Sermon: Called to Be Raised Up

Grace Presbyterian Church

June 21, 2026, Pentecost 3A

Romans 6:1-11

 

Called to Be Raised Up

 

One of the great challenges in reading (or preaching) through Romans is that there are very few places in this letter where you aren’t automatically dropping into the text in the middle of something. It’s not quite a theological stream-of-consciousness, but it feels like it sometimes, and unless you are reading the entire epistle straight through (a feat of stamina, that) you are coming in either in the middle of an idea or in the middle of a transition from one idea to another. The latter is the case with today’s reading.

The question that begins our reading makes the transitional nature of this passage quite clear. “What then are we to say?” only makes sense as a follow-up to some previous discussion, in this case chapter 5's exuberant expounding upon sin and grace, with Adam as the one through whom sin entered the world and Christ as the one through whom grace is introduced to overcome the power of sin, finally concluding with (in 5:21) “so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It may not be the most poetic verse in all of scripture – Paul was no Shakespeare – but it is in its own way beautiful and powerful.

Thus we come to Paul’s transition: “What then are we to say?” How do we respond, fellow followers of Christ?

Now it’s not exactly clear whether the question that follows this one is an actual question Paul faced in his work, or if Paul is employing a rhetorical flourish that allows him to get to the point he wants to make. The question has certainly come up in the literature of theology since Paul introduced it here, but mostly in the writings of long-ago figures such as Augustine. To us today, it sounds ridiculous (I hope!), maybe something like the smart-aleck retort of an overly cocky high-school sophomore:

“Should we continue in sin so that grace may abound?”

Say what?

Before getting to Paul’s answer, one thing needs to be clarified. Note that Paul doesn’t say “should we continue to sin”, but “should we continue in sin?” For this passage, and really for almost all of this epistle, we need to lay aside the idea of individual particular transgressions and understand that Paul is talking about a condition of sin – a separation from God, an inability (apart from the grace of God) to live in any way apart from the power of sin as mentioned briefly last week.

So, continuing, Paul’s answer is another rhetorical flourish – translated here “By no means!” while the old King James Version offers "God forbid!" – but you might get more of an understanding of Paul’s incredulousness by substituting a more modern equivalent. My mind keeps coming up with “No way!”; a younger generation than mine might come up with “As if!” Whatever conveys for you that the suggestion is utterly ridiculous and almost impossible to take seriously, go with that.

What Paul would have his readers (and us) understand is that being in Christ means not just "not liking" sin or not wanting to sin; it is to be dead to sin. It is to be no longer under its domination, no longer willing to choose to submit to its power. Our reality is no longer the rule of sin, but the rule of grace given by God; to suggest that we might sin more in order to get more grace is to misunderstand most profoundly what grace is and how it works in us.

But that idea of being dead to sin is what Paul works out here, and in order to do so he turns to something that his Roman readers are most familiar with, an act that the community engaged in on a fairly regular basis; the act of baptism.

To be sure, baptism in this early period of the church looked not at all like it does in churches today, and I’m not just talking about churches that sprinkle from the font like us Presbyterians. For one thing, archaeological evidence strongly suggests that, in those locations that came to be built or dedicated or used specifically for worship, the baptismal pool was in fact in the center of the room – not a pulpit nor even a table for communion. Such structures were round and descended by steps down to the pool at the lowest point in the room. Even if the group or groups in Romans did not regularly meet in such a place it is most likely that they sought out such a location for the ritual of baptism.

You can see what that does to the baptismal rite. The convert being baptized actually had to descend to the pool and ascend up from it after being baptized. As a result, the image of baptism is actually pretty easy to tie to Paul’s description here and elsewhere; in being baptized we go down (with Christ) to death and are raised up (with Christ) to new life.

These early church groups often added another element reinforcing this visual image of descent and ascent with another signifier of change; the one being baptized cast away the garment they were wearing before entering the water, and then they put on a new garment upon coming out of the water. Being changed visually became a sign of being changed in every other way.

It’s no surprise, then, that Paul would turn to an image his readers could readily identify in order to explain what it means to be dead to sin; it was a visceral way of communicating the importance of the idea, one which affected the entire community, many if not most of whom had experienced the rite of baptism in becoming part of that community (and those who hadn’t yet were possibly in the process of getting to that point).

But Paul is not merely concerned with being dead to sin, no longer under the power of sin, but he also wants the Romans to understand the consequence of being dead to sin. Being dead to sin is being alive to Christ. Paul wants his readers to understand that being dead to sin (marked by passing through the waters of baptism) was deliverance from slavery to sin, and deliverance to freedom and life in Christ – not just immediately, but also for eternity.

This is the call of the follower of Christ; to know oneself, in Christ’s crucifixion, to be dead to sin – not bound to that power any longer but to be raised up, in Christ’s resurrection, into new life in the grace and love and freedom of Christ.

We are not immune from individual acts that would be called sins, but we are not bound to them. We are not under the power of sin over us as an ongoing condition. One “sin” does not equal the power of sin. We repent, because we have sinned, but we are not enslaved to it. We don’t drop the Prayer of Confession from our order of service, but we don’t say it without an answering Assurance of Pardon, reflecting the grace into which we have been delivered.

So, sin more to get more grace? No way. Live in the resurrection, now and forever.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal unless otherwise indicated): #409, God Is Here!; #482, Baptized in Water; #---, Come walk in this new life!

 

 

See, the cat gets it...

Sermon: Water

First Presbyterian Church, East Moline, IL

January 11, 2026, Baptism of the Lord A

Acts 10:34-48; Matthew 3:13-17

 

Water

 

It is indispensible to our lives. Aside from air, it is the one most basic element that we cannot survive long without. Even food is not quite as utterly necessary; one could live without food for possibly as much as three admittedly horrible weeks, but without water one can only hope for about three days. Our bodies consist of about sixty percent water.

Water also covers about two-thirds of the planet and is life-giving not only for humans. Animals need it as well. Vegetation, for the most part, cannot live without it. Those fruits and vegetables we take in for nourishment will never come to fruition without the right amount of water at the right time. And yet too much water, or too much at the wrong time, can destroy those very fruits and vegetables, as well as the animal population of an area. On the other hand, too little water, or water too late, leaves a land prone to drought or fire, as much of the West Coast experiences on a frighteningly regular basis..

In short, it is virtually impossible to exaggerate how important water is to the health and well-being of this planet and all that lives in it.

Water, though, is not only subject to nature; human interactions can diminish its life-giving power. The city of Flint, Michigan, had no trustworthy source of drinkable water for more than six years due to gross human mismanagement; in our former state of Florida, mismanagement and abuse of the Everglades system has hastened natural decline to surrounding areas that have relied on those waters for their sustenance; and nowadays water is being hoarded for massive data centers for generating interactive "artificial intelligence" applications, water that people in those areas need to drink. For something so important to life on the most basic level, water can end up awfully mistreated and misused in human hands.

Of course, water has a pretty prominent role in scripture as well. Even at the very beginning, water shows up; the second verse of Genesis speaks of how “darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” The second and third acts of creation, in the verses that follow, involve separating the waters above from the waters below (that is, creating the Sky) and separating the waters below from the land (1:6-10). But later in Genesis, those waters overwhelm the world in a massive and earth-destroying flood, an element of the story we somehow downplay when telling about Noah and the ark. 

By Exodus water becomes both a barrier and a medium in which God performs great miracles. Most famously in Exodus, we read of God parting the waters of the sea to allow the Hebrew people to cross over, while the pursuing Egyptian army is washed away when they try to cross. A smaller-scale version of this deliverance through water occurs when the next generation of these Hebrew people, now led by Joshua, are able to cross over into the Promised Land as the Jordan River parts before them. 

Water also shows up in much of the poetry and imagery of scripture. Think of the most famous of psalms, in which the Lord “my shepherd” leads the psalmist beside still waters. But the images don’t stop there; think of the shepherd-turned-prophet Amos and his thundering oracle “but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream,” or Isaiah’s declaration that “waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.”

Indeed, by the time this fellow John shows up along the Jordan, calling all to be baptized for the repentance of sins [Mt 3:11], water has acquired a pretty prolific stature in the history and story of Israel. 

The story of the baptism is brief; John is baptizing, Jesus comes to be baptized, John is reluctant ("I need to be baptized by you...") but Jesus persuades him to do the work, and when Jesus comes up from the water that voice announces him as the Son in whom God is well pleased.

The meaning and significance of baptism changes between this time, when John baptizes for the forgiveness of sins, and the end of this gospel, when the risen Jesus charges his followers to “go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” To be sure, repentance is still a part of baptism, but baptism takes on more in Jesus’s commission; it carries not only repentance but also belonging; it marks being in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; it marks discipleship. It marks what comes to be known, over the course of the book of Acts, as the church.

In our reading from Acts 10, Peter has, with some agitation, obeyed a divine imperative to go to visit a Roman centurion by the name of Cornelius, with his family. Cornelius was evidently what was known in the language of the time as a God-fearer, a Gentile who nonetheless feared and prayed to the God of the people among whom he had been dispatched to serve. Finding Cornelius and his family ready and waiting to hear, Peter begins what might be called his go-to sermon, somewhat adapted for the situation. The Holy Spirit, however, had other ideas, and before Peter even got warmed up the Spirit visited a visible and clear manifestation of God’s favor upon Cornelius and his family.

First of all, Peter and the (Jewish by birth) entourage that had accompanied him to Cornelius’s house were floored. This was clearly a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, but…these people were…were…were [shudder] Gentiles! It was inconceivable to Peter and all of the rest, in Jerusalem or any other place, that Gentiles – outsiders – could possibly be so favored. And yet clearly God had visited Cornelius and his household. What could Peter do?

Ultimately Peter realized that, if he were to be true to his Savior, he had no choice. “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” he asks. 

Can anyone withhold the water?

There is nothing magic about the water of baptism itself. The Jordan River water in which John baptized was the same muddy stuff in which others fished or swam or washed clothes or any number of other very mundane life tasks. It’s the same stuff as the water that got parted before Moses’s staff, the same stuff that overwashed the earth in Noah’s day, the stuff that falls from the sky or comes out of your tap. And yet in this very basic element, by Jesus’s example and by Jesus’s instruction, is the sign and symbol of belonging to God. Because of Jesus’s submission to the sign of baptism in water, and because of Jesus’s commission to baptize with that same water, it does mean more than something to drink when thirsty. 

Again, the water is not magic. The water does not save you. And yet in the water of baptism we are shown as God’s own. Whether we are baptized ourselves or bringing our youngest for baptism, we are pledging repentance and even renunciation of sin and evil; we are being claimed as disciples of Jesus, living in obedience to what Jesus has taught and commanded; we are showing the mark of the Holy Spirit, no matter where we come from.

That’s a lot of meaning for this most basic element of human existence. 

And maybe the neatest part of all of this is that, while doing a whole reaffirmation of baptism in worship is kinda cool and fun (yes, I’m serious), we don’t need it to remember our baptism. I know, for those who were baptized as infants it isn’t really literally possible to remember your baptism. Even if somebody shows you a picture of the occasion it’s not going to trigger any real actual memories for you. (As I grew up in a different tradition I wasn’t baptized as an infant; I was baptized when I was nine, and even remembering that is pretty foggy at this point in my life.) So no, we are not literally talking about remembering the actual act and occasion. 

But…

We remember whose we are. We remember the God who claims us despite our best efforts and who calls us children no matter what kind of rebellion we try. We also remember that God does the same for a whole bunch of children we would not claim as our siblings except that God does it for us. We remember the water that could not be denied to us, no matter how far outside the pale it might have seemed. We remember repentance and belonging and being marked by the Holy Spirit. And the neat part is, if we’re open and listening and ready to look at the world – the whole creation – through the eyes of the Creator, then all we need to help us remember all of this is…water.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #375, Shall We Gather at the River; #---, Then Jesus came from Galilee; #482, Baptized in Water

Sermon: The Heavens Torn Apart

Grace Presbyterian Church

January 7, 2024, Baptism of the Lord B

Genesis 1:1-5; Mark 1:4-5, 9-11

 

The Heavens Torn Apart

 

 

Does anything about this story from Mark sound familiar?

In truth there are several passages that might evoke something familiar from the Old Testament, or scripture we just heard during the season of Advent in particular. John the Baptist gets his own Sunday in Advent, and his wilderness-chic wardrobe might have touched off sparks of recognition. Maybe the image of the dove descending brought back memories of, say, the story of Noah’s Ark, and the dove that finally returned, letting Noah know that dry land was on its way.

In this case, though, I have in mind a particular image, found in a particular scripture from Isaiah that actually got preached about a month ago. Maybe it sounds just a little bit familiar? From the very beginning of Isaiah 64… 

“Oh, that you would tear open the heavens and come down…”

And there in today’s reading, verse 10:

“And 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.”

Honestly, it’s hard to believe Mark didn’t do that deliberately.

Of course, Isaiah had a much bigger display in mind. You might remember that the prophet spoke of mountains shaking, fire causing water to boil, enemies trembling, that kind of stuff. And of course, in Isaiah’s prophetic wish, the heavens-being-torn-open act was meant for all to see. Everybody was meant to be impressed and “scared straight,” so to speak, turning away from sin and rebellion to obedience to God.

That’s not quite how Mark’s account goes. In this case it seems Jesus is the only one who sees the heavens torn apart. Other gospels record the scene differently, but here the vision was apparently meant for Jesus alone. And of course, the Spirit “descending like a dove” probably wasn’t the follow-up Isaiah had in mind. Screaming like a hawk, perhaps, but a dove? Too peaceful-sounding, although doves actually don't sound all that peaceful if you catch them right.

Nonetheless, even this scene should give us pause. This was not a “safe” act for Jesus. Directly after this baptism Jesus would be driven out into the wilderness, to face temptation at the hands of the tempter himself (although we won't get to that reading until Lent). The course of Jesus’s ministry on earth was never going to be smooth, and Mark manages to make that clear just from this one image. “The heavens torn apart…”

In fact, this kind of imagery isn’t something Mark overdoes. The Greek word used here only appears one other time in this gospel, at the other end of it. In Mark 15:38, as Jesus hangs on the cross and dies, at that moment (we are told) that the curtain of the Temple was “torn in two.” The disruptive image of being “torn apart” returns at the end of Jesus’s ministry as it had appeared at its beginning.

Let’s be honest, it’s hard for us to think of baptism in this way. Nowadays, particularly in church traditions like ours, baptism often gets made “cute.” We have this cute little bowl of water, a child is baptized wearing a specially made and very cute baptism garment in many cases, … it’s just not the kind of picture that lends itself to images of the heavens torn apart. 

And yet, if we’re doing it right, this baptism can lead us places we don’t expect to go. If you’re lucky, it leads you to something manageable, like being ordained and then installed as an elder on your church’s session. Maybe even on the church's transition team.  And sometimes even a form of service like that can feel a little bit as though the heavens are least being ripped a little bit.

You might find yourself being led into far riskier and more challenging forms of service, whether it be in a pulpit or a mission field. You might find yourself put in a position of having to speak unpleasant truths among people who don’t want to hear them. You might find yourself, in the words of the PC(USA)’s A Brief Statement of Faith, called to “unmask idols in church and culture,” which never seems to go well for the one doing the unmasking. You might find yourself challenged to walk away from the comfortable and profitable, towards the challenging and impoverished to whom Jesus ministered. There’s no telling where that baptism might lead you. 

But baptism does come with its promises as well. You won’t find yourself abandoned. As a popular saying went in my younger days, “If you think God’s far away, guess who moved?” You won’t be left defenseless in the stormy and difficult times. You won’t be given up for lost or forsaken – not because baptism is some kind of magic talisman, but because the Jesus who took on baptism himself is faithful and unwilling to give us up, the ones whom he gave so much to redeem.

Remembering our baptism is obviously not meant to be a literal remembering for most of us; if you were baptized as an infant you are not expected to "remember" what happened on that occasion.  "Remembering our baptism," if anything, is about our need to remember the vows that were made for us, perhaps, and reaffirmed in our confirmation, or that we made ourselves if we were baptized as youth or adults. These things did not happen in isolation, but in the body of Christ represented by the church where that baptism took place. Parents who brought you forward before the congregation, trusting the pastor not to drop you or get water in your little baby eyes, the elder who spoke the words of the rite on behalf of that congregation, the pastor who performed the act "in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit"; we can remember that the baptism we experienced was done with and in the body of Christ, and marked us as belonging to that body. 

In either case, be aware that even now, your baptism may lead you somewhere you never expected, even if the heavens aren’t torn apart.

For the unexpected path from the baptismal font, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal); #408, There's a Sweet, Sweet Spirit; #482, Baptized in Water; #480, Take Me to the Water

Sermon: To Fulfill All Righteousness

Grace Presbyterian Church

January 8, 2017, Baptism of the Lord A

Isaiah 42:1-9; Matthew 3:13-17

To Fulfill All Righteousness

As is the case in Mark and Luke as well, Matthew makes Jesus’s first adult appearance in his gospel the occasion on which he went out to the Jordan to be baptized by John the Baptizer. While the Gospel of John does record Jesus going out to where John was baptizing, and John witnessing the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus, it never does record an actual baptism of Jesus by John, as the other three gospels do.

Matthew’s account is most similar to Mark’s – the one that was most likely written first – but there are a couple of noteworthy differences between the two narratives. One is a simple matter of wording; while Matthew’s account of the post-baptism descent of the Spirit merely says that the heavens were “opened to him,” Mark goes for the much more dramatic suggestion that the heavens were “torn apart” for the Spirit to descend. Now that’s a difference you could make sermons from, but I’m not sure it’s the most important difference from the perspective of reading Matthew’s gospel.

No, the difference in Matthew’s gospel, the one that makes this account unique, is that brief exchange between John and Jesus in vv. 14-15. It is for some an answer to a thorny theological question, but it is also a tremendous clue to what it means, way back in chapter 1 of this gospel, when Matthew starts setting up Jesus as the one who is to be called Emmanuel, or “God-with-us.”

As Jesus approaches John, the Baptizer is hesitant, reluctant in a way that is not at all like the brash character presented in the first twelve verses of this chapter. That John the Baptizer is relentless in message – “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven has come near” – and outright hostile to the Pharisees and Sadducees who show up, not to mention the camel-hair clothing and locusts-and-honey diet. That John,…it’s hard to imagine him hesitating one way or the other about his task.

But as Jesus comes forward, John suddenly is reticent, recognizing the “one who is more powerful than I” he had just mentioned back in verse 11. His words – “I need to be baptized by you” – are remarkable for the self-awareness of his own sinfulness; that this one comes to him – him! – to be baptized is more than John can bear.

And in truth, John has a point.

John says it plainly in verse 11; “I baptize you with water for repentance.” The first word of his message is “Repent.” The people were coming out to the Jordan for John’s baptism, as verse 6 says, “confessing their sins.” Even his chastisement of the Pharisees and Sadducees challenged those religious authorities to “bear fruit worthy of repentance” in verse 8. Clearly, the principal point of John’s baptism is repentance of sin.

But what, exactly, does Jesus have to repent?

In the later words from the book of Hebrews, we hold that Jesus was “tested as we are, yet without sin.” Back here in Matthew we can see that “testing” played out in the temptation of Jesus, for one, but those final words – something that John recognized in this Jesus who now stood before him – do raise a perfectly acceptable question; if Jesus really was “without sin,” then why would he submit to John’s baptism of repentance of sin? What’s the point?

Actually, we could argue that there are a couple of points. One potential point of Jesus’s human baptism has to do with his relationship to God the Father, and the other with his relationship to us.

In coming down to be baptized, Jesus is on the one hand showing his complete submission to the task set before him in his human ministry. Simply put, Jesus’s action is in accordance with God’s will, and is an initial demonstration that all of Jesus’s actions – be they deeds or words, teaching or ministry or dying or rising again – are going to be in accordance with God’s will. You could also argue that in doing so Jesus presents a model for us to follow, but in this case the act of obedience still holds up whether we follow it or not. Jesus will do God’s will, no matter what. And in the vision that follows Jesus’s baptism, with the heavens opening and the Voice proclaiming him “my beloved son” for all to hear, God confirms Jesus’s obedience and identity for all to hear.

On the other hand, Jesus’s presence at John’s baptizing spot also speaks very directly to how Jesus relates to us, providing at the very beginning of his public life and ministry a demonstration that Jesus is, as Matthew called him way back in chapter 1, “God-with-us.”

Sinless though Jesus is, he nonetheless comes to us in our sinfulness, in our desperate need for repentance. He is with us at the Jordan, standing in solidarity with us sinners that we are, because that’s being God-with-us. Jesus as Son of God will tolerate nothing separating us from him. That’s a huge part of Jesus being God-with-us.

No matter how low, God-with-us; no matter how lost, God-with-us; no matter how estranged or separated, God-with-us.

Even at his very beginning Jesus is, before the temptation, before the Sermon on the Mount, before the teaching and healing and trouble with the authorities and crucifixion and resurrection, God-with us.

And Jesus always is to be God-with-us.

For God-with-us, no matter what, Thanks be to God. Amen.

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal):

#375                        Shall We Gather at the River

#164                        Down Galilee’s Slow Roadways

#688                        Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart

#480                        Take Me to the Water

Credit: agnusday.org. Hmm, good question...

Meditation: High and Dangerous Waters

Another two-posted-sermon day. This was from Saturday, July 9, a meditation given at the closing worship service of a new-student program at my seminary alma mater. I was dumb enough to volunteer. Wasn't going to post, but decided, why not? But do remember the context.


Union Presbyterian Seminary

July 9, 2016, Communities of Learning Face-to-Face Worship

Genesis 7:11-12, 17-20; Psalm 69; Mark 1:4-12

High and Dangerous Waters

Have you ever been caught in an undertow? Out in the ocean, finding yourself suddenly a lot farther from the beach than you expected? I know some of you are beach people, so maybe you know what I'm talking about. An undertow or a rip current is a pretty frightening thing for an eight-year-old, which is how old I was when I had my first experience of one. Fortunately I was with an older sibling and a cousin who knew enough to paddle our little float sideways until we escaped the rip current and get back to dry land.

As much as water is a frequent metaphor in the church, I wonder if at times we lose some of the power of that metaphor in the way we use it. We’re all Psalm 23 and the Lord our shepherd leading us by the still waters. It’s a pretty image, one that has been reproduced in countless examples of artistic kitsch with Anglo Jesus cuddling an adorable baby lamb or something similar (paintings that will never get into the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts). On the other hand, though, the psalmist who gave us the psalm we just sang looked at waters just a bit differently, in 69:1-2:

Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.

I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.

That psalmist is hardly the only biblical writer who saw the waters as source of wildness and peril. The tale of Job features none other than God boasting of the untamed torrents of water, fathomless deeps, and the fantastic Leviathan that sported in the deeps beyond human comprehension. The story of Jonah also evokes the terrors of the sea, as Jonah is beset by storm, gulped up by a great fish, and finally spat up on the shore.

These are high and dangerous waters.

Perhaps the most dramatic such story of water and its terrors is the account of the great flood in Genesis. The outlines of the story itself I would imagine you know well enough; but let the description of the rising waters sink in. “The fountains of the great deep burst forth…the windows of the heavens were opened…” Waters so great and so deep that the mountains were covered – and not just covered, but overtopped and submerged. It is a terrifying picture. These are high and dangerous waters.

It’s not hard to imagine that later descendents of those Hebrew peoples had such stories in their heads as they made their way down to the Jordan to be baptized by this crazy wilderness preacher John, called the Baptizer. The Jordan was neither small nor still. Maybe it was just enough to convey the sense of danger that tradition had ascribed to waters in various ways in Hebrew scripture.

John himself was also a pretty good picture of wildness and danger. Mark, who is not normally given to great detail, slows down his account long enough to give us the “runway description” of John’s wardrobe and diet. Just imagine the fashion show: And the Baptizer is commanding the path down into the river today in an inverted camel-hair ensemble that just oozes unpredictability and danger, with a striking leather accessory around his waist…amazing how John keeps in fighting trim with his patented honey-and-locust diet… . In short, there’s no reason to think anybody saw this passage, this event, this baptism as normal or “safe” or “tame.” Even in the Jordan, these are high and dangerous waters.

Jesus is among these crowds, to be baptized by the eccentric wilderness prophet with the eccentric wardrobe and diet. At this point in Mark’s story, Jesus is just this guy, you know? Oh, except for Mark calling him “the Son of God” back in verse one of this chapter. He himself only shows up from Nazareth in verse 9, and like all of the other pilgrims to John’s baptism spot, he steps into the water and is baptized.

Then things get crazy, at least for Jesus. The heavens “torn apart” – don’t miss that! No mere “opening” or parting like those other wimpy gospels. “Torn apart”! The Spirit shrieking down like a dove, the voice from heaven … the waters of the Jordan turn out to be high and dangerous waters indeed. Oh, and then there’s a wilderness ahead, too.

Y’all are not doing a safe thing. You are starting an experience that, despite our best efforts to give you a sneak peek, will challenge you in ways you’ve can’t imagine. Your faith will be bounced around and challenged and bruised and even broken in some places. You will wonder what you are doing here, and why, why, why you put yourself through this. You will question your calling, your ability, and even your sanity.

And it won’t stop when you graduate and move into your vocation. You’ll be heading into a place where you won’t be able to leave town without wondering if the parishioner who has been battling cancer longer than you’ve even been in the church will succumb to it before you get home. You will go into a calling where you will see poverty you couldn’t imagine existing in the most impoverished places on the planet, and it will be in your own town. You may see literal high waters ravage your community, as one of my classmates has in West Virginia of late. You will see hatred and bigotry and cruelty to turn your stomach, and love and grace and mercy and joy beyond your imagination.

This font may not look like it, but it contains high and dangerous waters indeed. You have no idea where the currents will take you, what the skies will tear open and show you, what wilderness you’ll be driven into.

And Jesus calls you to dive in. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal)

#164                  Down Galilee’s Slow Roadways

#602                  Holy Lamb of God

#478                  Save Me, O God, I Sink In Floods

#482                  Baptized in Water

Sermon: Of Water and Spirit

Grace Presbyterian Church

January 10, 2016, Baptism of the Lord C

Luke 3:15-17, 20-21; Acts 8:14-17

Of Water and Spirit

Well, if it wasn’t clear before, it is now. Christmas is over.

The greenery is gone, no more poinsettias, and those wandering wise men have completed their journey from the narthex to the nativity, to their ultimate destination: the worship committee storage room. All of the visible symbols are gone.

The way the liturgical calendar falls this year is a bit unusual, in that the turnaround from Advent/Christmas to Lent is pretty brief: Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent, is actually one month from today, on February 10. It’s an early-Easter year, with that pinnacle holiday of the Christian year falling on March 27.

As a result, this in-between season is pretty brief. It would be fairly easy to check out for a few Sundays as a pastor, to “just get by” until Ash Wednesday and gear up for the season of Lent.

That would be easy, but I think we would be missing something if I did that.

Let us look for a moment at how this in-between season begins and ends. The Advent-Christmas cycle ends with the observance of Epiphany, in which the church commemorates the visit of the wise men, or magi, to pay homage to the child Jesus. We observed that event Wednesday evening in a small service. Perhaps the main “takeaway” from Epiphany is that it represents a particular manifestation, a particular recognition of God, in this case in Jesus, the child, to whom those magi came by following what might best be labeled a divinely-appointed star. The Epiphany story, found in Matthew 2, stands out in the broader Advent-Christmas cycle as a revelation particularly directed to the Gentiles, not to others in the Jewish population into which Jesus was born. Despite the meager appearance of a child born in an out-of-the-way place, those sages knew enough and recognized enough to understand that they were in the presence of something divine.

On the other end of this mini-season, on the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday, is that strange event known as the Transfiguration. In that event, told from Luke 9 this year, Jesus goes up a mountain with a small group of his disciples, and while there, Jesus is transfigured – his appearance altered, marked by dazzling brightness – and Moses and Elijah appear with him. Strange, to be sure, but again the kind of thing one might possibly expect when dealing with a divine figure.

Now, looking at today’s readings, maybe we can see something that might represent a theme we can develop. Perhaps the story of Jesus’s baptism, as told by Luke, might help us here. Coming down to the river where John preached and baptized, we see Jesus among the crowds there. We hear a bit of John’s sermonizing – this was a pretty consistent theme with John, talking about the one who was to come after him, with a bit of scary-sounding imagery thrown in about winnowing forks and unquenchable fire. And then we hear that Jesus is among them and also being baptized.

Even this acknowledgment is perhaps a bit theologically puzzling. Exactly what was Jesus being baptized for? What did a man who had no sin for which to repent need to be here for? It’s enough of a troublesome idea that the gospel of John actually does not portray Jesus actually being baptized by John. Jesus does go to John and John essentially points at him and says “he’s the guy!” but John never does baptize Jesus. In Matthew’s gospel John does baptize Jesus, but only under protest. Only in Mark’s gospel does the baptism of Jesus by John happen in a fairly straightforward and direct fashion, without resistance.

What Luke and Matthew and Mark point to in this scene is the degree to which Jesus fulfills the “fully human” part of the “fully human, fully divine” characteristic by which we know Jesus. Sinless as he was, he submitted himself to be baptized. The thing we do at the baptistry or the river or at our little font cannot be dismissed as an empty or meaningless gesture when the One whose name we claim, the one by whose name we are called, went down to the water to be baptized himself.

Now, most of us don’t get the extra-special heavenly shout-out that came after Jesus’s baptism, when he had found a place aside to pray. We aren’t accustomed to seeing the heavens open up and having a voice from above calling us “beloved.” But it matters nonetheless, and it’s not wrong to expect or to think that something special and important is happening.

But the reading from Acts points to something else we should learn to expect.

In this account, the deacon Philip has been journeying in regions outside Judea or Galilee, and has been proclaiming the gospel in Samaria since being run out of Jerusalem after the persecutions of Saul. In addition to Philip’s preaching, miracles were happening: demons were being cast out, the paralyzed were being raised up to walk, and many others were being cured. The word got back to those followers still in Jerusalem that “Samaria had accepted the word of God.”

You would think the first reaction would be rejoicing, but no. The first reaction of the Jerusalem group was an investigation. That’s a little bit of an ugly sign. We should remember that Samaritans were regarded as deeply inferior people with corrupt worship practices but the Jews of Judea, but that’s not a good enough reason to react with suspicion and something like fear at what should be good news.

So Peter and John arrive in Samaria and start asking questions. And indeed it does turn out that something is missing. In the post-Pentecost world in which the Jerusalem group found itself, they did recognize that the activity of the Holy Spirit that had first dramatically been shown on that day meant that they, no matter how they tried, couldn’t be the same people they had been before. But the Samaritans hadn’t heard about this Holy Spirit yet. Peter and John taught and prayed and laid hands upon them, and “they received the Holy Spirit,” although we aren’t in this passage given any specific indication of how this showed itself, whether it was some kind of Pentecost-like demonstration or something else. But something changed. In some way the presence of the Holy Spirit showed itself in the Samaritans that made it clear that the Holy Spirit was there.

Something changes.

If we are to claim our baptism, if we are to be called followers of Christ, if we claim to be marked as children of God, something changes. Living conventionally doesn’t do any more. If we claim to be the family of God, the body of Christ, worshiping and learning in God’s house, our time together should look different and leave us looking and sounding different.

So maybe that’s what this miniature season is for. What does it look like – what do we look like – when God shows up? What does it mean to be answering God’s call, whether to be an elder, as four of our number are answering today, or to be teaching in Sunday school or singing in choir or even simply being here as part of the church? How are we changed, if what we say about ourselves is true? If we dare apply the word “Christian” to ourselves, how do we look or sound or act different? What does it mean to take our baptism seriously? What does it mean to be under the influence of the Holy Spirit? What’s different about us?

This is a particularly crucial time to ask ourselves that question. We live in a time and a society in which a lot of people are very loudly and insistently calling themselves “Christians” and yet living and speaking and showing absolutely zero signs of their baptism or of having received the Holy Spirit. Whether at political rallies or sporting events, or in courtrooms or corporate offices or internet comment sections, or even holed up in wildlife refuges in Oregon, there are so many self-appointed Christians living zero evidence of the life and teaching of Christ, living in absolute rebellion against the moving of the Holy Spirit. As a result when we go out and claim to be Christians, to be followers of Christ, to be led by the Holy Spirit, we’re going to be viewed with suspicion.

So maybe it’s worth some time in this in-between season to look to scripture and ask ourselves what it looks like when God really is here. Maybe we should ask what it looks like then the Holy Spirit truly is received and welcomed among us. Maybe we should ask ourselves what it looks like to live up to our baptism, to answer God’s call, to live and act and talk like a follower of Christ.

And then maybe we have to ask ourselves how much we look and act and sound like that. So let’s spend a few weeks on that, shall we?

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Hymns: “Shall We Gather At the River” (GtG 375); “How Firm a Foundation” (PH 361); “Baptized in Water” (PH 492); “How Clear Is Our Vocation, Lord” (PH 419)

Sermon: Through the Waters

Grace Presbyterian Church

February 22, 2015, Lent 1B

1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15

Through the Waters

How often do we think about water?

Maybe when we’re thirsty.  Maybe, though I suspect many of us have other liquids that come to mind first.  But I suspect for most of us water is just…there. 

Every now and then it makes headlines, when too much of it falls from the sky or crashes destructively on shore.  Or sometimes it makes headlines because of how we abuse it; only this week  at least five different accidents – four in North Dakota, one in West Virginia – caused either oil or the waste products from oil drilling and refining – to be spilled into sensitive wetlands or into rivers that supply drinking water to nearby towns and cities.  The West Virginia accident was along the same waterway system affected by a massive chemical spill that rendered water undrinkable in a number of that state’s cities for months.

Suffice to say we’re not always very good stewards of what is a basic human need. 

I doubt we’re the first civilization to be cavalier about water, though I question just how toxic the abuse of water in previous generations was by comparison.  Maybe the shocking part is that we know better and do it anyway.  At any rate, the human relationship with water is ambivalent at best, destructive at worst.  And I have not even gotten into how we commodify water, the way it gets bottled and sold at three bucks a pop in some locations.

I wonder how many of the folks who wrote down the books that are found in the Bible would view our seeming disregard of water.  When you spend time with scripture, water turns up in key, if not always noticed, roles in many of our well-known Bible stories.  Even the story of creation features God separating the waters above the earth from the waters below the earth – giving us a story to account for such things as springs, or rain.  Then the waters are separated from the dry land.  The story of Moses’s birth and adoption plays out against a backdrop of the execution of Hebrew boy children, in which Moses’s life was saved by hiding him in the water grasses to be found and taken in by a Pharaoh’s daughter – Moses was delivered through the waters. 

Of course the big water story in the Old Testament is the Noah story, in which the world is overrun with water, and only Noah and his family survive.  Water was the source of trouble and danger in this case, and Noah – as Moses would be in the later story – had to be prepared to survive the tumult of the waters that flooded the earth, with forty days and forty nights of rain.  The author of our epistle reading today explicitly ties that story to the practice of baptism, saying that Noah’s being “saved through water” presaged our being “saved through water” in baptism. 

It’s a funny phrase to use, when you think about it; in the case of Noah, the water itself was the threat, while we really don’t think of that font and pitcher of water down here as particularly hazardous.  Maybe in those traditions that practice baptism by immersion the metaphor is a little clearer; when one goes down into the water for those few moments, unable to breathe or see, maybe that instant carries something of that threat. 

But no, we’re not going to dunk Kailin today.  Still, the epistle and gospel both point to something that she and her parents, and all of us as well, will want to remember.  These are not magic waters.  They don’t turn into a superpower, some kind of magical shield that keeps all trouble or pain away from you.

It’s a terrible thing to think as young as she is, but Kailin will know sorrow in her lifetime.  I hope and pray it’s not soon, but someday, something will happen that will break her heart.  She may know scorn, or mistreatment by her friends, or some other kind of disappointment that will cause her grief.  With the life ahead of her will come disappointment, inevitably, and passing through these waters will not prevent any of it.

In 1 Peter we see that the group of believers receiving this letter is evidently going through some sort of difficulty.  It is never made explicitly clear whether the community of Christ-followers is actually being persecuted for their beliefs, or undergoing some lesser sort of difficulty over them, or simply suffering some kind of setback unrelated to their faith.  Whatever it was, the community was struggling with how these things could be happening to them, demonstrating if nothing else that the question “why do bad things happen to good people?” is an old one indeed.

The gospel presents a different story, but one that also shows us something important about baptism.  Jesus comes down to the Jordan to be baptized by John, and upon coming out of the water he sees a sight both wonderful and terrible; “the heavens torn apart and the spirit descending like a dove on him.”  Other gospel writers who include this story are much milder, simply saying things like “the heavens were opened to him” (Matt. 3:16) , but Mark (as you might have noticed by now) is all about the drama and even conflict.  This baptism wasn’t “cute”; it was the beginning of something unusual, something that made sure this wasn’t going to be an ordinary life. 

And the first thing that Jesus does afterwards, after this baptism and this wild and uncontrollable tearing open of the heavens, was … to go off into the wilderness.  Not voluntarily, mind you; he was “driven” into the wilderness, by the Spirit no less.

So there Jesus is, out in the wilderness for forty days, undergoing temptation directly from Satan himself, and with wild beasts present as well.  Unlike other gospels, Mark doesn’t get into specifics about the temptations Satan put before Jesus – no turning stones into bread, no throwing himself off a high cliff for the angels to catch him.  We are only told that he was “tempted by Satan,” that “he was with the wild beasts,” and that “angels waited on him.”  We are left to imagine what those temptations were, or what wild beasts might have been about.

It might be hard to imagine what particular temptations Jesus might have faced, but it’s not hard for each of us to imagine, or perhaps to recall, the kind of temptations and struggles we might have faced or might face in our own lives. 

Kailin will face her own temptations, and unlike Jesus is likely to give in to them.  It’s entirely possible that some time this week or this month or this year, she just might dump her food on the floor instead of eating it, even though she is being baptized today. As she grows up the struggles and temptations will become more complex and maybe more challenging.

Baptism will prevent none of those things. 

What baptism does, among many other things, is remind us that before we pass through these ordinary waters, Christ has already passed through the waters.  Christ has gone before us, facing temptations like we face, facing the struggles and frustrations and scorn of the world, facing nothing less than death itself, and through Christ’s unkillable love we are already preserved through the waters, saved through whatever temptations and failings and darkness may yet come.  We are reminded, as Jesus says in verse 15, that “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is come near.”

I don’t know how often baptisms occur on the first Sunday of Lent, but in this case it might well be very appropriate that we do so. For, as Kailin is baptized into the one holy and universal church today, we are also reminded of our own baptism.  We are reminded that we do not cross through these turbulent and dangerous waters alone.  We are not baptized alone, left to fend for ourselves in the wilderness.  We are baptized into the body of Christ. We are baptized into one another, you might say; we become that fellowship that pulls together in time of trouble, the body that suffers when one member suffers and rejoices when one member rejoices.  We pick each other up when we fall, and we know that the members of the body will pick us up when we fall.  Baptism reminds us that Christ’s life and death and life again have made us his own, and that our redemption is not thwarted or ruined when we fail.  To borrow words from A Brief Statement of Faith (as found in the Presbyterian Book of Confessions), baptism reminds us that “In life and in death we belong to God.” 

And indeed Kailin belongs to God, not because we’re going to splash some water on her in a few moments, but because God has loved and claimed her from the very first.  And God will love her and claim her until she is full of days and goes on to meet her Lord face to face.  In life and in death, Kailin belongs to God.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.    

Hymns (PH ’90): “This Is My Father’s World” (293); “Lord Jesus, Think On Me” (301); “Child of Blessing, Child of Promise” (498)

Credit: agnusday.org