On my drives between Stillwater and St. Paul, I’ve been listening to the audiobook version of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel Dune. Early in the book, a new ruling family arrives to take control of the desert planet Arrakis, and in one of the courtyards, their son finds 20 date palms. Now, date palms have deep roots that burrow into the soil to sustain the tree and produce sweet fruit even in the desert. But there is no moisture on this fictional planet. So these trees—a symbol of power and pride—are kept alive by constant irrigation, each soaking up massive amounts of water. These trees could not survive without this pointless striving of humans watering them. No matter how far the trees stretched out their roots, they would wither in the harsh realities of their world, like the prophet Jeremiah’s desert shrub withering in the heat.
Where do you stretch out your roots when the world around you presses in like the scorching heat of a desert drought? Where do you turn when you are troubled and anxious—when you desperately need healing and hope, strength and sustenance? Do you trust in mere mortals, like Jeremiah warns against? Do you try to tough it out and lean on your own human strength? Most of us have tried to rely on ourselves in the past…or maybe the present. I know that recently, as the world feels like it’s pressing in on us, I’ve personally been feeling a strong temptation to rely on myself—to turn inwards. Maybe you have been too? Maybe you try to find reassurance in your relative privilege. Maybe you try to outrun the anxiety or numb the pain. Maybe you try to fix the world’s problems through sheer willpower.
But how’s that going for you? How does that striving stand up when drought and exhaustion and pain press in on your spirit? Because it hasn’t gone great for me in the past. It isn’t going great for me now. And I’d be willing to bet it won’t go great for you in the long run either. I’m finding that the more I trust in human strength, the more I feel like one of those servants in Dune, pointlessly watering a date palm day after day, vainly trying to sustain myself through my own futile efforts.
It’s pretty bleak. But the crowds in our Gospel today show us that another way is possible.
The people in this crowd know what it’s like for life to feel like a soul-crushing drought. They are sick and need healing. They are troubled by evil spirits and need liberation. They are poor and need consolation. They are hungry and thirsty and need sustenance. And this is not just metaphorical poverty and suffering. It’s not just emotional stress and anxiety. Luke is describing a crowd made up of the most vulnerable, neglected, and downtrodden in society. They are withering away like shrubs in a desert.
And so where do they turn? To Jesus.
The crowd gathers around Jesus as he stands in their midst. “All in the crowd were trying to touch him,” Luke says. Everyone is trying to touch Jesus.
Imagine it: A sea of hands stretched out to grab hold of Jesus—tangled together like the roots of a tree, reaching out in search of water.
The crowd reach out to touch Jesus, in hope that he can provide for them what the world and their own strength cannot. They reach out in hope that power and grace will come out from him to heal them and free them to fill them with plenty and make them leap for joy. Knowing their own weakness—knowing that sheer human willpower can’t save or sustain them, they reach out to Jesus and put their trust in him. They choose to trust in the Lord, not mere mortals. They choose to make the Lord their strength, not mere flesh.
And when they do—when they stretch out their hands to Jesus like roots, they drink deeply from the well of his life-giving power. They are sustained and transformed. The sick are healed. The afflicted are set free. And they are promised that even greater blessings—greater beatitudes—are still yet to come in God’s Kingdom. The people in this crowd experience the alternative to putting their trust in their own human frailty. And they come alive, bearing fruit even in the bleakest desert of life.
Friends, you and I—we—can experience that alternative too—today in the midst of the spiritual drought, the fear and anxiety, the exhaustion and sadness that weigh on us for reasons big and small. We can reach out to Jesus and trust in his strength, because we have already been drenched in life-giving grace and claimed as Christ’s own in our Baptism.
In Baptism, God does for the world what we cannot do for ourselves—what we can never accomplish by trusting in our own strength. God shares with us the promises that Jesus makes the crowd today: to heal the sick and free the afflicted; to reward the poor and fill the hungry with good things. In Baptism, we have been transformed and given a share in these blessings of God’s kingdom, if we will reach for Jesus and trust in him, not ourselves.
By rooting ourselves in this truth of our Baptism we can continue to reach out to Christ day by day, drinking deeply of the life-giving waters which he offers freely to all who thirst. The waters that once washed over us in the Font were not just a moment in time. They are a wellspring of grace, a stream that never runs dry. Like the trees in Jeremiah’s vision, we have been planted by the water—our roots stretching deep into the mercy of God, drawing life from Christ the Living Water himself.
Baptism is not just a nice rite of passage or a box to tick. It is the beginning—the foundation of our new life in Christ and the source of our strength when drought inevitably comes, when the weight of this world presses in and our own striving fails us. When we are weary, the waters of Baptism remind us that we do not have to sustain ourselves. When we are parched, the waters of Baptism are a living stream that revives and nourishes us. When we feel alone, the waters of Baptism show that we are forever rooted in Christ—that he is our strength.
So when life and the world are too overwhelming and a feeling of drought starts to wither your spirit—when your strength fails you and your striving proves empty—remember where your roots belong. Turn back to the water, and remember your Baptism. Remember that the Lord is your trust, not your own strength or any mere mortal. Let your soul drink deeply from the mercy of God, who planted you by the stream of grace, so that even in the hardest of seasons, you may find water in the wilderness and bear good fruit.