PLUNGE
Baptism of Our Lord
(Cycle B)
January 8, 2012
FIRST
READING: Genesis 1:1-5
SECOND
GOSPEL:
Mark 1:4-11
Baptism
is the beginning. For many of us, baptism was the beginning of our life as a
disciple of Jesus. I was baptized within weeks of my birth, before I could
remember or understand anything. Baptism is pure grace—when I could not reach
out to God, God made a claim on me. Baptism is also the beginning of the story
of Jesus—at least as far as Mark the evangelist is concerned. If today’s Gospel
sounds familiar it may mean that you were here a month ago near the beginning
of Advent. We heard the first half of this Gospel that Sunday, but it started
at the very first verse of Mark’s story: “The beginning of the good news of
Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God.” And then Mark goes
on to tell us about John the Baptist, which leads us to the baptism of Jesus.
Coming off of Christmastide as we are this morning, we are used to thinking of
the beginning of Jesus’ story with the familiar birth narratives—stable and
manger, shepherds and wise men, Mary and Joseph. But not so for Mark! For Mark,
Jesus’ baptism is the beginning of this good news.
But
the way Mark tells the story, I suspect, he wants us to think about Jesus’
baptism as a beginning in an even more profound way. I suspect Mark wants us to
see in Jesus’ baptism an echo of the Big Bang, a remembrance of God’s powerful
creative acts “in the beginning.” We got to hear the very beginning of the
whole biblical epic in today’s First Reading—the very first verse of the Bible:
In the beginning when
God created the heavens and the earth…darkness covered the face of the deep,
while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. And God spoke….
It
is a haunting image of a place outside of space and time—a dream of nowhere and
never. Before there was anything there was God—a brooding presence, wind moving
over absolute darkness, watery chaos. Once again it’s helpful to keep the
Hebrew of Genesis in mind: the wind is ruach, which is also the word for breath and spirit. So the
picture here is of the wind/breath of God moving over chaos until God finally
gathers that breath into a sensible form. “And God
spoke….” And what is speech if not moving air that communicates something?
Speech is breath shaped in such a way that there is information inside it.
If
you keep all that in mind perhaps you can begin to see how Mark’s description
of Jesus’ baptism is an echo of Genesis. Mark also pictures the voice of God
and the Spirit of God hovering over the water of Jesus’ baptism. For Mark, the
beginning of good news is the beginning of new creation.
Something
interesting caught my attention in today’s Second Reading. Paul asks the
believers at Ephesus a question: “Into what then were you baptized?” It got me
thinking about that little preposition into.
You get baptized into something, as
if you were getting into a pool—which, come to think of it, is exactly how
ancient people performed baptisms. These were always baptism by
immersion—getting into the water,
being submersed, taken under. Friday evening I was talking to a guy who loves
to surf, and he was describing to me what it’s like to surf what he called a
“double overhead”—a wave that is twice as tall as he is. He described what it’s
like if it creates a tube and then the tube collapses on top of you, and how it
takes twenty-one seconds for this wave to stop crushing you so you can pop up
to the surface and get some air. Intense! I think that’s being “baptized into”
something.
Into
what have you been baptized? Into what were you inserted? What did it mean for
you to take the plunge? What were you getting yourself into?
The
Second Reading talks about being “baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” It
means getting inserted into an identity. Or to expand on the image—think about
being baptized into the name of
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God has a name you can get into, for the name of God is a set of relationships. That same
reality is there in today’s Gospel—the voice of the Father
claiming the beloved Son while the Spirit swoops down as a dove. To be baptized means getting inserted into this set of
relationships, living in this divine community. That is what we’ve
gotten ourselves into when we share in the baptism of Jesus.
But
there’s another interesting feature in today’s Second Reading. When Paul asks
these believers in Ephesus whether they have received the Holy Spirit, they
answer, “We have not even heard there was
a Holy Spirit.” And all that changes when they are baptized into Jesus and Paul
lays his hands on them and, as Luke says it, “the Holy Spirit came upon them,
and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.” This, too, takes us back to the
Genesis story. The Spirit/breath of God blew over the darkened waters of chaos
and drew itself up into sensible, sense-filled breath and God spoke. “We didn’t
even know though there was a Holy
Spirit. We didn’t know that God spoke this way.”
What
if baptism means that we get inserted into this space—this place—where God
speaks? What would that mean? Have you heard God lately? Does God speak to you?
If you have taken the plunge, do you know how to listen for the speech of God?
Baptism
gives us a clue how to listen to God. We are baptized in the name. It has to do with naming. When God speaks, it doesn’t
come out as data or mere information. It doesn’t come out as facts, or even
theological statements which we are supposed to accept or agree with. No,
listen to the voice of God in today’s Gospel: “You are my Son, the Beloved;
with you I am well pleased.” When God speaks, it comes out as address; we are spoken to. We are named. We are identified, and the voice that
speaks to us is filled with love.
But
even more! “The Holy Spirit came upon them.” Being inserted into baptism—taking
the baptismal plunge—means that God is inserted into us! God moves in. The breath of God comes into us—a kind of
divine CPR. God—the Creator God, the one who moved over the waters before the
universe was made—this God wants to get inside us. It means God takes great
risks with us. God wants to make a home—in you! We are back to the good news of
Advent and Christmas. But this isn’t a story about Mary being visited by the
angel Gabriel. No, this is a story about God coming to make a home inside you
and inside me. God moves into our humanity. The good news of incarnation—of God
becoming human, good news about “the Word made flesh”—this isn’t just about
Jesus. It is also about you and me. It is God plunging us into Jesus’ baptism
so that we can be addressed as he was—the voice, the divine breath filled with
meaning, says “You are my sons, my daughters—the ones I love.”
In
baptism, it’s not just that God asks us to take the plunge into new creation.
Even more, it means that God takes the plunge into us. God draws us into the
story of Jesus and therefore keeps the project of enfleshing
the creating word—in us! God wants a human voice, and it is ours. God wants
hands and feet—and they are ours. God wants divine love made real—and God
intends to do it in and through us.
I
don’t know about you, but I know for myself, sometimes that’s really difficult
to believe. I’ve got my own waters of dark chaos, and some days I do not feel
like a beloved son or daughter. I find it difficult to believe it about myself.
But God inserts me into Jesus, and in Jesus God speaks powerfully. God doesn’t
speak in abstractions. God wraps words in flesh and blood. “See this bread,”
says Jesus. “It’s me—my body broken for you. This cup is my blood. Here is what
you mean to me. Here is how you are loved.” Take it into yourself. Fill your
own lungs with the breath that calls to you and claims you—a beloved son, a
daughter so valued that God would even die for you. Never doubt how much you
are loved. That love can raise the dead. That love can form itself into a new
creation that says, “Let this be” so that the future gets created out of
absolutely nothing.
What
have you gotten yourself into? New life! New creation! In the name of Jesus.
Pastor Ron Roschke
Grace Lutheran Church
Boulder, Colorado
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