And Jesus goes down into the water, the running stream, the gift of God to a thirsty world. Into the primal waters, from which he was born, the water of life. As he sinks, perhaps he wonders to himself, am I going to die? Is John going to hold me down too long? Water is life, but water can also mean death. And just as the fear begins to grip Jesus’ heart, he feels the pull up toward the first breath of his new existence. As air rushes into his lungs in an involuntary gasp, Jesus surfaces, still half immersed in the waters, and the heavens are torn apart and he beholds the Spirit, the Breath of God rushing into him. Then in the strength of that Spirit, that new life, he goes out and begins to form a new kind of community, one that lives in eternal life.
I’m no longer sure of the exact year, but I think it was 2004 when a young man first came to Glory Ridge. He had not been particularly active at Holy Trinity, and indeed came primarily because one of his friends, who was active here, had invited him. Anyway, that first year, he had a great experience, one that he described this way, “People reached out to me, even though I was a total stranger. By simply being, I had their trust. … God spoke to me through everyone that was at the Ridge. These people loved me, and through their love I came to love God.” Over the next year, we spoke together, and he decided that he wanted to be baptized, which had not yet happened, and that he wanted his baptism to be at Glory Ridge.
So the following year, I went to Glory Ridge knowing that this was part of the plan. Together with other adults, I scouted various locations, and eventually we found a place, near the camp, where the nearby creek enters into the French Broad River. The creek was about three feet deep at that point, and the current was fairly slow. The banks of the creek were level and flat for about a foot on either side of the water, but then they angled up steeply, almost forming a natural amphitheater. There were train tracks that crossed the creek near the top of the rise, about twenty feet above the water. All around was underbrush, but not so thick that people couldn’t climb around to see what was happening.
Mind you, this place was not easy to get to. It was beyond the normal boundaries of the camp, the boundaries that we give to our young people for their own safety. It was almost straight down the side of the mountain into the valley through which the French Broad flows, and the path, because very few people came there, was not particularly well-maintained, especially toward the bottom. The most dangerous part was the railroad tracks themselves, which you had to cross to get to the point where the creek finally flattened out and entered into the river. It was, in many ways, in the wilderness.
But, after some thought and careful planning, two days later we brought thirty or so young people and about fifteen or twenty adults down the side of the mountain, just as the sun was setting. And as the darkness deepened, on a day in which there had been a lot of work, and a lot of hard play, this young man was baptized. I admit, if you had been looking over the side of the gully, you might not have instantly thought, “Episcopalians.” But it really was an Episcopal service! We used the full rite of baptism, just as you find it beginning on page 299 of the Prayer Book right there in front of you in the book racks. But instead of blessing a pitcher full of water, we blessed a running stream, naming this water gift, primal water the Holy Spirit moved over in the beginning of creation, Red Sea water through which God led the children of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt into the land of promise, River Jordan water in which Jesus himself was baptized. On that night we declared that the water of this small creek was water through which God chose to act. And instead of being sprinkled with clear water from a tap, this young man went down into the river, all the way under, three times, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And when he came out, all wet, and anointed with the Holy Spirit, he walked out of the river and into the arms of the people around him, people who, as he said himself of the previous year, “reached out to me…loved me…even though I was a total stranger.”
It was my first, and to date my only, direct experience of baptizing someone by immersion in a river. I will never forget it. You see, in that experience, it was easier to see and feel the basic truths we proclaim as Christians, the ones that are the foundation of our life together, whether or not we think about them often. The truth that water and breath are fundamental to our existence, the truth that our life is incomplete without relationship, without love, and the truth that eternal life means not escape from the world but a deep immersion in the world, life in loving relationship with each other and with God.
We begin with the foundation of our existence, with the water on which we all depend. If we go back to the stories of creation, we see that the ancient Hebrews had a much clearer sense of their dependence on and connection with water than we do. Perhaps that awareness comes when you cannot simply turn on a tap and quench your thirst. “In the beginning” they wrote, when the cosmos was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep, the Spirit of God brooded over the face of … the waters. The waters were there even as God began to create, part of God’s very being. Water, something most of us in middle-class America take for granted, yet something that millions of people lack in the world. The substance without which we could not survive for more than a few days.
But water by itself is not enough, is not life. We need spirit as well. The wind, which in the ancient Hebrew was termed the ruach or the breath of God is what stirs the waters into life, beginning the ongoing process of creation, from the land, to the stardust. In baptism God’s spirit comes into us in a new way and we are “in-spired,” in-spirited. It is a moment that is most accurately, if not most pleasantly, lived out in the involuntary gasp of the person who rises out of the water. That moment of “aaaahhh,” that inhaling, that is the entrance of the Spirit, into the newborn baby whose first cry is only a half second away, into the one whose head reaches the surface of the water just in time, into the newly baptized young man from Nazareth in the Jordan.
In that combination, of water and breath, we find some of the deepest roots of life, for without those two things, without air and water, we cannot survive. Life springs from these roots, and begins to flourish. But that which makes our life more than physical existence, that which makes it into eternal life, is the relationships we enter into. The love we offer and the love we receive is at least as necessary to our full humanity as water and breath. That is why Jesus’ first act after returning from the desert after his baptism, was to call people to join him, to call a community into being.
And eternal life is life in that fully human community. Eternity is not some escape from others, some type of life defined primarily by the fact that it lasts a long, long, long, long , long time. Eternity is defined as life in God and life in relationship with each other. Eternity is a return to that which is primal, to water, to breath, to life in love. Eternal life is a state of being in which we are deeply in love with God and with each other.
So in a few hours [as soon as this service is over] this year’s group will leave from the back parking lot, after doing our best to load all of our personal things, our worship supplies, some donated work supplies including four 12 foot rolls of carpet and a water heater, into three 12-passenger vans, three trucks, and an SUV. We will go and work and, if I am sure of anything, it is that we will discover something unexpected at at least one of our work sites, something that will necessitate more supplies, and creativity and ingenuity on the part of the group. Things will happen that we will talk about later, and probably some that we’ll choose to keep to ourselves.
While we work, while we live together, we will explore in worship some of these themes of Water, Breath, Life, Love, Eternity, a little more deeply. We’ll gather in a circle before meals, taking care to shout the names of anyone who is late in a very loud voice, play games, write letters, sing songs, lots of songs, pray together, share together. And in that whole process a community will be formed, one which will, I hope, give life not only to the people who travel but also to the literally hundreds and thousands of people who make this experience possible, who are part of this experience. I mean the people who give money, whose generosity makes it possible for us to buy our supplies and provide our vehicles, but also the people who have traveled in the past, the people who will travel in the future, the people who trust us with their children this week, the people who take their personal vacation time to come with us, and all of us who keep this whole experience in prayer. That final connection is the most important. Of course, if you still wish to donate money, it will be accepted, and with glad and grateful hearts! But prayers are far more important, for without the presence of the Holy Spirit, we cannot succeed. With that presence, that Breath of God made tangible in the relationships between each one of us, that spring of living water welling up within us, we cannot fail.
When this year’s group [gathered here in the first eight or so rows of the church] processes out behind the choir at the end of [this / the 9:00 service] they are sent forth by the life and love of the parish, sustained by the whole community. Please keep the travelers in your prayers, and know that you are an integral part of Glory Ridge.
Amen.