Baxter’s drinking habits get him all wet. When he licks the pool of water created in the tub from the running spigot, his head and back become soaked. It doesn’t seem to deter him from getting the drink he desires. He keeps slurping in the cool refreshment until he is satisfied, and then he turns around and walks to the other end of the tub. That’s when he has learned to splash. I say, ”Shake, Baxter. Shake off the water.” After many encouragements, he gets it now. He shakes his head and torso so that the excess water on his fur coat splashes over the inside of the tub. This saves me from having to clean up the splash marks on the floor and walls from his shaking outside the tub. Baxter is trainable when he wants to be trained.
Remember splashing in water when we were kids? Maybe it was the bathroom tub, or a swimming pool, or a mud puddle on the street or in the back yard after a rain. There was nothing more fun and funny than making ourselves and everyone around us wet. Sometimes we did it with abandon, splashing ourselves nonstop until we ran out of energy or there was no more water left to splash. Sometimes we did it as a joke, waiting for an unsuspecting person to come along beside us and then splashing their face or clothes. Splashing makes water a toy we use to enjoy ourselves and others. It causes us to laugh without a care about the wet clothes or hair that result. Even at a mature age, splashing can make us young again.
On Easter and through the season, we splash ourselves with holy water at the liturgy and sign ourselves with it upon entering and exiting the church. We remove all sources of this water on Good Friday and leave these dry until the Easter celebration. Then we use it with abandon, splashing everyone in the assembly while we sing and rejoice. What’s up?
We throw the Easter water as a sign of the divine joke God played on all humanity in Christ’s death and resurrection. When we thought sin and death had won out, when we resigned ourselves to defeat by the forces of darkness, when we had lost hope that the world could be a better place because God’s grace was present in abundance, God turned the storm around. He took the waters of destruction and made them the instruments of new life. Channeled through the cross, God releases the waters of grace in a torrent of love, forgiveness and healing through Christ’s death and resurrection. And we are asked to play in it, enjoy it, celebrate it and share it with those beside us in this weary world. Easter is God’s splash on the whole world, and in our baptisms, we play along with God’s outpouring of His life to save us.
Happy Easter is more than just a polite greeting. It is a declaration that, in Jesus, God has prevailed over all odds, and like children in a pool, or Baxter in the tub, we can revel in the refreshment and light-hearted goodness we feel. In the face of sin, darkness, and death, Christ’s resurrection has made a splash that will soak the world in forgiveness, light and new life. So don’t be afraid to get wet and have fun here. God is shaking His grace on us.
