Thought for the Week – The Water of Life

  In 2022, we had a long period of no rain, culminating in several days of unprecedented heat – 40 degrees, not just in London, but even in the cooler countryside. We had to learn, for a while, from those who live in countries which are, conventionally, hot. Rather than opening windows and doors to let in the fresh air, they had to be kept shut and curtained. Rather than lounging in the sun, we had to keep out of it. And water had to be conserved; I was recycling so-called ‘grey’ water from washing up etc to put on my poor, wilting garden in the evenings and early mornings. I made a promise to myself that I would never again complain about rain. This spring, that promise has been tested, but I have kept it and, whilst the high levels of concentrated rainfall have caused problems for farmers and others, the trees this year are wonderfully green and lush.

  Israel is a country of contrasts – fertile areas where fruit trees and vines grow well and arid desert parts where conditions are very different. Throughout the Bible, water is seen as live-giving, a blessing rather than a nuisance. So I could claim that my new resolution is consistent with the approach of Scripture. Certainly, since having adopted my revised attitude to rain, I have noticed and appreciated Biblical references to water more.

  Psalm 1 is a well-known and beautiful example:

  1.Blessed is the man   who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,   nor stands in the way of sinners,   nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

² but his delight is in the law of the Lord,  and on his law he meditates day and night.

³ He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

⁴ The wicked are not so, but are like chaff which the wind drives away.

⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

⁶ for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

  In Old Testament terms, this is a hymn to the way of life set out for Israel in the Law. As Christians, we read Scripture and think about God’s revelation, not only in terms of the Old Testament Law but in the light of the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we can, perhaps, see Jesus in the first three verses of the Psalm; Jesus, who refused to lend His support to the worthless values of a social and religious elite which was not refreshed by the watering of God’s spirit – “old wineskins”, a withered and fruitless fig tree. This is how Jesus pronounced judgement on their hollowness.

Through the power of his death and resurrection, he rendered their actions as weightless as the chaff – useless, dry husks of wheat after the corn has been threshed out of it. Instead, he offers us himself – life through the water of baptism, spiritual nourishment through the rich bread and wine of his body and blood in the Holy Eucharist.

He walked the “way of wickedness”, bearing the heavy Cross, so that we might be like “trees planted by streams of water” – strong and green and healthy.