God does dramatic things with us and water – Exod 14-15, Isa 55, Rom 6:3-11

Easter Vigil; Holy Infant parish.

God does really dramatic things with water. We might think that the most dramatic thing we heard about tonight that God did with water is the Exodus. And that’s pretty dramatic (especially when Cecil B. DeMille filmed it). God called his people out of slavery, but as they were walking out of Egypt, they were trapped. The roaring waters of the Red Sea in front of them; Pharaoh’s chariots and horses behind. God was with them – his firey presence that lit up the night (as our Easter fire does still) and his cloud presence that sheltered them during the day. God was with them, but was that much cause for rejoicing when they felt trapped? When they were trapped? Yes, for God does not let His people stay trapped. God does not let His people stay enslaved. God acts and God leads.

So, God acts dramatically, parting those scary waters so as they Israelites can walk across without even getting their feet wet. Sometimes, God makes it easy on us, and it’s worth remembering those times, those times when you thought something was impossible, or going to be really hard, and it just wasn’t. Because that’s not all the time. That’s not the only way, or maybe even the main way, God has of dealing with us. But it’s there. And the more we remember how God has taken care of us in the past, the easier it is to trust for the future.

But back to that water: it was parted, they walked through, they began to taste freedom, but the chariots and horses were pursuing. What had all this even been worth? But, then the water came back. The threat was extinguished. Horse and chariot are cast into the sea! And Moses sang and Miriam sang and all God’s people sang, rejoicing, for they were free. And now it was just for them to walk, to walk into the Promised Land. And that’s where we get away from the idea that God always makes it easy, because that took them forty years, and most of those who had crossed the Red Sea died on the way. And as they walked, at times they grumbled, and wished they were slaves again. “We had food in Egypt. Why don’t we go back?” God can’t shock-and-awe His way to make his people truly free. He can part waters, cast horse and chariot into the sea, but forming a people that can truly be free, not a freedom of indifference where they can do whatever they like (including pine for slavery), but a freedom for virtue in which they can truly whole-heartedly freely always choose to love and worship… that’s not the result of shock-and-awe, that’s slow. To truly set us free as humans is slow, and it takes us walking.

And we dare to keep walking because there’s a longing in us, that we don’t quite know what we’re meant to do with. In one of the readings we heard from Isaiah, the prophet called out to the thirsty: Come, come to the water. This is a message to exiles, exiles who had lost the land they’d walked to in the Exodus, when Babylonians came, conquered them and brought them away to Babylon. Surrounded by and shut out of lush Babylonian gardens, God’s people thirsted. And as news started to come that the Babylonians were about to be beaten by the Persians, who would let the Israelites return home, God’s prophet stands up and says, “Come, you thirsty, come to the water.” You don’t need money, there’s no price, but come. And then he goes on, “seek the Lord while He may be found.” Because our deepest thirst is for that relationship with God. The prophet goes back and forth, talking about God, talking about water, until you realize he’s talking about both. We’re thirsty. God’s here. God gives us to drink. And he talks about what water does: causing an abundant harvest, causing beautiful flowers to grow. Drink deeply of that divine well, and bring forth fruit, flourish with worship and love.

Cecil B. DeMille didn’t shoot that one, but I think that’s just as dramatic as the Exodus. God takes water away to set his people free, God casts all the horses and chariots that seek to bind them into it, and God provides gentle, flowing water to quench thirst, to strengthen tired legs, to cleanse, and to enter into us, that we might bloom. And that’s all present tense because God still does that. Here, tonight, in this font, N., E., C. and L., God will use water to cast away all that binds you, and to quench your thirst, to cleanse you, to claim you as His own, to get inside you, and strengthen you that you might bear fruit, fruit that will last. That you might truly be free.

And Paul tells us that you’ll do that by dying. Not medically, but sacramentally. In what we heard from Romans, Paul tells us that baptism is baptism into Christ’s death. Baptism is death to sin. And that sounds maybe a little less cheery than we were hoping for. It would seem great if we could sing not just horse and chariot, but sin and death have been cast into the sea! But, no, in baptism we consent to let ourselves be cast into the sea. In 1 Corinthians, at one point Paul kind of taunts sin and death: “Hey Death, where’s your victory? Hey death, where’s your sting?” That’s not a victory song like Moses and Miriam sang. That’s trash talk. And the final whistle hasn’t been blown yet, but we already know the final score. We already know there is no victory for death. We already know there is no victory for sin. Death will not rule, Paul tells the Roman Christians. But, it’s still around. I learnt earlier this week that a former student of mine died in a car accident last weekend. Death’s still hanging around. Just look at our world, look at each of our own hearts: Sin’s still hanging around.

But, they shall not rule us, Paul assures the baptized of Rome. We’re not enslaved anymore. But, sometimes, like those Israelites walking towards the Promised Land, we long for that. We feel thirsty, and we drink from all the wrong streams, because they make us feel good short time. Most sin is looking for love in all the wrong places, or maybe, looking for cheaper substitutes for love, substitutes that don’t really require us to be willing to die. We get hungry, and we wish were slaves with food available again. And we re-enslave ourselves. And God always stands ready take us back, to put us back on that path we walk together, and say with His prophet, “Come. No money, no price, but, come, to the water.”

Because our death to sin is not just something negative. It’s Christ’s death and that means it’s resurrection. It’s the message that love is stronger than death. And it’s not just the message that Christ’s love is stronger than the death humans put him to, as awesome as that would be. No, it’s not just that Christ won’t abandon us ever even if he dies, it’s that he won’t abandon us ever even if we die. He invites us to join ourselves to him, to consent to die to sin (as he died from our sin), so that together we might rise. And it’s in baptism that we say that we want to love like Christ loves, which means we’re prepared to love like the Cross, and means we want to live lives of love forever in heaven.

And he says, Come on board! Come to the water. But be warned – it’s a pretty bumpy ride. Because setting us free as humans means walking a long way with us as we learn to love like Christ. And he gives us so many helps along the way. To start with, the fact that we do it together as Church. The fact that we have God’s word to guide us. The fact that we have the sacraments to nourish and comfort and challenge us along the way.

And tonight we celebrate especially that we have the sacrament of confirmation. For along with our newly baptized, also R. and C. will receive this sacrament. Now, a lot of people have confirmation backwards. They think it’s all about the candidate confirming their own faith, or that it’s some kind of graduation from religious education, or all about coming of age. And that’s backwards. It’s wonderful if the candidate does confirm their faith, but what it’s all about is God confirming, God strengthening (the ‘firm’ part of confirmation means strong) God’s gift of the Spirit, already given in baptism. Now, normally when an infant is baptized, we wait until that child is older before they receive confirmation. Different diocese do this at different ages (8 in on diocese I worked in, after just one year or religious ed, and about double that here). That’s because there is a real benefit in receiving God’s gifts gradually, in a way that’s accustomed to how slow we are to change as humans. But, in case of danger of death, even babies can be confirmed, as if they have to face something like terminal illness at that young age, they need all the strengthening they can get. Newly baptized adults (or teens or even older children) experience such a rapid radical change in their lives, that they really need that strengthening right away.

So, let us recall the grace of our own baptisms, the journey from death to life, living and loving fully and freely, as we see the most dramatic thing God does with water, as we see these elect catechumens rise.