Today I preached at the United Reformed Church at Abbey Lane. The biggest thing I've learned, and continue to learn is that "speed kills" that is I need to slow down when I preach.
Here is the sermon:
Sermon
Though we are in the Wilderness and the Darkness of the Deep, through Baptism the Spirit proclaims us Children of God.
This morning we are faced with beginnings. The beginning of Creation where God enters into the formless void, and hovers over the deep black waters of primordial chaos. The beginning of the Redemption, where God enters into a fallen world overrun by surging tides and watery white caps of destruction.
This morning we are faced with a loving, yet realistic message. +Though we are in the wilderness and the darkness of the deep, through Baptism the Spirit calls us Children of God.+
We are in the wilderness. We find ourselves out here alone in a dry unnourishing place. Out here we are embroiled in our personal sins, and see that we have been delivered up to our passions, greed, and despair, we are found guilty. We are fools that, as was wrote in the book of Proverbs so long ago "return to our own vomit." In short, we "can not not sin."
Out here in the wilderness we are totally annihilated by this confrontation with our own sinfulness, and feel a total alienation from both God and our fellow man. I don’t know why, maybe it is out of spite, though more likely out of shame, we try to justify ourselves. We look out into the lonely desert and decide that we are a definitive oasis of truth in a desert of lies. We fall into that same sinful trap as Adam did, our own hubris. We become, as Luther put it, "bellybutton gazers." We are like a snake eating its own tail. In this selfishness we see our brothers, mothers, fathers, sisters, sons, daughters, friends as simply an appendage of our self. By ignoring our broken relationship with God and others we are folding in on ourselves.
We are also in the darkness of the deep. All this personal sin and alienation that each one of us experiences is not ours alone. As theologian Rudolf Bultmann writes, "The evil for which every man is responsible for individually has become a power which enslaves the whole human race."
All of humanity, each and every last one of us, is a card within a house of cards. We were all stacked carefully and precariously atop one another. Even the slightest breath, a slight jarring of the table, would cause the whole house to fall down. And that deck of cards has fallen down a long time ago, and we are constantly attaining toward a return to our original placement. Every personal sin is a card falling, knocking down the whole deck. This deck is in a constant flurry of motion, Jacks falling atop crazy eights, and twos upon Kings. Every time a wall of a house is reconstructed two more fall down. The interactions of these cards grow in intensity until they become a splashing, bubbling sea of black, red, and white, the primordial chaos the Spirit hovers over in Genesis one. Whole legions of belly button gazers ignore the fact that 30,000 people dies of preventable diseases each day and the famished cries of those dying of hunger. Brigades of tail eating snakes grasp continually for real or imagined slivers in their neighbor’s eye while ignoring the planks hanging from their own, and they forget to forgive.
Yet, despite our sorry state there is good news this day, there is light to split the darkness, there is a spirit upon the dark waters. For +though we are in the wilderness and the darkness of the deep through Baptism the Spirit calls us Children of God.+ Today John the Baptist, a charismatic wild man, mysteriously "appears" in the wilderness near the river Jordon. John the Baptist is cloaked as the great old testament prophet Elijah the Tishbite was, wearing a camel hair tunic and a leather belt. The prophet Elijah was an amazing figure, known for speaking truth to the powers that be in Israel and facing down the priests of Ba’al. John likewise spoke out against King Herod and faced down the Pharisees and Sad’ducees. For Elijah’s steadfast devotion he is said to have been taken up to heaven by God by means of a fiery chariot, greater still was John, the greatest and last of the prophets, for his devotion in proclaiming God coming down in water and Spirit.
Now it says that John was Baptizing with a Baptism of repentance and forgiveness. Being Christians of the 21st century, having heard this story countless times, "preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" rings as tin in our ears and does not strike us as odd. Yet, at the time of John’s actions the average Jew on the street would be wondering what had got into "all the country of Judea and all the people of Jerusalem." It would be like us hearing a cat screeching and yowling in the bathroom and we went inside and found a child Baptizing a very wet, confused, and bedraggled, cat in the toilet. Or it would be like seeing a man running down High Street on a particularly rainy day shouting "God’s Baptizing the world!" We’d get the sentiments of what was going on, but we’d still have a lot of questions. What were these people doing out there? Why were they doing it? What exactly was this new thing John was doing? What is this Baptism thing?
This was a new thing. Sure the Jews had Mikvot, that is purity baths, but Mikvot were used to ensure a ceremonial cleanliness, not a moral one. Further, this Baptism thing John preached and performed was a one time event, not unlike the conversion rights non-Jews would go through to become Jewish. Yet John’s Baptism was for Jews!
What then was this thing going on in the desert? I believe John’s Baptism was nothing short of an eschatological act! John was waiting expectantly for the Great and Terrible day of the LORD. He was preparing the Path of the LORD so that God could come and implant a New Heart and New Spirit within humanity. For John there is not time for elaborate ritual, only time to say I’m sorry in a very public and symbolic way.
Then comes that Spirit wielder, that "one who is mightier." Here comes Jesus. He comes and submits himself to the Baptism of John. The Baptism of John, a Baptism of repentance. Some people try to explain this by saying that Jesus was repenting for the collective sins of Israel/ and they might be right, but I think that what happens next points to a much more profound meaning of this Baptism. The heavens are ripped open. (The only other time this verb is used is during Christ’s death when the curtains of the temple are torn in two.) Then the Holy Spirit, like a Dove, descends, proclaiming to Jesus "Though art my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased."
This tearing apart of the blankets of sky separating God from man is the greatest shift of relationship in human history. God did more than blow his breath upon the waters and speak words of creation, but he en-fleshed this Word and enlivened it with Spirit. God’s son, Jesus, the Christ, has entered into the chaotic mush of human existence. This God of ours is in the world in the human form of Jesus. Karl Barth describes the relationship between God and man as that of an hourglass, and in this metaphor Jesus is the smallest point at which the two halves, God and man, meet! In Jesus we meet God in a man anointed in Baptism by the Holy Spirit to be the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior. In Jesus we meet God bringing good news to the poor, healing the lame and sick, and preaching a radicalized law of love. In Jesus we meet God betrayed, beaten, buried, and abandoned on our behalf. In Jesus we meet God resurrected, defeating the unholy trinity of sin, death, and the devil.
As miraculous as God entering the world is there is still more! +Though we are in the wilderness, and the darkness of the deep, through Baptism the Spirit calls us Children of God.+ This change in relationship brought about by the Christ’s humanity in Jesus is a two way street; it is also a change for us. In Baptism God changes the very character of who we are. The same Spirit that was with Jesus at his Baptism is with us.
How does this change come about? What is it that Baptism precisely is?
Now as I stand here I note the dangerous place I am at. I am an outsider from the traditions of the URC coming to preach about Baptism to a congregation that was once split over this very issue. Yet I will be so bold, as well as brief.
The earliest Christians, Jews themselves, seemed to have as hard of a time defining Baptism as John’s contemporaries had understanding what he was doing out there in the waters. After all how do you attach words to a movement of the Spirit? The early church developed many metaphors. In 1st Corinthians 6 the old language of Baptism as washing can be found, in John 3:5 Baptism is described as a New Birth, in Ephesians it is described as "Enlightenment by Christ" in Galatians it is described as putting on new clothing. In Titus Baptism is a renewal of Spirit, and in Romans and Colossians Baptism is seen as uniting with Christ’s dying and rising. In all of these cases something new is happening! Christ is entering into our life.
From these passages came arguments about immersion, infusion, aspersion, or even Baptism without water. And questions of Infant Baptism or Believer Baptism. But I think these arguments miss the mark. The point that all these arguments are vouching for is the importance of Baptism. For those who emphasize believer Baptism they are saying Baptism is too important to not have a full understanding and commitment by the believer. For those who emphasize Infant Baptism they see Baptism as too important and God as too powerful to wait for any human reason to Baptize.
Baptism is important, and life changing. Through Baptism the desert of sin is saturated, the chaotic deep is drained of its deadly power. Through Baptism we may open our eyes and see God in Jesus. Through Baptism we have a new beginning. +Though we are in the wilderness, and the darkness of the deep, through Baptism the Spirit calls us Children of God.+
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