As you know by now, Baxter likes to drink from a spigot. However, it is not so much the spigot, as the fact that the water coming from a spigot is moving and splashing. He doesn’t like calm ponds. He wants moving waters where the surface tension is broken and the waves or ripples show that something is happening here. In fact, Baxter is so intent on drinking only moving water that when he goes to his water bowl for a drink, he first pushes it around with this paw until he gets the required wave action worthy of his drink. As far as he is concerned, still water won’t satisfy his thirst, and he has to get it flowing before drinking it looks attractive.
God has the same attitude about the waters of baptism. Did you ever think about the fact that we can’t baptize someone in a still pool? The very act of baptism moves the waters and splashes them about. The waters stir when we baptize and the person who is baptized gets wet. We don’t enter the life of Christ neat and perfect looking. We come from the font with messy hair, maybe a little shaken by the shock of the cold water, and relying upon our family and friends to put us back together again. The ritual of baptizing physically disturbs us. And that’s the point.
The waters of life are living and moving. They engulf us when we enter into them, and they make us like them. They soak into us and change our demeanor and way of acting. They force us to move about because they change our body temperature and feel. They communicate a dynamic energy that disrupts our usual metabolism and can even cause us for a moment to gasp for breath. They grab our attention, and we can’t ignore the difference they make on us.
Lent is meant to renew this energy of baptism in us. Too often we drift into a stagnant pool of faith where we are warm and comfortable with our way of life. Lent stirs the waters around us to get us moving. Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are paddles used to disturb the surface so that we can move through the waters with God’s lead. We are invited to dive more deeply into the meaning of our baptism. Being baptized is not just a status in the church opening us to the privilege of receiving the other sacraments. It is a call to become someone: to become a disciple in close relationship with Jesus; to become a minister who seeks to serve others and not just one’s self; to become a witness to the meaning that comes to life when touched by God’s abundant love and forgiveness.
So splash about a bit more this Lent when you think about repentance and renewal. Stagnant water breeds disease, but flowing waters cleanse and purify. Baxter is on to something with his quirky drinking habits. God is onto something bigger when He invites us into His life through baptism.
