Pastor Eric J. Trozzo
I write this at the end of June. We are in the midst of a heat wave. The temperatures are high and the land is parched. I was scheduled to go kayaking tomorrow, but the river levels are too low. The trip is postponed until the end of July, when hopefully there will be more water in the river. Meanwhile my garden needs water too as does the area where I planted grass seed just before I heard the forecast for the heat wave. There’s been no rain in a while so everything is in need of water. Of course, while this is earlier than usual we have had a period without rain every summer since I have been here that has endangered the plants and generally made life more difficult. It seems that part of each summer is a dry period, where the heat and lack of rain leaves the land crying out for water.
Spiritually these dry periods can hit us as well. There are times when God seems distant or an afterthought, leaving us desperate because we are withering. It seems like the rain will never come, and our faith will wither away. In such times we can remember that the promise of our baptism is not fickle like rain but rather reliable like a deep well or abundant spring. We need not look up at the skies to see when God will tumble down upon us, giving us the life-giving grace for which we long so urgently. No, just as in Jesus God has already come to earth to dwell with us, so the waters of God’s love come up from the depths of the earth, where the supply is abundant. The font is filled from the living water that will not dry up. At times it may feel distant, but God is already with us, so close that we overlook God’s presence. In grace, God comes to us in the water of baptism and creates in us an everlasting spring from which God’s love may pour out (John 4:14), even in the driest seasons.