Come on in…

Dear Friends

‘Come In, The Water’s Lovely’ has been our teaching theme in July and August as we’ve explored encounters with Jesus in rivers, lakes and sea-side stories. We’ve had a lot of fun re-creating some of those stories and it’s also been such a privilege to see three of our young people make their own confession of faith through confirmation and baptism.

We are so familiar with water as an everyday part of life – washing, cooking, making cups of tea etc – we often fail to remember just how remarkable water is as a substance. Here are just a few remarkable facts about water:

• 60% of a human body is made up of water
• 71% of the earth’s surface is covered by water
• Water is the only naturally occurring substance on Earth that can be found in three physical states: solid, liquid, and gas
  

The biologists among you will know that liquid water is essential to life. We happen to live on a planet at just the correct distance from the sun for water to be liquid – any closer and it would evaporate, any further and it would freeze.

The chemists among you will know that water has a chemical structure that gives it several unique properties in terms of its boiling point and freezing point, its surface tension, being a very effective solvent, the fact it is less dense in solid form (ie. ice floats on water). All of these properties are essential to the ecosystem of our planet.

We rarely think about it, but all of our lives are dependent on these various unique properties of water. If water wasn’t the way it is – we wouldn’t be here!

So why am I giving you a science lesson in my pastoral letter this month?

Because when the disciples recognise their master as having ‘power over the wind and the waves’ they are recognising something more than the fact that Jesus is able to calm a storm. They recognise that Jesus is the author and source of life itself.

I’m so glad that God created water. I’m so glad that God created you and me. I’m so glad that God came in person (Jesus was 60% water too you know!) to show that the one who created the unique conditions of a watery planet for you and I to live and breathe on is also the same God who takes a personal interest in our everyday lives.

‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ (John 4:13-14)

Jesus also reminded us that, as much as water is essential to our everyday life, there is a ‘living water’ that never runs dry. The one who created physical water that allows us to live physically is also the source of the true living water that allows us to become spiritually alive to him.

So, let’s give thanks for water and the source of all life itself – Jesus.

Lucy