Water from the rock

Submitted by Alan Barthel, executive director of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians.

When we went to Norway for LabOra (Presbyterian worship software) training, one of the presidents of LabOra — a Lutheran pastor — wanted us to see his former parish church that he had guided in building a new worship space. The church was built on a hillside that dropped rather steeply into a fiord. The altar-table end of the church was towards the hill while the entrance was facing the fiord. The entrance wall was glass, giving a spectacular view of the fiord. When we walked in we were stunned at the sight we saw. As we looked toward the table we saw large rock, which held the table. From the rock flowed part of a mountain stream, down the length of the church to the baptismal pool at the entrance. The water did not come to rest in the pool, but continued flowing across the narthex, out the wall and down several hundred feet into the fiord. The symbolism was striking.

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