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Canticle 9 The First Song of Isaiah (Isaiah 12:2-6) Surely, it is God who saves me; For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense, Therefore you shall draw water with rejoicing And on that day you shall say, Make his deeds known among the peoples; Sing the praises of the Lord, for he has done great things, Cry aloud, inhabitants of Zion, ring out your joy, Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: |
You shall draw water from the springs of salvation.
Um, excuse me, where might I find those springs?
I’m wondering where in your life, when in your experience you have run across springs of salvation. Maybe we can begin by talking about salvation. How do we understand that word? The way that Christian theology has evolved among certain circles, salvation is about a ticket to heaven. Depending on which group you’re talking about, it can be a very small number of folks who make the cut.
When I was a kid, I would often walk each day with my neighborhood best friend. As we passed by a couple churches, we would often have profound 7 year old conversations about religion. He was Roman Catholic and was concerned I was not going to make it to heaven. I was Protestant Evangelical and I was concerned he was not going to heaven. That mindset can come early. Salvation was about the heavenly price of admission.
There are other ways to think about salvation. I’ve been told that it really means wholeness, that it suggests healing, a process of restoration and reparation and renewal. Among other things, that means that salvation begins right now. See St. Paul: Now is the day of salvation. (II Corinthians 6.2 ) As I thought about this, it seemed like a good idea to go to wiser sources, so I considered what Frederick Buechner had to say about salvation.
In his book Wishful Thinking (a great Christmas gift by the way), he speaks of salvation as an experience first and a doctrine second. He says it is a process, not an event. For him, it is the paradoxical experience of losing oneself and then finding that one is more fully oneself than usual. Perhaps not surprisingly, he says that the closest analogy is love. He says that when you love somebody, it is no longer yourself who is the center of your own universe. It is the one you love. He suggests that is what Jesus had in mind when he said: He who loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:39). In that way, we do not love God so that, tit for tat God will save us. Rather to love God is to be saved. Get this: “You do not love God and live for him so you will go to Heaven. Whichever side of the grave you happen to be talking about, to love God and to live for him is Heaven.”
And he has a word for those who have had this experience. “How about the person you know who as far as you can possibly tell has never had such a moment – the soreheads and slobs of the world, the ones the world has hopelessly cripple? Maybe for that person the moment that has to happen is you.” In other words, best I can tell what Buechner is getting at is that we can point others to springs of salvation.
The psalm begins: “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (Psalm 42:1,2) Hear what Jesus told the woman at the well: “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 4.15) The woman said to Jesus: “Give me this water.” Which is to say that the springs of salvation are accessible right here. Right now.
Hey, maybe that’s what the good news of Christmas, God with us, is all about.
-Jay Sidebotham
