Easter VII – B

May 24^th, AD 2009

Meadowvale Lutheran Church, Mississauga     

Pastor Peter Lisinski

“SACRAMENTAL JOURNEY”

“I’ll never forget the first time I walked along the beach by the Atlantic Ocean.  Mesmerized by the beauty of its crashing waves, I felt a sense of peace and calmness I had never experienced before, as if all my cares were being swept away by the cool water caressing my feet …” (from “Water, water Everywhere” by Lisa Ianucci, in “BP Canada”, Vol. 1, No. 4, Summer 2006, p.40)

Those are the introductory words of an article Rosarie read in a health magazine a few days ago, and encouraged me to read in anticipation of today’s sacrament of Holy Baptism.  Having grown up in St John’s, Newfoundland, she knows the profound power and presence of water.  And even landlubbers like me know it, too.  Whenever I sit by the water at Sauble or Wasaga Beach, I get that same sense of peace and calm.  In fact, the article’s author, Lisa Inaucci, suggests that most human beings share that deep emotional, even spiritual, kinship with water!  And she set out to discover why:  “What is it about water?”  she asked a variety of people, that captures our imaginations, feed our souls, soothes our troubled minds, or simply inspires us to sit and watch it for hours?

Paul Norris, professor of psychology at Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin, explains it in practical terms; “We are drawn to water, even if we are afraid of it, because it meets our basic needs.”  Mary Mihaly, a practitioner of Chinese healing techniques from Cleveland, Ohio, suggests a more symbolic meaning:  “Water signifies the womb and the tomb – we were born in it and we flow back home at the end of life.”

Though they come from opposite ends of the medical spectrum, both responses reflect the sacramental significance of baptism:  In water, the most basic and ordinary element in all of creation – on which all other elements in creation depend for life – God reveals himself as the source from which all of life springs, as the goal toward which all of life flows, and as the power who sustains all of life from day to day, and promises to bring all of life and creation to its originally designed and intended fulfillment!

Today the divine power and promise of God is given to Matthew Joseph Tonet in the sacrament of Holy Baptism.  Drawn to this life-giving water by the word of God heard by his parents and Godparents – the word first heard in the church; and the word proclaimed by the church in the world from generation to generation – Matthew now joins the holy communion of saints in all times and places, on our sacramental journey from the beginning of our personal life in the womb to the end of our personal life beyond the tomb, to the personal fulfillment of our eternal destiny as created, redeemed, and dearly beloved children of God!