The summer after my freshman year in college I went out to Wyoming to work in my uncle’s law office for the summer. I pretty much spent the summer typing, but I gained some interesting perspectives as well. Most of the vast expanse of Wyoming is dry. Dry, dry rangeland. Water is scarce and very valuable. In this law firm, the vast majority of their work and the vast majority of their income was derived from issues and litigation surrounding water rights. Not the things you might think of as big-ticket items for lawyers… divorce law, corporate law, estate law. But water.

The Sinai desert, or the wilderness of Sin as today’s Old Testament reading terms it, is a land almost without water. A land without any vegetation. No cactus, even, or scrub bushes. It is a land of rock and sand. No trace of moisture, even if you turn over the stones in the cool of the evening. No hint of green, even in the hollows and shadows.

Yet water has been found, even in the Sinai. It lies deep and hidden in rare, deep wells. How did the people find it? There is no evidence at the surface, no sign to point to the few tiny points within the desert’s vast expanse where water lies below. Yet water is so valuable, so essential to all life, that it has been found. The human need and longing for water is so fierce, so profound, so driving, that people have found what would seem unfindable. Life-giving water.

And so people gather at the well. Across all time, people gather at the well in the midst of the desert. The well is a wonderful, rich symbol. Especially a well hidden deep within the desert. A source of life-giving water in the midst of arid emptiness. People come to the well. We gather. To cool our thirst. To renew our life. To fulfill our longing. Driven and drawn by our deepest need, we come to the well.

Yearning for life-giving water we stand looking down...  into a place of darkness, uncertainty and danger. That is part of a well’s symbolism, too. And we cannot neglect it. The source of life-giving water is also a place of darkness and danger.

And at some point in all of our lives we will find ourselves standing at the side of the well. There are other sources of water, of course, pleasantly flowing streams and babbling brooks. Perhaps for much of our lives, they will quench our thirst. But ultimately, each of us will find ourselves in the desert overcome by a deeper thirst and longing. Somehow God will lead us along nearly hidden paths through the desert to the side of the well. And literally dying for life-giving water, we will look down towards the water into a place of darkness, uncertainty and danger.

These are Lenten images. The wilderness of Sin, the desert of Sinai, and the darkness of the well are part of our Lenten journey. Yet it is a journey, the church teaches us, that will end in the Baptismal water of the Easter vigil. The Easter vigil is the greatest service in the church year. From the earliest days of the Christian community, the church baptized at the Easter vigil. In those early years, baptismal candidates spent years in learning and preparation until they came finally to that night, the night before Easter. And the service used to last all night long, so that the newly baptized emerged out of the waters of baptism into the dawn of Easter morning. Times have changed. Spiritual attention spans have shortened. But still, for all of us, Lent is a time spent in the desert seeking water.  A time of preparation for the new life of baptism. For forty nights and forty days we prepare for that night, that experience. Thirsty, yearning, dying in the desert, we are drawn towards the baptismal waters. Life-giving, renewing water.

The baptismal policy and practice of the church has changed over the centuries. It has become roomy, inclusive, diverse and comfortable. We coo over young infants whose parents and godparents (if they were free) have come to a one hour instruction session. The service itself is relatively brief and accommodating. This trend really is not bad. Baptism is entry into the Body of Christ, and the Body of Christ should be roomy, inclusive, diverse and welcoming. And yet we should not forget, especially in the midst of our Lenten journey, that the norm for baptism is an adult’s awesome risky surrender of everything in the darkness of a deep, deep well. The norm. The archetype. The standard... is the adult decision to look into the well and enter completely into its darkness in search of living water.

It was so for the Samaritan woman. We can learn from her experience what is asked of us. She came to the well alone in the heat of the day. Others in the village would have come in groups in the evening. Perhaps she was an outcast, so she came alone; perhaps she was driven by desperate thirst, so she came when she had to.

At the well she met a stranger. Her attempts at coy pretense fell flat. Part of what happened to the Samaritan woman as she stood at the edge of the well, was that all pretense was stripped away. That is what happens. All that we pretend to be is shed, must be shed. Jesus looked into her soul. Her soul, her true being, was laid bare before God’s eyes. "O God, who sees that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves," says today’s collect.  We have no power in ourselves to help ourselves.

To stand at the edge of the well is to stand alone. It is to stand stripped of all pretense. It is to leave aside all claims that we can build or buy or discover our own salvation, fulfill our own deepest needs. To stand at the edge of the well is to look into total darkness, knowing that what lies in that darkness is beyond our knowing. To stand at the edge of the well is to know that we have been drawn there, through the desert, yearning, thirsting for the living water that only God can give.

From the earliest days of the church baptism was viewed as participation in the Paschal mystery. The Paschal mystery is the events and wonder of Holy Week.  To participate in the Paschal mystery means dying with Christ so that we might live with Christ. Dying. Risking the loss of everything that we cling to, everything that we covet, everything that we pretend to be, to enter into the darkness and surrender all that we are to God’s care.

Listen to the prayer that we say as we bless the water of baptism. "We thank you, Almighty God, for the gift of water. Over it the Holy Spirit moved in the beginning of creation. Through it you led the children of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt into the land of promise. In it your Son Jesus received the baptism of John and was anointed by the Holy Spirit as the Messiah, the Christ, to lead us through death and resurrection, from the bondage of sin into everlasting life… We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit."

In the water of baptism, we are buried with Christ in his death. To enter into the darkness of the well, to pass through the darkness, is to die. It is to die to all that we pretend to be, and that’s an awful lot of who we think we are. Lent is a season of preparation for baptism. Are you prepared to surrender all pretense and offer all that you truly are to God?

The Lenten journey takes us from the bright daylight and security where we stand at the edge of the well to the total blackness of sin and helplessness and death deep at the well’s bottom. That’s Good Friday. It’s the only way to get to Easter.

But in that darkness, the Paschal candle will be lit. Before we can see the marvelous and holy flame of Easter, we must enter into the darkness of death’s night. Before we can be washed with the living water which brings eternal life, we must surrender all that we pretend to be into the well’s darkness. Before we can share in Christ’s resurrection, we must be buried with Christ in his death. How thirsty are you for the living water of eternal life?  We stand at the edge of the well.  The risk is huge. The reward is immeasurable.

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