Our Lives Are Haunted

This past weekend was a wonderful reminder of one of the most important acts the church participates in. I was at the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fischer, I saw Carolina Beach in the beauty of summer brilliance and closed the day with a walk along the Neuse River. This time spent with special people culminated Sunday morning when the church I serve in the mountains baptized three persons into the life of faith.

These instances reminded me of the 1992 Robert Redford film ‘A River Runs Through It.’ This movie is set in small town Montana where two very different sons of a Presbyterian minister come of age during Prohibition-era America. In the movie, one of the sons, Norman finally realizes as he’s fly-fishing on the Blackfoot River that, “Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words or that of my past. I am haunted by waters.”

In one of the greatest acts of holy mischief, the church takes an element consigned to such destruction, despair and utter terror and pours it on someone or immerses someone to the point in which God cannot be taken from them. They are God’s beloved. They are then sent out, possibly to a wilderness or a temple to turn over tables and change the world. Throughout the story of our faith water has changed everything. From the flood in Genesis to the river of life in Revelation we see our lives intertwined with this life-giving force.

Friends, remember your baptism. Remember your initiation and calling into the wonderful community of faith that you now call home. Kindle anew the Spirit that led yourself or your parents up to the altar for baptism. Celebrate that grace at work in your life whether you knew it was there or not.

But be careful, often times we’d like it if baptism was for us the only way in which we could express our faith. But the God of our baptism calls us out of the waters and to take up a cross. Baptism is the beginning of something beautiful, something miraculous, but it is only the beginning.

This week remember that our lives are haunted by water for God is found in the water. God will do whatever it takes to reach us, racing through every street in every town, hamlet and city until we find ourselves lost in the beauty of the waters of life. Our lives are haunted by water and that’s the best reality anyone could ever have.