H2O - "The Equalizer"

Water, H2O...two Hydrogen atoms bonded to one Oxygen atom. It's all around us. It's in us - about 60% of our body weight is made up of water. We drink it, consume it as part of the food we eat, we play in it, we use it to get around, we breathe it as water vapor.

It's life - without it there is death - with it there can be life.

The properties of water are somewhat unusual, the solid state of water (what we refer to as ice) is not as dense at the liquid state. That is somewhat unusual, but without that little natural oddity ponds, lakes, oceans and all bodies of water would be devoid of life once the temperature dipped below it's freezing point.

We call water a "universal solvent" - it holds many things that we need to live.

71% of the surface of Earth is covered in water - we live on a small portion of the remaning 29%.

Water is important - water is life.

I thought about some of this last week as I watched two men step into a pool of water we call a "baptistry". I watched as a man about 5 foot 8 inches dunked another man about 1 foot taller and much heavier than he. If the smaller man had to pick up the larger one off the floor outside of the baptistry using just his right hand (like he did in the baptistry) there is no way it would have happened. He would have thrown his back out, and the larger man would have fallen back and cracked his head on the floor.

But water is special.

If you're not convinced then just think about how God has used water.
- He used it once to destroy all but a handful of people and a bunch of animals in the world.
- He used it to bury the Egyptian soldiers chasing his chosen people in the Red Sea.
- He used it to make a point for Jesus' first miracle, turning ordinary water to wine.

He used it to allow us to share in Christ's death, burial and resurrection. He could have asked us to do some other sort of series of tasks that would have "looked" more like what had actually happened...He used water. Cleansing, healing water.

And...he made us bouyant so that a 5'8" man could baptize a man more than a foot taller than him and a lot heavier. God made water special and He wants all of us to pass through it before we're done on this earth. Every person...people we will never see or meet, bankers, lawyers, salesmen, mothers, fathers, basket makers, messengers, CEOs, rich, poor, young, old, free, slave, murderers, tax evaders, democrats, republicans, men, women...everyone.

Water is "The Equalizer"...