Our readings for this morning are:
Is 43.1-7;
Acts 8.14-17, and
LK 3.15-17, 21-22.
Our gospel story today features Jesus being Baptised, and the image of the Holy Spirit descending as a dove is an image that has captured Christians for over two thousand years. But lately, THE STORY people are telling is about what has been falling from the sky for the better part of a week and how it has affected their lives. Five days of freezing rain brought us to a state of civic emergency. Nothing seems to be able to make as humble as the weather, or as Canadian. Have you ever noticed how obsessed we are with what is happening in our skies, how it dominates our conversation, our thoughts and our plans? It is typically, if not uniquely, Canadian. Similarly, the gospel story today of what is happening in the River Jordan and in the skies above it two thousand years ago makes us uniquely Christian. And although we are not talking about weather in this story, the implications of this event went on to effect the surrounding communities as powerfully as any meteorological event. Perhaps this is another reason why this huge and powerful weather system which brought us to a standstill is referred to as El Nino, the Spanish name for the Christ Child. Both are events which give us cause to stop, be in awe of and ponder the power of the universe, and what God's message is in all this.
| The baptism of Jesus always makes me stop and think about my own baptism. | The baptism of Jesus always makes me stop and think about my own baptism. And that is precisely what I do, I think about it, I don't remember it, because I am one of millions of Christians who was baptised as an infant. So I have no memory of my own, and only scant recollections from my parents who soon afterward stopped attending church, and whose primary memory of the event is that baptism was a sort of community social event you did with your baby back in the fifties, and that I was baptised by a minister of some repute who went on to hold high office in the United Church. They never talk about the sky opening up and a dove descending, so I assume that never happened. But I did get something that Jesus didn't- got a nifty piece of paper! This sort-of heirloom- complete with smiling Jesus embracing the requisite docile lamb- will, I suspect, wind up with one of my children somewhere along the line. |
I was born in a tiny anglophone enclave in Northern Quebec, called Arvida, near the banks of the Saguenay River. My parents were not happy there, and we left shortly after my 'inconsequential' baptism. Perhaps it was their unhappiness which is partially to blame for their failure to recall much about the event. More probably, my parents failed to grasp the deeper meaning of Christian baptism for themselves, so they were not able to pass this important information on to me. My parents, all our parents, we as parents, tend to fail our children in some way, or sometimes in many ways. Rarely it is out of malice, and is usually out of unconsciousness. For whatever reason, many of us now rely on the memory of the church to make new and real the meaning of our baptism.
| So- what is the meaning of our baptism? Do we need to ask this question? I think we do, and the fact that we often 'do' baptisms on this feast, and that part of this rite is for each of us to renew our baptismal covenant attests to the fact that we need to be reminded and we need the memory of the church. The repetition of our Baptismal Covenant is but one way we evoke our corporate memory. Another way is through scripture. The memory of the church extends way back to its beginnings, the very beginnings of its salvation history at creation- and this memory is extended to us through scripture this morning. The readings tell us our baptism is yet another affirmation of God's love for us, God forming us and calling us and naming us, and as we read our way from Old Testament to New, we also realise that Christian baptism is Trinitarian in nature. | ...part of this rite is for each of us to renew our baptismal covenant |
The first reading this morning from Isaiah is as beautiful as it is touching in its message to us about our creation, and God's meaning for our lives. The Prophet Isaiah tells us to listen to the One who created us, who formed us: "do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine." He tells us we belong to God. "When you pass through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned. You are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you." I love you - and what kind of love is this? God's love for us is so absolute and unconditional, that whole nations will be ransomed for each and every one of us. Further in the same passage, Isaiah tells us that, "everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made....are my witnesses, says the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am He." It is a love that calls us into being, calls us to be witnesses to God's love, ourselves held precious, honoured and loved by God.
| we know we cannot escape from the love of God | The second reading from Acts acknowledges the connections between baptism and the Holy Spirit. Some writers have made much of the fact that in this reading it seems that there has been an absence of the Holy Spirit from the baptism of these folks in Samaria. I doubt this was really the case, as I doubt it was at our own baptisms, because even though the sky did not open up, we know we cannot escape from the love of God and therefore we cannot escape from the Holy Spirit. However, we can wilfully chose not to accept the Spirit, turn our backs in shame, not acknowledge Her power, or not open ourselves to Her as we fumble about in unconsciousness. What else is significant in this passage for me is that it is the presence of other human beings, other people of God who make manifest for us the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, in this case in the laying-on of hands, but it also happens in anointing, when praying in community and other ways. The so-called transmission of the Holy Spirit through person to person contact is, I believe, as much an act of human love as it is divine love. And really, we are hard pressed to see God's love any other way sometimes, except through human expression, and most perfectly expressed, of course, in Jesus Christ. | we cannot escape from the Holy Spirit |
Remembering and celebrating baptism is, thirdly, acknowledging our connection with Jesus. Luke's gospel tells of God's act of choosing this Jesus to live in love by the power of the Holy Spirit. We believe it is also God's act of choosing us to live in love by the power of the Holy Spirit. As the voice from heaven said, "You are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased," God also says to each one of us, 'you are my child, my beloved, with you I am well pleased.' Jesus is God's love incarnate. Jesus' every thought and act stems from unconditional love. We too are created in God's love and have the capacity to be God's love incarnate. This is the good news of the gospel. We are loved as Jesus is loved, and loved in a way that no human being could ever love us.
|
We have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. Romans 6.4 |
There are many allusions to water in the readings this morning, not a surprise since we are talking about baptism which is a ritual incorporating the cleansing qualities of water and its other symbolism- especially the waters of birth. This image of birth is a strong one in spiritual life, the idea of a new beginning, of starting over. It is a stronger image than turning over a new leaf or starting off on a new path, because it better represents the true meaning of beginning anew. The idea is that we die when we are submerged in the water - the apostle Paul says that we are buried with Christ and we are reborn or resurrected with Christ. We are, momentarily at least, symbolically returned to a state of innocence. I believe that before we are born into this world we are aware only of God's love for us, and this is a state to which we yearn to return, and that baptism is a way for us to do this, in the way all sacraments hold a power to transport and transform us and are a mystery that cannot be reduced to mere words. It also serves as a public declaration that we desire an intimate relationship with God, specifically the same kind of relationship that Jesus had with God, and seek support, comfort, communion and community with the whole body of Christ. Of course, God in not a random factor in this equation, God is a given because as much as we may or may not desire intimacy with God, God always desires it. God is the actor. This is very plain in the readings and is important for us to remember that it is God at work here and not us. What we are doing in baptism and in repeating the covenant - or for that matter the creed or the prayers and so on - is responding to God's acts of love, and as Christians, God's acts of love incarnated in Jesus Christ. When we seek baptism, this is what we seek: a life in the Trinity, which is always there. Our place is always set at the table. |
So-back to the beginning- what then is the meaning of our baptism? What do we need to be reminded of? Distilled to its pure essence, I need to be reminded that God loves me. We need to be reminded that God loves each and every one of us. Isn't that funny? It is so simple a reality, why is it we manage to forget it? How is it that we can forget something that is so life giving, affirming, nurturing, the whole reason for our being? It is my understanding that this is what it means to sin. We manage to forget God, to forget love, the very core of our being, because we constantly replace this knowledge with other stuff that clouds it, that takes us away from this one pure essence of our existence, this loving relationship with God. We manage to forget that the only thing that is real is love. Everything else is an illusion. When we live in this illusion of there being no love, we live through fear - fear that not only is there not any love, there isn't any or enough of anything. We replace it with worry, anger, jealousy, envy, greed.... and we are in constant need of reminding that we need to turn back, to repent is the language we sometimes use, and return to God's love. We are constantly being wooed by the Holy Spirit to come back. We are pursued by God like a lover who misses our attention.
We are reminded in baptism that God calls each and every one of us by name, claims us as God's own, the beloved, formed to live in love and act in service. That the Holy Spirit, present to us from our creation is made manifest to us in the presence of the loved ones who attend us at our baptism and beyond, and symbolically in the sacramental elements of water and chrism oil. We are connected in baptism with Jesus, the model for our life, to live a life surrendered to God, surrendered to love. At our baptism, Jesus asks us to die to our old life of fear and be reborn into a life of love, in intimacy with God, in relationship with the whole body of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Copyright © 1998 Rachael Crowder
.