pastor could dunk the one to be baptized down in that corner by Lake Erie, where there are three bubbling fountains.  Then invite each member of the congregation to put his or her hand in the water, get wet, and remember, in a genuinely aquatic, tactile way, the promises God makes to us, and the responsibilities of our promises in response.