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Nearly three-quarters of the earth’s surface is covered with the life-sustaining substance we call water, and countless miles of other unseen channels course beneath its crust. You can see this as you look at a photo of the earth from outer space, but the impact is much more forceful as you stand upon the deck of a ship that has left the shores behind. Looking out upon that undulating plane of ceaseless motion all around, and knowing there are miles of depths below, one can better feel the vastness of the lot. The sheer quantity is overwhelming. Only the heavens above could arouse a similar sense of smallness. If every living thing depends on this wetness, the message is resoundingly clear, this world was made for teeming life!
How ironic then that this lavishness that supports all life is in itself not living. While every creature only has existence by its presence, it is an inorganic “otherness” they rely upon. In this way, water reminds us that while we receive our very life and being from our Creator, He relies on us for nothing. Streams, rivers and underground springs carry this veritable elixir of life, like arteries carry oxygen to our body’s organs, and the seemingly weightless clouds above heft even more water than all the coursing streams below. But while we may dam the rivers to regulate and store, we can’t make the blessings come. We must humbly wait for water, as we do upon our God. How kind, then, that He sends his rain upon the just and the unjust alike. (Matt. 5:45)
Water is incomparably unique, both like and unlike land and sky. We may touch it, but only One could walk upon it. Transparent as the air around us, yet we cannot live beneath it. It is the only naturally occurring substance on earth to be found in all three forms – solid, liquid and gas. And while we dare not compare our God to the point of modalism, surely the three-in-oneness of H2O is at least a nod to our Creator. As John Murray wrote, “Analogy is not identity”, so the similitude can lift our minds to God, even as a master painter’s brush strokes reveal the artist’s hand. So this and other likenesses in this liquid most sublime should remind us of Who our Maker is.
There’s humility in water. Just as our Lord humbled Himself to meet us in our poverty, so there’s condescension in the rain that falls upon the earth. And just like Him, water always seeks the lowest places, running swiftly like our Savior down into the depths of our great need. Not merely manifested, He was poured out in His sorrow for our sins. And like the “universal solvent” that is water, He carried off our crimes and washed us clean. And as the sun beats down upon the earth and lifts the water up once more, so His Father’s face shone down upon his sacrifice and raised Him up again.
Water is comforting. What else is quite so soothing as a hot bath on aching muscles? Or could anything else compare to the refreshment we find in the cooling swirls of a summertime pool? How pleasant is the simple joy of bathing, that sweet relief as a day’s worth of grit and grime is washed from our weary bodies? It’s amazing that the dirt, so weightless on our skin and hair, can leave us feeling so light and free as the water washes it away. How often we forget the weight of sin our souls would bear, were it not for the fountain of our Savior’s grace. “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor. 6:11)
But water is dangerous too. The ancients feared it more than we do. To them, the oceans represented an unruly mass of chaos. And even as we seem to frolic in their playful waves, we recognize the hazards that they hold. Like so many things in nature, we’ve learned that fragile balance of recreation and respect. We know the swells that lift our boats and that our gliding boards enjoy could just as easily bury us beneath their churning weight. Yet Scripture declares their bounds are set by God (Psa. 104:9). A simple word from Him who walked upon their waves and peace as solid as the land ensues. Surely there’s a promise in the sea of glass awaiting, that His calming rule will reign for endless days.
So, In these chaotic days of constant hand-washings, as we rub and scrub much longer than we ever did before, let the running water turn your thoughts to God. Watch it as it runs down around your fingers, its transparent flow removing a host of unseen enemies, and remember that it’s the water of the word of God which was poured out on your soul and makes you clean.
