Mostly Water

A human body is mostly water.

The Flood of Noah
by William de Brailes, circa 1250

Only after the whole face of the ground was watered by a mist or a flood did the Lord God form a man out of dust from the ground and breathe life into his nostrils so that he became a living soul (Gen 2:6-7). So there was water in the mix and not just dust when God made Adam, which is why some people say he was made out of mud. It's hard to shape dust into anything unless you add a little water.

After the Lord God made man and woman – the man out of the earth and the woman out of the man’s flesh – and gave them the breath of life, it seems he would walk with them in the garden (3:8).[i] It’s kind of interesting to note that the Hebrew word for walking here has many senses, and one of them is to flow like a river (halak, 2:14). This is interesting because so much of us is water and water plays a role in our creation, our recreation, and our being and walking with God.

The Lord God wants to walk with us, even though “he knows of what we are made, [and] he remembers that we are dust” (Ps. 102/3: 14). He who breathes life into earth wants us – the sons of Adam and the children of dust – to walk with him. Cain walked away from him, which we are free to do, but it's not what God wants for us (4:16). He wants to be with us.

Not all the sons of Adam walked away from God. "Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him" (5:24). And "Noah walked with God" (6:9). I think somehow I missed that until this year. I knew better that Enoch walked with God, but Noah also walked with God. He is righteous and blameless and so the Lord guides his steps and the Lord does not forsake him but walks with him (Gen 6:9; Ps 36/7:23,25).

God wants us to walk with him like this – to "walk in the way of the good and [to] keep to the paths of the righteous" (Prov 2:20). He wants us to be with him. Walking together is a beautiful image of this. The other day, I walked with my youngest daughter to the park and she held my hand the whole way. Then, I stood by her as she swung and swung on the swings and ran all around. Then, she held my hand again the whole way home. We felt much closer to each other after this. The Lord wants to be closer to us – to walk with us in the cool of the day – simply to spend time with us, regardless of what we’re doing – to be with us – because he loves us as a father loves his child.

Much of the time we are obsessed with what we should do. There's the important question – and it is an important question: What does God want me to do? (Well, for starters, keep his commandments.) But I think ultimately even more important than the question of doing is the experience of being – just simply being with God. Walking with God is, I think, a good image of this. If we walk with God, he will order our steps, and we can worry less about what we need to do. We'll simply find we have done it – step by step as we walk with the Lord.

Yet, Noah was the only one in his generation to walk with God.

"Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth" (Gen 6:11-12).

How can the earth itself be violent and corrupt? Well, remember that we are dust. Our flesh is earth with life breathed in – and this gives us the power to bring violence upon the earth. In us and as us the earth becomes violent. The earth is filled with violence because our hearts, which are made of earth, are filled with violence.

The Lord therefore determined to "bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life" (6:17). It is remarkable and often missed that this is the second time that the Lord watered the whole face of the ground. The first time was, as I mentioned before, just before he created the first man (2:6). Before he forms earth into a human, he adds water.

Now, he is covering the whole face of the ground with water in order “to destroy all flesh.” Not only this, however, but also, in a way, to form a new human. This is a death, but it is also a resurrection – a kind of recreation of humanity. Because the Lord is not only destroying all flesh, he is also establishing his covenant with Noah (6:18). He preserves Noah and his family and two of every creature in the ark and he establishes a covenant with them that he will never again destroy the earth and all flesh with a flood.

I want you to remember another kind of death and resurrection we experience in the water: baptism. When we enter into this water, the mortal flesh of the old man is destroyed as all flesh was destroyed by the waters of the flood. When we rise up from this water, we are clothed with Christ and, even though we die, yet shall we live (John 7:25). Through this water, we are given a life that cannot be taken away, like all the descendents of Noah who can no longer be destroyed by a flood.

And the ark upon which we are delivered from the flood of the world is the Church.

---

[i] Adam and Eve recognized the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden (3:8, 10).

Beginning in the Beginning

Abba Dorotheos of Gaza tells of a wheel,
rather like a wagon wheel.

The Great Fast begins in the beginning. It is a good time to stop and reorient ourselves toward the Lord – to go back to the beginning and to remember what we humans really are and why we were created.

In our lectionary, we begin the Great Fast at the beginning of three books – at Terce-sext or Sixth Hour, we begin at the beginning of the prophecy of Isaiah. And at Vespers and the Presanctified Divine Liturgy, we begin at the beginning of Proverbs and, of course, we also begin at the beginning of it all – at the beginning of Genesis.

The beginning of Genesis in particular is a wellspring for theological reflection. Someone said that all of scripture can be regarded as a footnote to Genesis 1. Today, I would like to focus on our creation – on the beginning of us.

Because, without some understanding of who we are, all of our ascetical efforts during this penitential time may seem vain and pointless. What are we reaching for, anyway? The story of our creation gives profound insights into our created nature – of which we often lose sight and which the Great Fast may help us to see again more clearly.

So let's look at our beginning: "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). Now, if we listen closely, we’ll notice some very interesting grammar and syntax going on here. The direct object is "man" – "God created man.” And then this one noun – “man” – is referred back to by two pronouns – first, "him," and, secondly, "them" – first singular and then plural.

Now, the second creation story, which we read tomorrow and the next day at Vespers, gets rather explicit about how this takes place, and it's really beautiful if you think about it. God creates one human – a man. And he takes out of this man a part of himself – his rib – and fashions this into a woman. Now, God, being God, could have made two people out of the earth instead of just the one, and then man would never have been alone even for a moment, but that's not how Gods chose to proceed and I think it's meaningful.

Humanity begins as one person. Whatever you may think of this biologically, it is theologically and anthropologically meaningful. The idea that we are all made out of one person, rather than two, shows how deeply and completely we are meant to be in communion with one another. There's no room left for individualism when we look at it this way. We are, in the story of our beginning, quite literally one. Think of the image: all humanity is in one person – one Adam – one man taken out of the ground.

The one God made this one man in his own image. Note this: God is an image maker – a creator of his own image. God is an iconographer and we are his icons. And his first created human is somehow mysteriously both singular and plural – both "he" and "they." That we humans are both many and one – that we are persons and also a community of persons sharing one human nature is an icon of God who is one God and also three Persons. God himself is a community of persons and, inasmuch as we are united to one another by the bonds love and by the grace of God, we are an image of that community and of God.

This is one thing we strive to realize through our prayer and fasting and almsgiving. That is, we are trying to be healed of our infirmities and strengthened out of our weaknesses so that the divisions and rifts between us can be closed. If we will draw near to God, we must draw near to one another.

Abba Dorotheos of Gaza tells of a wheel, rather like a wagon wheel. The center – the axis – is God, and each of us are somewhere along the spokes of the wheel. You see the closer we get to each other, the closer we get to God. To be a true and perfect image of God, we must become one community of persons and not a confederacy of individuals.

Let there be no divisions or hatreds or animosities between us, but let us forgive everything and love one another. If we fast and pray and do works of mercy for one another, it will help us put an end to all division and strife. 

On the Man Born Blind

Healing of the man born blind
from Codex Egberti, Fol 50, between  980 and 993 A.D.

Jesus spit upon the ground, made mud, and spread the mud on the eyes of a man born blind (John 9). How peculiar! – even, by today’s customs, vaguely disgusting. And also in Jesus’ time and place, spitting was not considered a complementary act. In the Torah, spitting on someone is a mark of shame (Num 12:14; Deut 25:9) and in Job spitting signifies derision and disdain (17:6, 30:10). But Jesus is not bound by our etiquette. He who will heal on the Sabbath will surely go against the grain in a lesser matter.

Still, why would Jesus do this? It’s not the expected reaction to seeing a blind man. Jesus doesn’t even speak to the man first, He just sees the blind man, speaks with his disciples about him then immediately spits on the ground and spreads the mud on the man’s eyes. If one of us were to try this, we would likely be accosted or arrested for abusing the disabled – (unless and until, I suppose, we had thus restored sight to blind). Seemingly, this is not the only way that Jesus could heal this man. Often, he heals by his word alone. For example, according to Luke, a blind man near Jericho calls out to Jesus, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" And they speak. And Jesus says to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has made you well." And immediately he receives his sight and follows him, glorifying God” (Luke 18:38, 42-43a). In this account, Jesus does not touch the man at all. Rather, He heals by the creative power of his word. Jesus says “be healed” and we are healed.

This calls to my mind the creation of the world, because God creates by the power of his word. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1). God says, “Let there be light” and there is light. And everything of which he says “let it be” has being – by the power of his word. He says, “Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness.” And, by the power of his word, God thus creates humanity, male and female, in his image, which the blind cannot see.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the word was God… and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Jesus Christ is the word present at creation. And through him the Father creates. As we say in the creed, “I believe… in one Lord Jesus Christ… through whom all things are made.”

So, God creates by his word, and he recreates by his word.

Giving sight to a man born blind is not simply an act of healing, it is an act of creation! – because it is the giving of a new gift – not the restoration of a lost gift. We might say that Jesus creates sight for the man born blind rather than that he “heals” him. Jesus is our creator and our re-creator. He makes all things and he makes all things new – as he does today for the man born blind, so he does for us.  

But for the man born blind, he doesn’t create simply by the power of the word, does he? No, first he spits upon the ground, makes mud, spreads it on the man’s eyes and sends him to wash in the pool named Siloam, which means “sent,” or, “one who is sent”.

This also recalls the creation of man, which is at least one reason why Jesus uses mud. Remember that our father Adam is made of the earth. His name means “dust man.” In Genesis 2, “The Lord God formed a man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” We are earth with God breathed in. Which quickly becomes clear when we die – because when that breath leaves us, a bit of earth is all that remains. As the Lord says, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19). Our bodies are earth mixed with water. So the mud that Jesus makes reflects his process of creation. It is earth mixed with the living water from the mouth of God, used to create sight for the man born blind.

Ambrose writes of this miracle, “The only reason for his mixing clay with the spittle and smearing it on the eyes of the blind man was to remind you that he who restored the man to health by anointing his eyes with clay is the very one who fashioned the first man out of clay” (Letter 80. 1-5: PL 16, 1326-1327). So, by this action, he shows himself to be our creator as well as our healer.

We owe our lives to Jesus. He creates us! And he sustains us in being. When we are broken, he restores us. When we sin and by his grace we repent, he forgives us. When we fall, he lifts us up. When we are sick, he heals us. When we die, he raises us from the dead.

His means of creation and recreation and healing are manifold. He is the source of our lives and he is in our lives at every step – notably punctuated by the holy mysteries.

There is something strongly sacramental about Jesus’ healing of the man born blind. In the sacraments, God works through his creatures – through men and women, through oil and water, through bread and wine – through these his simple creations, God unites us to himself. We are healed. We partake of the divine nature. Though the sacraments do not limit God and he can reach out to us at any time, through anyone, by any means. As, for example, he reached out to the man born blind through spit, through mud, and through the water of Siloam. Ambrose says that this action symbolizes baptism.

The water of the pool, the cleansing and the healing that it brings, especially evokes baptism. Have you noticed all the water in the gospels of the Paschal Sundays? This is no accident. The Paralytic Man was healed by the water of the sheep pool. The Samaritan woman receives the living water by the well of Jacob. And today, Jesus gives sight to the Man born blind through water of Siloam. All of these images evoke Baptism.

Ambrose writes of today’s Gospel, “this clay that is our flesh can receive the light of eternal life through the sacrament of baptism. You, too, should come to Siloam, that is, to him who was sent by the Father (as he says in the gospel, My teaching is not my own, it comes from him who sent me). Let Christ wash you and you will then see” (ibid.). 

We are recreated and united to Christ – through whom we are created – by baptism. We must not forget that even the unbaptized are his creatures. He is the creator of the cosmos. He creates every person. He creates our families and our friends, he also creates our enemies. I think we sometimes forget this - and that his creation is very good. But then, by baptism, he recreates us. That which sin damaged in us is restored – that is we no more shall die – though we die, we shall live, for Christ is risen!  

After the Likeness

God made us in His image and after His likeness (cf. Gen 1:26). Already this confession acknowledges that there is in humanity from the moment of creation both similarity and dissimilarity to God, for we are “in” His image, but we are “after” His likeness. The word “after” can be understood to mean “in pursuit of” or “moving towards” or “following.” God created us in a state of growing in likeness to God – in an eternal ascent of our created nature toward the uncreated Lord. Our likeness to God is not and cannot become an absolute likeness to the essence of the One-Who-Is, but is rather an ongoing process of deepening union with God – of becoming an ever-clearer divine image.

Necessarily, we must understand the likeness of humanity to God in tension with God’s absolute transcendence. Dynamically, mysteriously, “man, this mortal, passible, short-lived being [is] the image of that nature which is immortal, pure, and everlasting,” as St. Gregory of Nyssa writes in his work On the Making of Man. It is difficult to understand how the one could image the other.

11th century mosaic icon of St. Gregory of Nyssa

God is not passible and does not change, but is “the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb 13: 8). According to Gregory, “Human nature is the mean between” divine nature and animal nature – between a purely spiritual nature and a purely bodily nature. Humanity, precisely in its mutability – which is a characteristic of its flesh, as opposed to a purely spiritual or angelic nature incapable of change – has the opportunity to recover from its separation from God and to unite, with and by grace, itself with God. Passible – i.e. impassioned or subject to the passions – as we know we are, we must change (μετάνοια) and grow toward impassibility or dispassion (ἀπάθεια) to recapitulate our likeness to God.