God’s Use of Water

January 3, 2010

Twenty five years ago one of my seminary professors authored a Bible Study entitled “God’s Use of the Ordinary in the Means of Grace” (Francis Rossow, CPH, 1985). I recently came across that study and worked my way through it again, and that is the basis for the series of messages that I am starting today. Last Sunday I reminded you all just how AWESOME our God is. And that will always be true. What I want you to consider with me now is how this awesome God chooses to interact with people. He does so through very ordinary things. He makes Himself “touchable” and “knowable” in simple, common things that we encounter every day: words, water, bread, wine, and most importantly, Human flesh.

We have just celebrated again the incarnation, God assuming human flesh to live among us as one of us, enabling us to relate to Him and understand Him. Even though Jesus is no longer visibly among us as a man, He did not abandon us. He did not leave us to our own devices. He gave us ways to continue to experience Him in our lives. And He did so using everyday ordinary things. This should not be too surprising coming from the one who was willing to enter this world in the humblest of circumstances, lay aside His power as the Creator and Ruler of all things so that He could live with us, die in our place, and rise to secure our salvation.

So often we think of God as being present in the big things, in great and dramatic events. We call tornadoes and hurricanes and storms and earthquakes “acts of God” because of their awesome power. They remind us that God’s power is truly above that of man. But those are not the only places we see His presence in this world. One of the most popular hymns in the world reminds us of that:

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder Consider all the works Thy hand hath made,

I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder, Thy pow’r throughout the universe displayed;

When through the woods and forest glades I wander, I hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;

When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze;

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee,             How great Thou art!  How great Thou art!

And yet there is another way that we encounter our God. He comes to us in Word and Water, Bread and Wine. In our act of worship, we are confronted by our God coming to us through seemingly plain, simple, ordinary things. For some people, it sounds ridiculous, even offensive, to suggest that the One who is in control of the universe would use the mundane. What can be more simple than bread and water? And can anything be more unspiritual than wine? Words can be so monotonous. Can’t God do better than that? Can’t He be more dramatic, more powerful, more important?

That was the attitude of Naaman (2 Kings 5). He was a commander in the army of Aram who had leprosy. In his household was a slave girl who was an Israelite. She told her master that there was a prophet in Israel who could cure him. So Naaman went to see the prophet Elisha, but when he got there, the prophet would not see him. Instead, Elisha had his servant tell him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.” This upset Naaman, who was expecting something grand and glorious, not just simple water and washing. Naaman’s servants convinced him to give it a try, since they had traveled all that way and it was what the prophet told him to do. Naaman did it and was cleansed. God used something simple and ordinary to accomplish his purposes. It wasn’t the water. It was God acting through the water. God chooses to act the way He wants. Just as God used something as simple and ordinary as water with Naaman, so He does with us still.

A cartoon depicted two small boys in deep discussion. One said, “I’m pretty sure the stork brings babies.” The other was curious and asked why he thought that. He replied, “Well, I asked my folks where I came from, and if I told you what they said, you’d never believe it.” Did you ever feel that way? When you were old enough to learn the truth, were you surprised, maybe even startled? Would you have ever guessed that it was the outcome of a combination of love and pain and doctors and hospitals? And yet, once you knew the truth, wasn’t it even more incredible than any of the fictions you had heard or imagined?

If the way we get bodily life seems peculiar, you might expect that the way we get spiritual life to also seem somewhat peculiar. The way we are born again is unusual to our way of thinking.

When Nicodemus went to Jesus (John 3), he was told that people must be born again to enter the kingdom of God. Jesus further explained: no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. God chose to use water as a part of baptism. Without water, you don’t have baptism. But it is not just the water. The thing that puts the power into baptism is God’s Word.  The water, combined with God’s Word, produces extraordinary results: forgiveness, deliverance, eternal life, a washing away of sin.

Water is an essential element of this Sacrament. It has importance. God chose to use ordinary water in the spiritual washing because of the significance water has in our lives. We use it daily, sometimes without even begin aware of it. For example, I hears last week that it takes 5200 gallons of water to process one pound of hamburger. It is used by us and around us all day long. We drink it. We use it wash ourselves and our things. It cleans a window, renews a plant, quenches a thirst, soothes an aching body. Water signifies. Water connotes. Water communicates. Water teaches. Water makes the abstract concrete. Something so familiar, something we use repeatedly every day without even thinking about it, is the visual aid God uses to suggest what Baptism actually does for us:

And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away. (Acts 22:16)

for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. (Galatians 3:27)

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Romans 6:3–4)

For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.  (1 Corinthians 12:13)

who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, (1 Peter 3:20–21)

The water in Baptism signifies that in Baptism we actually drown our sinful nature, wash away sin, “put on” Christ, we are connected to Him in His death and His resurrection, drink spiritual life that joins us all together, and through Baptism God saves us. Through water and the Word you are given what Jesus earned for you on the cross. Pretty extraordinary results coming to you through God’s use of water!