What in the World is Water?

What in the world is water?

I read this joke in Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and in Business: "There are two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says 'Morning, boys. How's the water?' The two young fish swim on for a bit and eventually one of them looks over at the other and asks 'What in the world is water?'"

Ash Wednesday is about encountering realities we tend to not think about. When we are marked on our foreheads with ashes we remember the reality that "we are dust and to dust we shall return."  We are mortal and this life is finite. We are completely dependent on the graciousness of God to make through this live and beyond.

The fact that the ashes are marked on our forehead in the sign of the cross reminds us that we belong to Christ: "You belong to Christ in whom you are baptized." Our mortality is not the end of the story for us. Isaiah 43 is our reality: "I have called you by name. You are mine."

Which of course also reminds us of our baptismal reality. On Ash Wednesday we can see that we have been marked with the cross of Christ... but that marking lasts forever.  Our baptism lasts forever.  Reality is that marked with the cross long after the ashes are washed away.  Reality is that we are wet in the waters of baptism long after the water dries.  Christians who forget their baptisms are blind to reality just as much as our two young fish are blind to the reality around them when they ask: "what in the world is water?"

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches us about treasures on earth and treasures in heaven.  Both heaven and earth are real, but too often we neglect the Kingdom of Heaven reality we are free to live in today.  We trudge on head in our earthly reality forgetting that we are free to live Christ's love... a Kingdom reality that is a real as the air we breathe... and as easily forgotten. 

The disciplines of Lent: self-examination and repentance, prayer and fasting, sacrificial giving and works of love are Kingdom habits that we can focus on in Lent with the hope that they endure for a lifetime.  They are the treasures in heaven we are free to live right now.  The world might try to convince us that they are burden and weigh us down.  They don't. Living Christ's love in that way actually liberates us.

There is a battle going on between two realities... both very real but only one with the power to give us life.  Paul shines some light these realities well in 2 Corinthians 6:8b-10:

We are treated as impostors, and yet are true;

as unknown, and yet are well known;

as dying, and see - we are alive;

as punished, and yet not killed;

as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing;

as poor, yet making may rich;

as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

People often say that Lent is a time of sorrowful mourning... of dirges and misery. Don't believe it. Through the disciplines of Lent. Through the Kingdom habits we live of prayer and kindness, of generosity and repentance our spiritual eyes are opened to reality.  Christ reveals to us "fish" the real "water" we swim in.