BAPTISM OF CHRIST 2010
Isaiah 43:1-7; Ps 29; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Acts of terrorism and acts of violence often come as a great affront upon most of the world. Who among us could contemplate such acts of willful destruction? Only a mad person or a blind zealot, surely. Yet, when we contemplate injustice and wrong from our perspective in the world, who cannot admit to imagining from time to time that what would fix all this would be the elimination of certain individuals from the scene. To do away with injustice, do away with the perpetrators of injustice. Such imaginative solutions for putting things right have produced the manifestations of civilized violence such as the just war and capital punishment and the internment or expulsion of whole populations of people based on some undesirable characteristic or threat. It is not a far journey to imagine the God of justice, the God who would fix up the mess of the Earth, with a similar plan only on a cosmic scale. Imagine this earth with no corruption, no murderers, no corporate thieves, no pedophiles, no tyrants, no politicians, no homophobes, no racists, no sexists…the list is lengthy and probably very personal. When God gets around to cleaning things up, we suspect – perhaps we even hope - this will mean the elimination of the worst of it (with unquenchable fire?). Trouble is, the more we think about it, the more we start becoming anxious. Knowing what we do about the real truth of our selves, our thoughts and our actions, maybe we will be included with the worst, because there are a whole lot of others better than me.
The message of John the Baptist had great attraction for a people who had had enough of poverty, enough of oppression, enough of being at the vortex of every violent political action by the superpowers of the ancient world. The time is coming when God will sort it out, clean it up, make amends. God will send the Messiah – someone as human agency - to do the work. In Luke’s account, the image of the farmer winnowing the grain is used – the goodness on one side and the waste to the fire. John’s was not the only such movement in his day. There were others with identified Messiah’s who had already started God’s work. Human agents were enacting God’s clean-up of the earth with what we would now identify as random acts of terrorism against the unjust oppressors, the Romans and those who would collaborate with them. John, however, adamantly refused the claim of messiahship: “one more powerful than I is coming…” Although he still looked for God’s violent retribution against injustice (winnowing and unquenchable fire); he would not claim that work as his. His work was preparation; easing some of the anxiety through acts of repentance which might make good the grain. A ritual washing, stripped of the garments of the present age, was a suitable embodiment of such hopeful purification.
It’s quite clear by the common occurrence of the stories of relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus in all of the Gospels, that Jesus was one who was attracted to John’s message. He submits to the baptism of repentance. He too is hoping with so many deeply religious people for that day when God must set things right, for there is too much suffering and too much injustice. It is equally clear from the common accounts, that this action of entering into the baptism of John was a moment of some vocation for Jesus. Looking back, the Gospel stories see the agency of God’s Spirit here speaking to Jesus and for the sake of those present: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” This was the moment when Jesus would begin to diverge from John’s expectations for God’s action of cleaning up the earth, prompted by the voice of identity. It was a strange Messiah who rose from the waters of John’s baptism. Jesus would shortly retreat into the wilderness where he would wrestle with his demons that promised him great power. Jesus would emerge from that wilderness to start gathering individuals around him to form a community not of warrior angels of the apocalypse ready for Roman and Herodian blood, but of itinerant healers gathering up the marginal and the outcast and anyone who longed for the new age of God’s justice. The forces of oppression and injustice knew which of these two movements was the greater threat. John was executed alone. That was enough. Without him his followers were dispersed. After Jesus’ execution, it became necessary to go after the followers as well. Somehow with Jesus, it was not just an idea for a better future; it was the reality of the future, given flesh in a new humanity empowered to live God’s future. Messianic terrorists can be dealt with by the law or by an even greater violence ranged against them, but God is not so easily dismissed. Even the power of death could not contain the new future of God which Jesus had begun.
The Baptism in which Jesus’ disciples began to participate was not the baptism of John. It was baptism into Jesus. It was not baptism into messianic waiting for God to bring retribution and fix up the world. It was baptism into the present reality of God’s justice, which looked nothing like a gathering of the righteous in blessed security and retribution for others, but rather like identity as the children of God accessible to all, the Beloved; manifested not with sword and fire but in peace with justice. Jesus had inaugurated a new humanity that while it looked for the day when God would set the earth right, would begin to embody that future in new relationships grounded in the Divine worth announced through Jesus as he rose from the waters of the world’s expectation. This is the inheritance of all who would come to the waters with Jesus. Do you long for justice? You are my Beloved: be justice. Do you long for peace? You are my Beloved: be peace. Do you long for wholeness? You are my Beloved: be whole. Do you long for that future time when the world will be freed from its violence and abusive power? You are my Beloved: be that future.
Imagine your self today as we come up to this pool of living water. You are so tired of waiting and your garments are sweaty and dusty from journeys looking for justice and looking for peace on this earth. The garments are stripped off and we step into the water. One who knows the journey leads you in. We are washed and we are anointed for a new day. Refreshed and fragrant, the one who led us in leads us out. We are dressed again but not with the garments we came in with. These garments are fresh and new. Voices of others similarly dressed are calling out your name: “You are my child; the Beloved.” We will never be the same. The world will never be the same. Today it begins…
Renewal of Baptismal Vows