Indeed! True story!
Now, it’s not like it never rains in this mountain/desert ecotone of the Truckee Meadows, but it can be rare (like, less than 10 inches a year)! And on a Sunday in August; and one hour after a sermon saying, “find some water today;” and that sermon having been preached while wildfires were burning nearby forests and turning all our blue sky to gray smoke; the rarities compound, right?
I don’t know if you were surprised by water again that day, like I hoped you’d be. But even as the one saying, “ya’ll watch for the blessing of water that is a gift”––even I was surprised.
Grace like rain.
It stopped me in my tracks, walking from the church doors to my car.
Wait, is it really raining? Like, is this gift really given, again?
Indeed! It was. It is!
For Lutherans, baptism is a ritual full of story and experience, and one we are called to remember, even daily. Or even more. We are remembering that life is full of death and resurrection. And God’s gift of Grace arrives to us in the midst of it all. There is nothing outside of it. Every dreary death moment. Every excellence. It’s all water-washed and Spirit-born, and it’s all holy. God is with it all, in the flow.
And I love that life is water and so all of life reminds us.
And I love that rain in the desert reminds us too.
The moment of Word in a sermon—that’s holy. And later, when drops of H2O are pelting your face and arms and you look to the (smoke-filled) sky with laughter and ask, “Wait, is it really raining?”… it’s an all-inclusive, holy gift.
You’ll be in a desert and you’ll tell people to “go find water!”
Then you’ll take a few steps, and SPLISH––water finds you!
Grace like rain––SPLASH goes strength and blessing on your fearful, faithful way.