“THE WATER FROM HIS SIDE”
Saint Matthew 8. 23-27
The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany: 29 January Anno Domini 2006
Fr Watson
The Water from His side slakes the dusty thirst in your lives.
"Baptism is not simple water only, but it is the water comprehended in God's command and connected with God's Word." [SC Pt. 4.1]
Most people have an in-born fear of the ocean. The vastness of the blue-green-grey liquid, the opaqueness, the salty limitlessness must make one think of that ocean of sin that just one little mis-shapen sinner produces.
The Lord knows what He is doing when it comes to water, seas, rivers, cricks, fountains, thunderheads and oceans. You dear saints, belong to His Company of the Blood and Water. "The Blood is the Life" writes Moses by the Spirit. The blood of goats, bulls and lambs slaughtered for centuries, foretold the Blood of The Lamb of God, Christ Jesus. The Savior's precious and holy Blood washes away your disobedience, defiance, stubbornness, neglect, ineptitude and sheer malevolent cussedness. But the Blood is never by itself. The Cross is not a distant past event. There is never any cross that does a "damn" bit of good without The Body of the God-Man spiked to its rough dark stained surface; bleeding, sweating, purging away your trespasses. That bright, wet, crimson crucifix comes to you in the crystal clear waters of Holy Baptism; regeneration in Righteousness.
The Lord made all. The Word was spoken, true, but the Word always was, forever begotten before eternity. "And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters." The waters separated by God; the firmament shaped into our beautiful green and blue ball of planet Earth. Man created from the dust of the ground by the Breath, the Word of the Lord; the moisture of His Holy Ghost, eternal Water from the inexhaustible well of Grace. Water by itself is simply two molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen, but with the Word of God it brings life. That Word is the Son. That Word of God spoken by the mouth of the same Moses split the deep of the Red Sea, purified the springs of Marah, and gushed forth from the Rock in the wilderness. The free flow of springs of liquid liberation prefigured the geysers of grace which would gush from His pierced flesh at Calvary.
You know this. This you believe. This Christ Crucified you confess. Yet, you remain distraught, fearful, angry, despondent, and yes, doubtful at times. "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?"
Rejoice Brothers and Sisters, for you are sacred siblings of this Jesus Who Lives again. You are not alone to face that shark Satan. You are not floating in the flotsam of "old Adam" filth and worldly waste. You are in the ship with Christ. The Nave of this vessel is made out of holy wood, the wood of the Cross which is now the living timber of the Tree of Life restored. Yes, you get covered with waves from time to time, indeed daily are you tempted, buffeted, preyed upon. Daily does you own sinful flesh yearn to jump ship, to mutiny, to loot and pirate away into darkness and dessert. But He's placed you in the ship. He's placed you into His own body, His own glistening side from whence pours Blood and Water.
Ships are made for sailing. You will get drenched. Your "old Adams" will daily be drowned in and with Christ but your "New Man" will likewise daily emerge clean, filled, quenched and refreshed. You are your Lord's first mate, His crew, His family.
The Word was united to the waves, to the water of Galilee that day. "Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm." The Word made that water no longer a simple Galilean lake of H2O, but a water of Life in Christ. The devil's funky breath and fetid water were blown and washed away by Christ the Word of God, by the Father, by the Holy Wind of the Spirit, by the Blood and Water of Jesus.
This you have in your Baptisms. This you have when you dine with Him, here in His brotherly boat. You perish not. You perish never, for you are held in the hands of the captain, aboard not the earthly Titanic of your own resources and works but the sacred vessel of His Body and Blood, on its way to heaven harbor and peace.
In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost