Pure Water

On the way into church this morning, a Bethel couple pointed out a sign just across Third Avenue from Bethel Lutheran. They chuckled that a water service has the "purest water in Rochester."

It was clear that the husband and wife were contrasting that water with the water we commonly use in churches to baptize. As it would happen, there was a little girl baptized in "pure water" this morning.

We are in the season of Easter. We have just come through a long season of Lent following Jesus' path to the cross. We have now spent eight days celebrating the resurrection that brings new life. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews in the Bible weighs in on this pure water: "Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water."

Bodies washed in pure water. Consciences made clean by the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ. What a gift.

I suspect that most of us want to drink "pure water." Is not a body washed clean by the pure water of Christ an even better gift?

Maybe we better put up a sign: "Try our pure water. You will be eternally thankful."