Holy Trinity Orthodox Church HTOC

The Blessing of Water
The Blessing of Water on Theophany, which our parish will observe this Sunday, takes us back to the start of God’s creation, when “the Spirit of God swept over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2).

And throughout the Bible, we find God acting through water. In the flood that Noah and family rode out, he used it to purge sin from the earth (Genesis 6:9-9:17). By parting the Red Sea, he freed Moses and the Hebrews from slavery while thwarting the chase of their Egyptian oppressors (Exodus 14:1-31). During their desert wanderings, he slaked their thirst with life-giving water drawn from lifeless rock (Numbers 20:1-11). And in the Jordan River by the hand of John the Baptizer, he revealed Christ Jesus to be his own Son, the bearer of his Spirit (Mark 1:9-11).

In our own day, God touched us through water in baptism, “the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5), by which he has bonded us with Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:26-27) so that we can grow Christlike.

Water is the foundation of life, as both religion and science agree. Without it, life cannot exist or survive. In blessing water, the Church does not make some water magically “holy” apart from other water. In this sacred rite, it points out that all creation is a gift from God and meant to show his glory, and that by taking human form in Christ Jesus, God has embraced material existence to reclaim by his own presence what sin has polluted, so that all of life “may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19).

Gregory Orloff