Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
January 11, 2015
Scriptures:Genesis 1:1-5, Mark 1:4-11
What do you know of your baptism, if indeed you’ve been baptized? If you were baptized as an infant, have you seen pictures or heard the stories? Is there a baptismal gown that has been passed down through your family? Or were you old enough to remember your own baptism – at the font, in the river, on the beach or in someone’s backyard? If you close your eyes, can you recall, or perhaps imagine, the water dripping down your face, the wet smudge of a cross on your forehead, or river water roiling around your knees? Was the water warm or shockingly cold? If you have witnessed the baptism of a son or daughter, niece or nephew, God-son or God-daughter tell me: did she or he laugh, or cry, or sleep? Do you remember seeing the water trickle down that child’s brow, or recall kissing the wet patch of hair after the pastor handed that baby back to you?
What emotions do you associate with baptism: tenderness, reverence, awkwardness, wonder or just plain sogginess? … Did it seem like a lot of fuss, a bit embarrassing, or did it have all the marks of a powerful God-moment?
If you have not been baptized yourself, what images of baptism do you have? Do you picture a well-dressed family, gathered around a bowl of water, in a sanctuary like this one, or people robed in white and wading into a river to be dunked all the way under? And in any case: what do you suppose is going on there?
Water is a powerful, primal symbol. At the very beginning, says our creation story (as vividly translated by Everett Fox and read by Linda Bruce this morning), when the world was ‘wild and waste, darkness over the face of the ocean, Rushing Spirit of God hovered over the face of the water.’ Before anything else, there was water. Scientifically speaking, all of our planet’s life emerged from water, what Soviet biologist Alexander Oparin (ah PAH rin) poetically referred to as the primordial soup. Even now, we are nurtured in the water of our mother’s womb. Our bodies are made up of anywhere from 50-75% water. If we lose just 2-3% of that water, we will feel thirsty. But it takes only 1% dehydration, to start to impair our mental performance and physical coordination.[1] And although we can live without food for weeks, we will die within days without water to drink.
We are utterly dependent on water for our survival – it is our source and our sustenance. So perhaps it’s not surprising that it plays such a central role in our Christian narrative. For Jesus, as for many of us, the journey of faith, like life itself, began in water.
Each of the four gospels begins the story differently, they all agree: that as an adult, Jesus went down to the River Jordan, to meet a wild-eyed prophet named John, who had been calling the people to repent and prepare for the coming of the Messiah. Jesus waded into the cold, muddy waters of the Jordan up to his waist and asked John to baptize him.
It’s a scene that defies our urge to make baptism too sentimental. There is nothing sentimental about standing mid-stream in a cold, muddy river with a man dressed in camel hair and smelling of locust-breath. Or of being gripped by calloused hands and submerged – momentarily unable to breath – beneath the surface of the water. Of re-emerging, dripping wet, and watching, moments later, as the sky tears apart and something comes careening out of the heavens, right toward you.
Thank God for what happened next. Because out of that rip in the sky came the voice of God, saying, “I love you. You are my child: I love you and I’m proud of you.” This is music to a child’s ears. How many times do you suppose Jesus recall that moment – and those words – in the weeks that followed, as he journeyed the difficult road that began in the River Jordan?
It turns out: Beginnings – whether modest or spectacular – soon give way to the actual living of life – life which is inevitably messier than we first imagine, life which is fraught with challenge, disappointment and pain. So we need all the love and guidance we can get. Which brings me back to that question: What is really going on there, in those breathless moments beneath the water, or in that more symbolic moment, as water is dabbed on a person’s forehead?
Although there are many ways to answer this question – enough for a whole sermon series! – one thing is clear from this morning’s text: in baptism, God marks us as God’s own. And another: baptism marks us as part of the Christian community – followers of the one who first waded into the Jordan.
In the 4th century, baptismal rites were a dramatic and extended affair that included being marked with salt, rubbed down with oil, and immersed in water. Each of these steps had symbolic meaning. Together, they transitioned the candidate from an old life to the new. Former ways were renounced, new wisdom conferred, evil banished and the body anointed as though for burial. The candidate went down in the water and rose from the font as if born brand new, ready to follow the way of Christ and be welcomed into the Christian community.
In one of the more colorful moments in this rite, candidates blew toward the west, to chase away the demons; some texts even suggest that they spit at the devil ( – a moment I’m tempted to reintroduce. Don’t you think it would be popular among the younger set? J)
In the 15th century, Martin Luther included these words in the baptismal liturgy, addressed to the devil:
“So hearken now, thou miserable devil, adjured by the name of the eternal God and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and depart trembling and groaning, conquered together with thy hatred, so that thou shalt have nothing to do with the servant of God who now seeks that which is heavenly and renounces thee and thy world.”[2]
We sometimes speak of baptism as an act through which we wash away sins, but texts like this one suggest to me that it’s more about being set free from all that binds us, free from whatever keeps us from being fully human and fully faithful. Baptism, you could argue, gives us strength for the journey. With that mark on the forehead, we are reminded that before anything else, we belong to God. God has claimed us, and loves us without reserve. So we strike out on this journey of faith, not knowing where it will lead, not knowing what it may ask of us – but trusting God to guide us along the way.
That trust is essential, because in the words of Lutheran pastor Diane Roth, “Our baptisms are passports to places we never thought we would go.”[3]
The scene that unfolded in the Jordan: it wasn’t just a heart-warming moment between parent and child, it was a moment of commissioning, of being sent: You are my son, and there is work to do. The voice that accompanied that dove-like vision may have offered words of comfort, but they were spoken through a rip in the heavens. The next time we encounter that same expression, ‘torn apart’, is at the very end of Mark’s gospel, at the moment of Jesus’ death, when the temple curtains are torn in two.
The journey that begins in the river, leads to the cross, and indeed beyond it – a detail which reminds me that baptism is no tame act. Whatever else is happening in that water, this seems clear: that we are allying ourselves with the one who allies himself with the suffering of the world. In the waters of baptism, we promise to follow, as best as we are able, the one who wades into every troubled torrent.
Writer Steve Thorngate suggests that baptism is not so much about making us ritually clean, as it is about turning us toward the world’s uncleanness.[4] In other words, baptism inducts us into a community that does not run from pain and turmoil, but rather faces into it, just as Jesus did, for the sake of healing, loving, redeeming God’s whole world.
In the coming weeks, we will celebrate two baptisms during worship. As we gather at the font, I will note that in baptism we do three things: We remember that the one to be baptized is a beloved child of God (already – before we do anything at all); we welcome the child into Christian community and we promise to raise the child in Christian faith, until the day that she chooses to affirm her baptism through confirmation.
We won’t use any salt or oil, but we may light a candle. And there will be water.
That water will serve as a sign of God’s promise AND of ours: God’s to love; ours to follow, as best as we are able.
So this week, in anticipation of that holy moment in life of our community, I invite you to look around for signs of your baptism. Find your baptismal candle if you have one, and light it. Flip through the pictures. Or just tell the story. If you have children in your home whose baptism you witnessed, tell them what you recall of that day. If you haven’t been baptized, maybe find someone who has, and ask them about it. Consider the details. Ask yourself what it means to you now, how your life is different because of that water – or how it could be.
This is the gift of every child’s baptism: It invites our whole community of faith to ask again: Will we allow those waters to change the way we look at the world? Might it give us the courage to step out, even as Jesus stepped out, in faith that God goes with us? Are we prepared to wade into the muddy water, wherever it leads, to perform acts of love and mercy, justice and healing?
As you consider your response, remember this: that there is mystery in the waters: power beyond reason, something life-giving that we cannot fully explain, nor need to. Because baptism is also about trust. Trusting those words of assurance, and the one who lead us into the waters in the first place. As to what happens next, that is in God’s hands. Thanks be to God!
* * * * * *
Genesis 1:1-5 – The Five Books of Moses translation, by Everett Fox
At the beginning of God’s creating of the heavens and the earth,
When the earth was wild and waste,
Darkness over the face of Ocean,
Rushing-spirit of god hovering over the face of the waters –
God said: Let there be light! And there was light.
God saw the light, that it was good.
God separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light: Day! And the darkness he called: Night!
There was setting, there was dawning: one day.
Mark 1:4-11 – NRSV Translation
4John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
9In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
[1] http://chemistry.about.com/od/waterchemistry/f/How-Much-Of-Your-Body-Is-Water.htm
[2] http://gnesiolutheran.com/a-flood-prayer-exorcism-for-use-in-baptism/
[3] Living the Word by Diane Roth, in Christian Century magazine, Jan 7, 2015.
[4] “Holy Water Everywhere,” by Steve Thorngate in Christian Century magazine, Dec. 24, 2014, p. 25.