From ancient times the feast of the Theophany has celebrated the baptism of Christ. Associated with that commemoration of course is the service of the Great Blessing of the Waters. Water blessed at this time, commonly called Jordan water is drunk, sprinkled and otherwise used in blessings both in Church and at home. We can think of this as a sort of renewal of our baptism. It is also good to give thanks to God for the gift of water in cleansing and sustaining life.

Science tells us that water is a stable compound which facilitates all sorts of chemical reactions essential to life processes, our health and well-being.  Fittingly, therefore, the holy patriarch of Jerusalem, St Sophronius composed a beautiful prayer of consecration of the Theophany waters which we still use during this feast. It celebrates and gives thanks for the centrality of water in God’s provision within creation and for the flourishing of life. This is a short extract, which is also to be found in blessing of the waters in the service of baptism.

You composed creation from four elements; with four seasons you crowned the circle of the year. All the spiritual Powers tremble before you. The sun sings your praise, the moon glorifies you, the stars entreat you, the light obeys you, the deeps tremble before you, the springs are your servants. You stretched out the heavens on the waters; you walled in the sea with sand; you poured out the air for breathing.

Although water has this positive aspect, it can also of course be destructive, typically by drowning and flooding.  We all understand the positive aspects of water but we may struggle to find anything good in its negative aspects.  This becomes clearer, however, when we consider what Christian baptism actually achieves.  Here the negative aspect of water becomes positive.  Our sins, through repentance and faith, are drowned in the waters of the font but when we are raised up from our submersion in the waters it is to new life in Christ and by the power of His Resurrection.  This, after all, is why we cast off our regular clothing, representing the old life, which is in reality death to us, and take for our nakedness the glorious white apparel of the righteousness of Christ our God.  In this clothing, we are also anointed with the Holy Spirit from the Father; the descending Dove empowering our lives for God’s service. 

The gift of the Holy Spirit in baptism and chrismation also calls to mind the mutual association of water and the Spirit in both the Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church. Right at the beginning of the Bible in the book of Genesis, chapter 1 and verse 2, the creation of the world is announced by the hovering of the Spirit, bird-like, over the face of the waters. In the Exodus, the pursuing armies of Pharaoh are drowned in the waters of the Red Sea.  St Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:2 refers to this safe passage of the Hebrews as a “baptism into Moses”.  In the gospel account of the meeting of Christ with a Samaritan woman (John 4), Jacob’s well becomes the setting for our Lord’s teaching to St Photini that if she earnestly desires it she can have an inexhaustible spring of living water welling up within her - which of course is the gift of the Holy Spirit, (John 4:10-15).  Finally in this short survey we may note that the Bible ends as it begins with the theme of water in creation. In the last chapter of the book of Revelation the pure river of the water of life flows out from the spiritual temple of the New Jerusalem irrigating the tree of life, planted originally in Eden. The leaves of which now serve for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22:1-2).

What is striking in all these examples is that there is no separation between human persons, society and indeed the Cosmos in baptismal regeneration, baptismal re-creation. It is one and the same action of God both in water and by the Spirit. The life-giving renewal of the human being in Christ is also the life-giving renewal of the whole of creation. Likewise in the liturgical services of the Church there is no division between personal and Cosmic renewal in Christ. It is water and the Spirit that facilitates both.

What I would like you, therefore, to take away with you from this Liturgy and Blessing is a renewed commitment not only to your own personal renewal in the Spirit but also through your own service of God a share in the blooming of creation and the healing of the nations.  How can we, who have now access to the tree of life, deny its life saving fruit to others and indeed, to the Creation itself?  We cannot.  We once more have become God’s gardeners, this time in the New Eden of the Kingdom of the Risen Christ.  For this task, as well as for ourselves, let us then seek out the life-giving waters of God and both drink deeply and sprinkle liberally.