First Sunday after Epiphany: Baptism of Jesus
Service Date:
11 January, 2009
Mark 1:4-11
Some of you, like me, will remember your own baptism. Others will remember times in the last few years when we've brought children to be baptised, to show that God is welcoming them into our family here at St Andrew's. A baptism is a wonderful occasion, when we remember how God forgives us and washes away the things we do wrong. And in that way we're like the crowds gathering at the River Jordan when John told people to remember what they'd got wrong in their lives, and to turn away from it, to make a fresh start with God.
But one thing we in our tradition - though not all Christians would say this - have got very different from John's baptism. And that's the amount of water we use. You see our font here, with a basin for the warm water we use for baptism. There's another font we once used in this church which is even smaller, and holds even less water. And that's OK, because when we welcome people into the church by baptism, we only sprinkle them with a few drops of water. The Antioch Church who meets here on Sunday evenings goes one better - I've seen them baptise new members in a paddling pool, out at the back in our garden. But John went a good deal further than that: he waded into the Jordan River with the person being baptised, and ducked them right under.
You might wonder: why use all that water? After all, it's the symbol of getting our lives clean that counts - the things we do wrong aren't like dirt from the garden that may need a lot of scrubbing to come off, though sometimes it can take us just as much trouble to get rid of the effects of them. Well, one good reason is to show just how much God wants to get rid of everything that's wrong in our lives - not just a drop of mercy, not even a bucketful, but a whole roaring river full of forgiveness is what God offers us, not just when we are baptised but every time we realise we've got something wrong and need to say sorry.
So why did Jesus get baptised by John? He didn't need to say sorry to God, for the life he lived was totally in touch with God all the time. Asking Jesus where God was in his life would be like asking a fish about water, or a person about the air we breathe.
But this was a special moment for Jesus, the very beginning of the public work God wanted him to do. So though he was in touch with God all the time, this moment of baptism, turning publicly to God in front of everyone else, was a time for him to hear God's voice and experience God's life flooding through him in a particular way. Mark talks about it as if a dove landed and settled on him; and that would make all his readers think of the beginning of the story of creation, when God was about to make light out of darkness, and God's Spirit hovered over the dark waves like a bird brooding over her nest, waiting for new life to begin.
I wonder if you can think of a moment when everything was new and wonderful for you - maybe the first time you could read a story, or when you first met someone you love - a moment when wonder flooded in, and nothing could ever be the same again. Or maybe you can call to mind that feeling of relief when you owned up to something you'd done, and were overcome by the forgiveness and kindness you received.
Those are times when we experience God's Spirit. And though I understand why our tradition doesn't go in for bucketfuls of water when we baptise, it's still good to remember that our God, who made the whole world, doesn't operate with dropfuls of love and mercy, but with streams, rivers, oceans full. That's what powers us who have been baptised to follow Jesus and to love others as he loves us. And that's what makes us want to praise God, whether we shout Glory Hallelujah! or whether we turn silently to prayer.
Some of you, like me, will remember your own baptism. Others will remember times in the last few years when we've brought children to be baptised, to show that God is welcoming them into our family here at St Andrew's. A baptism is a wonderful occasion, when we remember how God forgives us and washes away the things we do wrong. And in that way we're like the crowds gathering at the River Jordan when John told people to remember what they'd got wrong in their lives, and to turn away from it, to make a fresh start with God.
But one thing we in our tradition - though not all Christians would say this - have got very different from John's baptism. And that's the amount of water we use. You see our font here, with a basin for the warm water we use for baptism. There's another font we once used in this church which is even smaller, and holds even less water. And that's OK, because when we welcome people into the church by baptism, we only sprinkle them with a few drops of water. The Antioch Church who meets here on Sunday evenings goes one better - I've seen them baptise new members in a paddling pool, out at the back in our garden. But John went a good deal further than that: he waded into the Jordan River with the person being baptised, and ducked them right under.
You might wonder: why use all that water? After all, it's the symbol of getting our lives clean that counts - the things we do wrong aren't like dirt from the garden that may need a lot of scrubbing to come off, though sometimes it can take us just as much trouble to get rid of the effects of them. Well, one good reason is to show just how much God wants to get rid of everything that's wrong in our lives - not just a drop of mercy, not even a bucketful, but a whole roaring river full of forgiveness is what God offers us, not just when we are baptised but every time we realise we've got something wrong and need to say sorry.
So why did Jesus get baptised by John? He didn't need to say sorry to God, for the life he lived was totally in touch with God all the time. Asking Jesus where God was in his life would be like asking a fish about water, or a person about the air we breathe.
But this was a special moment for Jesus, the very beginning of the public work God wanted him to do. So though he was in touch with God all the time, this moment of baptism, turning publicly to God in front of everyone else, was a time for him to hear God's voice and experience God's life flooding through him in a particular way. Mark talks about it as if a dove landed and settled on him; and that would make all his readers think of the beginning of the story of creation, when God was about to make light out of darkness, and God's Spirit hovered over the dark waves like a bird brooding over her nest, waiting for new life to begin.
I wonder if you can think of a moment when everything was new and wonderful for you - maybe the first time you could read a story, or when you first met someone you love - a moment when wonder flooded in, and nothing could ever be the same again. Or maybe you can call to mind that feeling of relief when you owned up to something you'd done, and were overcome by the forgiveness and kindness you received.
Those are times when we experience God's Spirit. And though I understand why our tradition doesn't go in for bucketfuls of water when we baptise, it's still good to remember that our God, who made the whole world, doesn't operate with dropfuls of love and mercy, but with streams, rivers, oceans full. That's what powers us who have been baptised to follow Jesus and to love others as he loves us. And that's what makes us want to praise God, whether we shout Glory Hallelujah! or whether we turn silently to prayer.
Hymns:
R&S 94 is a paraphrase by Isaac Watts of Psalm 136 with a Christian twist - verse 5 is evidently not in the original psalm, but carries on its theme in such a continuous way that Christians may well not notice the join. The tune Duke Street was probably written by John Hatton and first published in Glasgow in Boyd's Psalm and Hymn Tunes of 1793.Before we knew our mother's womb also takes inspiration from a psalm, Psalm 139, but again has a Christological emphasis, connecting the life of Christ within us with the inspiring power of the Holy Spirit. The tune Rockingham, first published in 1790, frequently partners another Watts hymn, When I Survey.
R&S 302 by Bessie Porter Head was only included in a hymnbook after the author's death in 1936. It had however been sung at the annual meetings of the Keswick Convention. The words play on the metaphor of wind/breath/life implied by the Hebrew word for God's Spirit, ruach. The tune Spiritus Vitae (‘Spirit of life' in Latin) by Mary J. Hammond was written for this hymn.
R&S 329 was inspired, according to Brian Wren, its author, by ‘Give to our God immortal praise', in the way two choruses alternate from verse to verse. As the Companion to Rejoice and Sing warns us, ‘Live tomorrow's life today' should not be confused with ‘Buy now, pay later,' but refers to God's coming kingdom which we see in glimpses. The tune Lauds was written by John Wilson in 1969 for the hymn ‘Songs of praise the angels sang'.
Sermon:
Mark 1:4-11; Acts 19:1-7I feel for those believers Paul met in Ephesus, who must have suddenly felt as though they'd stumbled into a theology exam. ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?' Paul demands of them. ‘We've not even heard there is a Holy Spirit,' they reply, nervously - you can imagine them thinking, ‘What on earth is he talking about? And why did he have to pick us to cross-examine?' Paul carries on regardless. ‘Well, what baptism did you have?' Ah - a question they can answer. ‘It was John who baptised us,' they answer, hoping that's OK.
Now Paul's got somewhere to start from. ‘Well, if you were baptised by John, you'd better know what he said about Jesus. You remember he was always looking out for someone who would come after him, someone greater than him whose sandals he wasn't worthy to untie?' ‘Yes,' the believers in Ephesus admit, ‘he was always going on about that. We wondered who he meant.' And now Paul's well away. ‘John was talking about Jesus!' he exclaims. ‘The Messiah, the one we were all waiting for. And I can tell you some amazing things about him...' And off Paul goes, talking nineteen to the dozen.
Well, that makes sense of it all to the Ephesians. If Jesus is the one their master John was waiting for, of course they should get baptised in Jesus' name. But their baptism gives them more than they may have anticipated, for as Paul prays for them, they begin to experience God's Spirit in new and totally unexpected ways, causing them to praise God enthusiastically and to see and speak out about God's work in Ephesus - as the jargon has it, they were ‘speaking in tongues and prophesying'.
Fast-forward several centuries, to my year out studying in Switzerland - this will make sense, I promise you. I'm admiring the library of the theological faculty in Bern, a great powerhouse of the Reformation, and I notice something very odd. There are sections on God as Creator, on Jesus, with lots of learned tomes to their credit. But there is no section on the Spirit.
Moreover, during my theological education in Oxford, I wouldn't have been surprised to overhear that snippet of conversation between Paul and John's disciples in Ephesus all over again: ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became a believer?' and the cautious response: ‘What do you mean?' or even, ‘What on earth are you talking about?'
Of course, both Paul and the Ephesians came to Christianity while they were adults - in that first generation there could be no inherited faith, but only conversion, a new way of understanding God, one growing out of Judaism but which most Jews did not take as their own. Many of us here in St Andrew's, on the other hand, have grown up in the church from being baptised as small children, and may not be able to remember a time when God was not a part of life.
Yet it is not only a question of the once-born versus the twice-born Christians, with the latter emphasising the Spirit's role in conversion. While some Pentecostalist and Evangelical churches have emphasised God's Spirit so much that speaking in tongues, for instance, has almost become a badge of membership, I suspect that some of our tradition, in reaction, may have battened down the hatches on anything pious or enthusiastic, for fear of hypocrisy. Yet if that is so, we are making a grave mistake. For it is God's Spirit, working within us, that gives us the ability to follow Jesus in doing God's will. Church life would be impossible without the Spirit's fruits of love, joy, peace, gentleness, patience and self-control. And without the Spirit leading us into more truth, we would have no hope of growing in understanding of God, ourselves and one another.
Why then is the Spirit, like the idea of full immersion baptism, sometimes regarded with great suspicion in our tradition? Well, in both cases there is likely to be some disruption and messiness involved. Paul wasn't content with breaking in on twelve Ephesians' perfectly satisfactory understanding of faith gained from John the Baptist, giving them a new experience they had neither sought nor demanded of him. There was more to come.
To begin with all went well for Paul and this new faith he preached. When the Ephesian synagogue grew fed up with him, he hired a lecture hall and carried on there, taking his disciples with him. Miracles of healing and exorcism took place, and many came to join him. But not everyone was happy. Ephesus was known for its temple of Artemis, and for the silver images of the goddess which were sold there, and the silversmiths began to see their custom drying up, as more turned away from the worship of Artemis. Trade unrest ended up in a full-scale riot, from which Paul was extricated with difficulty.
And that's true more generally. God's Spirit cannot be relied upon to stay in the realms of religion. Economics and politics are also the Spirit's territory, and where economic and political powers are challenged by God's power, conflict is inevitable. Sadly, when Christians cannot agree, the Spirit may be used as an argument on both sides, in a way that might make us keen to keep away from pious enthusiasm altogether.
But that, again, would be the wrong reaction - as if an immigrant to Britain were to say, ‘I can't speak English very well, so I'll stay among my own people where I don't have to try too hard.' We are all immigrants into God's kingdom, all beginners in learning to listen to God's Spirit, and discernment is the gift of telling God's Spirit from others. So rather than stopping our ears, in case we get confused or into trouble, let's listen out for the Spirit; in the great events of our lives, like baptism, when we can see God and the world in a new light, but also in the little day-to-day things that inspire us to give God thanks. And let's share what we hear with one another. For God's spirit speaks to us not only through the Bible or through great theologians, but also when two or three of us are gathered together, wanting to do God's will. So if you have a quiet feeling that we in this church should be focussing on some particular activity, share it - for others with the same feeling may be waiting for you to speak up. And though the Spirit may disrupt our lives, it's only to cleanse and renew us, to make us ready to do God's will and to fit us for God's kingdom.
