PRAYER AND WATER ^_[1]

GRACIOUS IS the Lord, and righteous; our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me. Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. [Psa 116:5-7]

DUST OF ADAM

1. Human beings, capable of self-reflection, know the power of their minds through experience. They may not understand how the human mind works or the extent of its potency, but they are well aware that their capabilities of reason, acting and producing intended effects are vastly superior to other creatures whose minds are dependent on hereditary and largely unalterable responses to changes and excitement in their environments.

Moreover, human beings, unlike other creatures, understand themselves as persons in whom the unity of body and mind (intellect and will) is expressed as personhood. Nevertheless they are acutely aware that human personhood is also a mystery, from which emerges a dialectic of conflict.

St. Paul, writing to the Church at Rome, interpreted his personal inadequacies not merely as a consequence of creatureliness but in terms of a fallen human nature: "I do not understand my own actions," lamented St. Paul, "for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate" [Rom 7:15]: 

FOR I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. [Rom 7:18-21] 

The dialectic acknowledges that the human will exists in tension between creatureliness and intellect. The tension is dynamic, in that human beings--by means of religion, philosophy and science--desire that the myserious and age-old conflict between flesh and spirit be resolved. The Church, through her Sacred Scriptures, identifies Adam as the archetype of incongruity and strife.

Adam, the created son of God [cf. Lk 3:38], was made from clay. His consciousness awakened when God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. [cf. Gen 2:7] He and his helpmate Eve rebelled against God by sinning against the natural order of the garden in which they lived. Incapable of restoring themselves to their former state, Adam and Eve cannot continue to exist in rational relation to the environment of Eden. Broken, they depart Eden and enter the broken world "groaning in travail" [Rom 8:1] as a consequence of their rebellion.

The problem of incongruity and strife finds its resolution in the person of the messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, who possesses the fullness of humanity and divinity. Jesus Christ, begotten by the heavenly Father in saecula saeculorum (Lat. in ages before time) and born of the Virgin Mary in time, was anointed by the Holy Spirit of God. His ministry was authenticated when John the Baptizer poured water from the Jordan River over his head.

Through the incarnate Christ, human beings are empowered to overcome their fallen nature and the broken world in which they live. Motivated by merciful love of all human beings and obedient to his heavenly father, Jesus of Nazareth:

...EMPTIED HIMSELF, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. [Phi 2:7-8]

The fact of human mortality demands understanding, the promise of human immortality commands faith. How then may a person understand and participate in the mystery of these things? "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." [Jn 3:16] The "Spirit of Truth" witnesses to the regenerative power of God's merciful love and empowers faithful followers to remember the words and signs of the Lord.

The anointed one, by his resurrection from the dead, forever resolves the dialectic of flesh and spirit by having restored to humankind both the principle of order and that of freedom. Humankind has been emancipated from slavery to sin and death. Creation has been liberated from decay. [cf. Rom 8:21] Hence, God has bestowed on Jesus Christ the most exalted name of Lord and commands, as an appropriate act of loving gratitude and glorification, submission to him. [Phil 2:9-11] "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." [Jn 4:24] 

At his ministry matured and gained notoriety, Jesus was approached by the pharisee Nicodemas by night for the purpose of dialogue. The pharisee's desire to speak to Jesus evidenced that he was well aware of his own vulnerability to intellectual and spiritual self-deception. Intuiting that the remedy to man's inherent weakness was not to be found in the Mosaic Law, Nicodemas queries Jesus whom he identifies as "a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him". [Jn 3:2] 

Jesus, through whom "all things were made" [Jn 1:3], responds positively to the pharisee's search for understanding. Indeed, Nicodemas is privileged to experience first-hand the "mind of Christ".  [1Cor 2:26]  Alluding to the dust of Adam, Jesus instructs this teacher of Israel [cf. Jn 3:10] that human beings are helpless to resolve the dynamic conflict between spirit and flesh without the aid of the Holy Spirit:  "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." [Jn 3:5-6]

3. Left unresolved, the dramatic conflict between flesh and spirit is the defining mark of man's estrangement from God. The sum of his human activities is insignificant under the cold inevitability of death. Unaided, man wanders from one irresponsible act to another, incapable of transcending them. St. Paul was moved to exclaim, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?"  [Rom 7:24] Though bound to earth, the human person instinctively cries to heaven for deliverance: "The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the Lord: O Lord, I beseech thee, save my life!" [Psa 116:3-4]

WHOM, NOT WHAT

4. The evangelist Luke recalls that multitudes traveled to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. Unsettled and restive, they seek advice from the baptizer, saying, "Teacher, what shall we do?" [Lk 3:12] The baptizer, unswerving in his own prophetic mission, emphatically denies that he is the Christ. The sign of the true Messiah's authenticity? "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire!" [Lk 3:16]

John underscores his subordination to the messiah by stating flatly, "I am not the Christ." [Jn 1:20] Furthermore, he refuses to appropriate the identity of any of Israel's prophets saying only, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness". [Jn 1:23] He declares his unworthiness to assume the role of Israel's messiah (Heb. deliverer).

A human being baptizes with water. The messiah baptizes with the Holy Spirit, because the same Spirit who descended from heaven in bodily form anointed him at the Jordan River. Though John prepared the way of the Lord, God alone would name the true Messiah and reveal him in a favorable time. The revelation of the "anointed one" would not be a matter "of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" [Jn 1:13]: 

AS THE people were in expectation, and all men questioned in their hearts concerning John, whether perhaps he were the Christ, John answered them all, "I baptize you with water; but he who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  [Lk 3:15-16] 

 5. Faithful to his mission, John confines his remarks largely to the prophecy of messianic works. Of the one to come, mightier than the baptizer, more powerful testimony is needed however. Such credible testimony regarding the Son can only come from God the eternal father whose prophets who spoke the truth and countered Israel's impulse to waywardness. The anointing of the Christ would be confirmed by signs and wonders, yes, but only those originating in God.

Among the multitude gathered at the Jordan, only Jesus of Nazareth is worthy of the heavenly father's highest praise. The voice from heaven conveys a three-fold message. Jesus is the father's son. Jesus pleases the father. People should listen to Jesus. Although understated, Luke's account leaves no room for equivocation: "...the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form, as a dove, and a voice came from heaven, "Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased."  [Lk 3:21-22] 

He who is mightier than John will be the instrument by which Israel is judged. Look for the winnowing fork of truth, says John, the threshing floor of judgment, the granary of God's fruitful  Kingdom. The wheat and chaff, announces John, will be separated. The messiah will thresh his people with the baptismal fire of the Spirit. Christ will gather many for safekeeping. Many others, unfortunately, "will burn with unquenchable fire". [Lk 3:17]

Not to be forgotten is the reality that all this messianic doing shines with the surpassing light of messianic being. The messiah is, after all, a whom rather than a what. The mighty works of the messiah flow from the absolute fact of his being God, and the nature of his God-being--who he is and to whom he is ordered in divine relationship. Jesus is the servant of God whose ministry is prayer. He desires to reconcile the world of Adam to the world of the Spirit. His habitual state of prayer will, in scarcely three years time, coalesce with the momentous sacrifice of his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity for the salvation of the world. Obedient to the ministry of intercessory prayer, Jesus will plead pardon for the sum of mankind's sins.

UNMISTAKABLE EPHIPHANY

6. Interestingly, Luke suppresses the details of Jesus' baptism, condensing the event to the barest minimum of detail. His reference to prayer, however, is very significant: Jesus prays before the manifestation of heavenly signs and wonders at the Jordan. Indeed, as Luke makes clear, Jesus prays before every momentous event in his ministry. The gospel writer establishes prayer as the hallmark motif of his gospel, for he recalls Jesus saying, "The kingdom of God has come near to you." [Lk 10:9]

Dual citizenship in the divine and earthly kingdoms compels the faithful follower to pray for the ascendancy of the first and deliverance from the latter. At the very least, may a person expect the heavens to open without prayer? May a person, who scarcely knows the name of the Lord, recognize the Holy Spirit? Or expect to hear the voice of the messiah whom the heavenly father loves?

PRAYER AND SACRIFICE

9. Jesus prays in the Spirit. His prayer will be the living justice that judges nations. Yet, the power of his prayer is solicitous and tender, gently interceding for the wounded and weary. He has no need to roar or wail, or to provoke vast crowds by eloquent words or frightening demeanor. Jesus the Messiah, through whom all things are made, "will faithfully bring forth justice". [Isa 42:3] To make it so, he need only to pray. To make it stand forth, he needs only to will it. [cf. Psa 33:9] His prayer will not falter. No discouragement will cling to it. The promises of the Lord are sure and will be accomplished.

Thus, the prophet John waited for the heavens to open above one mightier than himself. Though John would perform righteous deeds, he was not righteousness itself. He could point to the covenants of old but was not, himself, the divine Logos (Gk. word, truth) of the new covenant in Jesus' name. John could stand in the light, but he was not the light. Only in Jesus Christ--holy God, the holy mighty One, the holy immortal One--exists the perfect unity of being and doing.^[2]

MORE THAN A WINDOW

10. Hence, the prayer of Jesus is more than a window through which one may glimpse the relationship shared by the Father with the Son. Jesus' prayer reveals itself as an expression of the solemn, eternal procession of the Holy Trinity. According to John's gospel, the True Light "was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not". [Jn 1:10] Though possessing cunning and adroitness, the world could not know Jesus' word or prayer because it rejected him. Tragically, Israel would reject him as well. Divine amnesty would not be granted to Israel's leaders, for inasmuch as they possessed "the power to know so much that they could investigate the world; how then did they fail to find sooner the Lord of these things?" [WisSol 13:9]

11. The baptizer's prayer--as that of all persons who seek to know God--remains essentially a pleading that God will draw near to him, and through his creaturely praise, his abject contrition, his crying-out in need and his exiguous thanksgiving, grant him a hearing.^[3] And while the poignant words of Jesus--"Eli, Eli, lama sabach-thani?"^[4]--may have appeared to be mere pleading, we cannot disregard the powerful prayer of one in whom being and doing are indissoluble. We cannot overvalue the implications of the fourth gospel's twofold testimony: "...all things were made through (the Word) and without him was not anything made that was made" [Jn 3:3] and "the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life" [Jn 6:63]

SURPASSING MOSES' PRAYER

12. No believer who grasps the dignity of these mysteries can ignore the ministry of the Spirit to the Church and its members. The Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, transforms the mind of the believer with convincing truth. Therefore, the believers prayer is no longer confined within intercessory boundaries. To the contrary, the believer who prays in the Spirit is guided into the unbounded procession of God's truth and righteousness: "All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you!" [Jn 16:15]

Thus the believer who prays in the Spirit surpasses the prayer of Moses "whom the Lord knew face to face" [Deu 34:10] and King David who leaped and danced before the Ark of the Covenant! [2Sam 6:12-16] Jesus prayer anticipates his baptism in the waters of the Jordan. His Jewish followers understood how signs and symbols of salvation bind the people of God to the ordinary things of nature: water, wheat, wine, oil, and fire.

13. Understandably, they preferred cold, running water for their baptisms: "For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring. They shall spring up like grass amid waters, like willows by flowing streams." [Isa 44:3-4; cf. Psa 42:1] In the Sacrament of Baptism, the cleansing properties of water point to the Spirits forgiveness of sin. To the Samaritan woman, Jesus remarks, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." [Jn 4:10]

Living water symbolizes the Holy Spirit of God. As water is essential for human life, baptism and prayer are essential for life in the Spirit. Sacred Scripture compares mankind's fate to that of fish caught in a net. [cf. Eccl 9:12; cf. Hab 1:14] The letters of ICHTHUS, the Greek word meaning fish, form the venerable acronym for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. Indeed, the presence of fish signifies that the waters in which they live are living waters!

SHALLOW OR DEEP

14. Prayer, like water, may be shallow or deep; and if prayer can be said to be spiritual water, we must observe that, with the exception of those who are as children, no one swims who refuses to enter deep water. Certainly prayer begins in the shallow end of the great waters we call the spiritual life. There we learn to kick, hold our breath and float freely. Our feelings of novelty, even strangeness, are amended by the realization that life in these waters is natural. We gaze upon the spiritual depths with intuition and familiarity, yet we cannot tarry in the shallow level for long. We are minnows, are we not? And then flying fish? And finally with the determination and strength of the shark, we set out for bottomless waters. Apprehension and excitement are temporary; these are to be expected and ignored.

15. Entering the profound mysteries of God is utterly unlike exercising in the peripheral things of salvation. What must occur quickly is the realization that, in the depths of the spiritual life, hard work of another sort is required: total surrender of the human will. As in all things, maturity in prayer comes from experience, skill, and endurance, not ribbons and shiny medals. All Christians can and must pray habitually in the deep waters of the Spirit. But there are many who refuse to leave the shallows where they have mastered some skills and where they find consolation. Yet their human will, however positively oriented it may be, cannot shelter them from the arbitrary and capricious events of the world.

EXHILARATING POSSIBILITIES

16. Moreover, specious chirpiness is wholly inadequate before the call of God. For the world, do you see, possesses deep waters of its own, not the sort in which one may voyage in spiritual freedom, but forbidding waters in which many will drown who are not strengthened and skilled in the matters of faith. Into this roiling sea we may be thrown, but we need not drown: "I will not leave you desolate", says the Lord, "I will come to you". [Jn 14:18] Through prayer and the power of God's Spirit, we may stand on this stormy sea and come to Jesus! If only we Christians have great faith and confidence in the Son of God!:

IF ANY one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, 'Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.' Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." [Jn 7:37-39]

The spiritual man walks confidently on desolate terrain without stumbling and fords the turbulent sea without drowning. Pray with all the strength you possess! Your free surrender to the fullness of baptism is not a claim to helplessness or passivity! Praying in the Spirit can incapacitate even the dominions and principalities and powers of evil! [cf. Eph 6:12]

17. We speak with truth when we teach that the Church is the vessel--the very fishing boat of Peter--navigating through the tenebrous, even ominous deep waters of the world. And it is the Father's beloved Son on whom his pleasure rests who says to its members, "Take heart, it is I; have no fear." [Mt 14:27] To anyone who marvels, whether a friend or God's enemy, "What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?" [Mt 8:27], we answer: "Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name? Surely you know!" [Pro 30:4]

18. On this Solemnity of the Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ, let us be found breathing, exercising, and swimming in the Spirit. With the diligence of Noah and his family, let us ignore the scorn of this depraved generation which mocks our uplifted hands and the prayer of our lips as the frenzied gestures of a drowning man. These febrile parrots cannot know that prayer in the Spirit confers a great calm and the wisdom of God. Prayer in the Spirit unlocks for Christians the exhilarating possibilities of spiritual refreshment and forceful discipleship. Be confident in the Lord! Draw close to Christ who entered the waters of the Jordan in obedience to the Father! Surrender to him your human frailty! Let him lift the heavy burden from your heart!

^[2] Cf St. Faustina Kowalska, "The Chaplet of Divine Mercy", The Divine Mercy Message and Devotion, Fr. Seraphim Michalenko, MIC et al., eds. (Stockbridge, MA: Marian Helpers, 1995) 32-35.

^[3] "I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my supplications. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live." [Psa 116:1-2]

^[4] "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" [Mk 15:34]