"Waters of Life"

A Sermon by the Rev. Amelie M. Sell

Preached at Pleasantville UCC, September 25, 2011

   Today is baptism Sunday, a day we return to with joy each month.  On this day, we welcome new Christians into the church with a blessing from both our congregation and our God, a blessing literally poured out onto the heads of the young people baptized today through the waters of baptism.  We use the baptismal waters as the entry point into the community of faith for each member of this congregation.  Today, we unite with Christians from the past and Christians who will come after us by sharing together in the mighty sacrament of baptism.

   Water has always been a tangible and important part of our story of faith.  Over the past few weeks, in our Sunday worship services, we have revisited the Exodus story.  The ancient Hebrew people settled in Egypt because there was a drought in their land—they did not have enough water to sustain their crops and their lives in Israel.  They were always outsiders in Egypt and because of their outsider status, the Hebrew people became slaves.  After hundreds of years in bondage, God led God’s Hebrew followers out of slavery by crossing a significant body of water, the Red Sea.  The Hebrew people then began their 40 year trek across the wilderness, a trek that included many years spent in a desert where water was a precious commodity.

Water hydrates.  Water cleanses.  Water restores.  Water sustains. 

   The act of baptism is used symbolically as the starting point for a life of faith.  Whether we are five months old when we are baptized, or five years old, or fifty years old, the waters of baptism purify us and prepare us for our role as part of the body of Christ. 

The use of water in baptism not only connects us to other baptized Christians, but also is a link to the ancient Hebrew people.  Their story is a story of redemption through water.  The Hebrew people we hear about in our Exodus story today were kept alive by the healing waters God brought forth from a barren rock.  Wherever the former slaves traveled during their wilderness trek, they had to absolutely rely on God.  God took them out of slavery.  God provided food and water for them.  And God led them to the Promised Land.  The waters that poured out of the rock at Rephidim sustained them so they could continue their journey and continue to have faith in the God that led them out of Egypt.

   Just as God sustained the former Hebrew slaves with water from a rock, God sustains us with the waters of baptism.  In the United Church of Christ, we believe:

Baptism with water and the Holy Spirit is the mark of one’s acceptance into the care of Christ’s church, the sign and seal of one’s participation in God’s forgiveness, and the beginning of one’s new growth into full Christian faith and life.

Through the waters of baptism, we are reminded of God’s love and acceptance of us.  Through the waters of baptism, we are forgiven our past and future sins.  Through the waters of baptism, we begin our journey as seekers of God’s justice for both ourselves and for others.

   Today, we have a lot to celebrate.  We celebrate with the families of those baptized today the new Christians in our midst.  We remember our own baptisms and the connection we have with one another through the baptismal waters that have touched all of us.  We honor the lives of the people who have gone before us, including the lives of the Hebrew people out in the desert many thousand of years ago, and we celebrate that the Living Waters of God that restore us and sustain us so we can continue on our own journeys as faithful followers of God.  May it be so.  Amen.