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The Baptism of the Lord
- January 13 2019
Comfort, give comfort to my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her
that her service is at an end,
her guilt is expiated;
indeed, she has received from the hand of the LORD
double for all her sins.
A voice cries out:
In the desert prepare the way of the LORD!
Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill shall be made low;
the rugged land shall be made a plain,
the rough country, a broad valley.
Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together;
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Go up on to a high mountain,
Zion, herald of glad tidings;
cry out at the top of your voice,
Jerusalem, herald of good news!
Fear not to cry out
and say to the cities of Judah:
Here is your God!
Here comes with power
the Lord GOD,
who rules by a strong arm;
here is his reward with him,
his recompense before him.
Like a shepherd he feeds his flock;
in his arms he gathers the lambs,
carrying them in his bosom,
and leading the ewes with care.
Peter proceeded to speak to those gathered
in the house of Cornelius, saying:
"In truth, I see that God shows no partiality.
Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly
is acceptable to him.
You know the word that he sent to the Israelites
as he proclaimed peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all,
what has happened all over Judea,
beginning in Galilee after the baptism
that John preached,
how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth
with the Holy Spirit and power.
He went about doing good
and healing all those oppressed by the devil,
for God was with him."
Luke 3:15-16, 21-22
The people were filled with expectation,
and all were asking in their hearts
whether John might be the Christ.
John answered them all, saying,
"I am baptizing you with water,
but one mightier than I is coming.
I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."
After all the people had been baptized
and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying,
heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him
in bodily form like a dove.
And a voice came from heaven,
"You are my beloved Son;
with you I am well pleased."
One way to find the nourishment we look for in a gospel passage is to place ourselves within the scene, right in the action. To be one of the 'players'. Let's try that today. Let the action unfold around us as we listen, watch, and come up with our own responses. There are no rules of how this should go, or where to, or when it should stop, or how realistic or consistent or comprehensive it should be.
We leave polemics on the bank as we step gingerly into the sparkling waters streaming swiftly over shiny pebbles. Jeshua has left his private self with its comfortable routines at home in Nazareth. He has come to the river in solidarity with the masses flocking to John's stirring. These people are cowed by their fears, shackled with guilt by the uncompromising legal system of their religion, bent double under burdens of military occupation, economic oppression, and disease. That's us, and he's one of us - though, in some indefinable way, not quite.
There is an air of freedom about him, of confidence in his way of seeing life, and coping. There is a strength of spirit, an energy you almost feel; not a fierce determination nor a shallow optimism, but a sense that we can do better than this, and we will!
John is calling everyone into the water to be washed and invigorated for a new start. I find myself wondering was this ritual of beathing copied from the temple to become a daily practice in the home, or vice versa. When we were animals we probably didn't wash, but living in houses together makes it necessary. And now it's come full circle as John is using it in symbolic ways. When your turn comes he drops you right under. You feel you're going to die. Then he lifts you up and you gasp in a breath of air, and smile for the fear is gone and you see the sunlit river and the people around as never before. It's more than a cleansing bath; it like you've been through death to now make a fresh start in life.
For Jeshua there is something more. In a moment of awareness he knows it's time to start speaking out. It's his commissioning. I wonder did he anticipate there might be some kind of public confirmation of his mission. When it came was he confused, or surprised or overawed, or did he quietly accept what he had long suspected – that he was a chosen one with a message to deliver?
There's a thread running through the scriptures of chosen one's being taken by surprise and at first resisting. As a child Jeshua had been fascinated with the way the Lord called on people who felt they weren't up to it. Abraham's wife Sarah for example, and Moses with his 'Please Lord, send someone else!' (Ex 4:13); Elisha, chosen by Elijah, wanting leave to go home and say goodbye; Isaiah worried about his 'unclean' lips; and of course Jonah who was sent to announce bad news in Nineveh and took off in the opposite direction, getting passage on a ship to get away, until in a storm he was tossed overboard and eventually delivered back on land by some big fish, to take up his task again. There was John's father too, Zechariah - if you believed the family stories they often told around the fire on winter nights - and his own father Joseph, and Mary herself.
It seems Jeshua was prepared, since he didn't protest the way these others had. But he was troubled and uncertain, and took himself off into the wilderness, trekking over bare hills far away from farms and towns and people, spending time on nothing – to face himself alone. But we're getting ahead of the story.
.....
“You, my son, my well-loved son.” He heard it clearly, like the proverbial 'voice from heaven' sounding in his mind, and he knew. This was not something you could argue with, nor even debate its meaning. Why would you anyway, unless you're fighting some selfish impulse to see in it a title of prestige. It is no such thing. This is a charge, a commission to teach, and to work out ways of convincing others, that we are all well-loved offspring of the Father.
A million thoughts crowd his mind. Didn't Isaiah have the same idea? (See first reading above.) Many of the prophets too, like Hosea whose wonderful words could overcome fear and make people free even under oppression if only they could be convinced of their truth:
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son... It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms... I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them. But the more they were called, the more they went away from me... But they did not realize it was I who healed them.” (Excerpts from Hos 11:1-4 rearranged.)
“You, my son, my well-loved son.”
Rough sermonising won't do the trick. No sooner will John be removed from the scene than he will be discounted or forgotten. Jeshua's style will be different. No snapping off the the bruised stem of a reed or dousing a smouldering wick. If you tape up the stem it will heal; with a little care you can bring a smouldering taper back to flickering flame. He would gentle the people into a new way of seeing things and a new way of thinking.
We had all heard John say that the one to follow would have a different modus operandi: he would baptise with the Holy Spirit and with fire. While John used fire to burn, Jeshua would use a fire of love to warm and encourage. He had observed his village and his workmates and knew that they were good people. What held them back was not the violent and cruel greed that you find in the world of power and domination, but their own timidity. It looked like shyness. They didn't want people to think they were trying to be above everyone else. People are crippled by discouragement, destined to crawl along together in the Go Slow lane, keeping goodness at arm's length so you don't get isolated.
How to help them understand that goodness brings people together in an experience of being one, with ties closer than family or tribe or class or nationality or business or fashion – or even sport or music? How to have people dare to be not just the best they can be, competitively, but as good as God would have them be – like God? To rejoice in being well-loved of God!
That's his mission, and he'll need to start with a small group and it will spread from there. That is the only way: one to one, at each one's pace, for it involves a total change in your way of thinking and an enormous act of trust to accept the Father's love for you personally - no matter what.
In his gospel account John adds a colourful anecdote about something that happened down on the river bank. He and a mate spotted Jeshua and recognised him as the one the baptiser had pointed out, and they followed him. Suddenly he turned and said: "What do you want?'
'Wh-Where do you live?' they stammered.
His reply was simply, 'Come and see.'
PS. Imagine an adult, coming from a nowhere place where all was science and stats, winners and losers, no experience at all of 'religion' apart from the occasional wedding or funeral service in a church. But as the years went by something became apparent: there were people who lived for the moment or for their pleasures or seemingly just to get to the top. And in some others you could see a difference. Occasional questions, a real discussion now and then, and it became obvious that there was something to this thing or this practice or this attitude that they called their spirituality. A friend lent some books. Another needed someone to make up numbers in a discussion group. Now here we are at the point of baptism after deciding to follow this Jewish rabbi's way.
What will such an adult get from baptism?
Being dunked under water will be an experience like dying and being rescued. The reassessment of values and new choices will be on-going. Through the words of the minister the community, in God's name, will declare : "You are my child, my well-loved child." But will they get a sense of mission? Will they know that now they too are sent? The Spirit will be the inspiration and the teacher: As you learn you will teach others..., and as you teach by example you yourself will learn. Go now and share the warmth of your hope and love.
An adventure of learning, of growing and sharing, has begun.
But a final question for us who were baptised as infants: Do I see my baptism as my commissioning to Go Tell the Good News, or has it been just a ticket for safe passage or even an unwelcome bind to find yourself in?