DRINKING A NEW DRINK

Come, let us drink a new drink (Δεῦτε πόμα πίωμεν καινόν, Приидите пиво пием новое), not miraculous water drawn forth from a barren stone, but from the fount of incorruption, springing from the tomb of Christ. In Him we are established (ἐν ᾧ στερεούμεθα, в немже утверждаемся).” (Irmos 3 of Paschal Canon)

Here the author of the Paschal Canon, St. John of Damascus, is comparing the “miraculous water drawn forth from a barren stone” by Moses in Exodus 17: 5-8 (and also later, in Numbers 20) with the new life offered to us in the risen Lord from a most unexpected place, – from a stone tomb, – in His unexpected exit from there. Every day, I am invited to “drink” of His life-giving word, and to “drink in” His life-giving presence in my life, however stone-hearted I may feel.

Our God is a God Who transfigures and brings life to even the toughest, darkest, driest of “places” in our lives. As One Who from “stones” can raise up children for Abraham (Mt 3: 9), He Himself has become our life-bringing “rock” (1 Cor 10: 4), in Whom we are – not crushed, nor heavy-laden, nor entombed, as the case is with our kinds of “rocks,” – no, in Him we are “established” as His children, in oneness with Him, belonging to, and nurtured by, the creative flow of His divine energies, in which we are given to “thirst no more” (Jn 4: 14). “Lord, give me this water,” Your water, I say this morning with the Samaritan woman, “that I may not thirst” outside of You.