Soggy

Scripture:  Genesis 1:1-5; Acts 19:1-7;  Mark 1:4-11

When’s the last time you got really, really drenched?  Maybe it was intentional – a swim at the shore or a backyard swimming pool.  Or maybe accidental – maybe you got caught in the rain.  Or were fishing, and fell off the boat.  But I’d like us to think of what it feels like to be drenched, soaked, soggy, dripping wet.  Water has a way of getting into everything – into our clothes, into our hair, our ears, our eyes – which, if the water is chlorinated, can sting a bit – if we’re in deep water, up our nose, down our throats.  Water isn’t necessarily polite or well-behaved, doesn’t ask permission to insert itself…if water can find a crack or a crevice, it’ll find a way in.      

Today  we read Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist.  Characteristically, Mark doesn’t give us a lot of detail.  But it was at his baptism that Jesus was proclaimed by God as his beloved son.

I think that, in our rush to get to Jesus, we tend to pass John the Baptist by perhaps without giving him the attention he deserves.  We think of John as the fore-runner of Jesus, but John was leading a movement in his own right, a renewal movement within Judaism.  While Luke’s Gospel tells us that John’s father, Zechariah, was a priest who served at the Temple in Jerusalem, John evidently broke away from his father’s associates and led a religious movement in the wilderness.  He drew many who wanted a more powerful sense of connection to the divine than the rituals of the Temple could provide them.   When people came to John, he pointed out that the peoples’ own attitudes and behavior kept them separated from experiencing  God’s presence … and so the key to joining John’s movement was to repent and be baptized.   To repent:  to turn away from one’s old way of living, to turn away from anything that got in the way of loving God and neighbor.  And to be baptized, as a sign of being cleansed of sin, in preparation for beginning anew as part of John’s renewal movement.  Now, baptism, a form of ritual bath, was already a part of Judaism, used as part of the process of conversion to Judaism, and also as a process of purification for entering the Temple.  But those coming to John were already members of the Jewish faith, and were nowhere near the Temple. To join John’s movement was to begin to live in a new way, and in order to live in a new way, old thoughts and habits had to be left behind.  For John, baptism was not only a sign of conversion, but an act of initiation into the movement, sort of like signing one’s name on the dotted line, in blood.  In the book of Acts, the apostles encounter people who had been baptized by John; one of these was Apollos, about whom we read today and who also pops up from time to time in Paul’s letters.   To this day, in Iraq, there is a small religious community, called the Mandeans, who follow the teachings of John the Baptist as preserved in the writings of their community.

So the crowds came to John, and one day in the crowd, along came Jesus to be baptized.  Jesus came, and was baptized, and we’re told that as Jesus was coming out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart, ripped open, and the Spirit descending on him like a dove – and heard a voice saying, “you are my Son, the Beloved, in you I am well pleased. “  I can almost imagine the visuals – Jesus’ face is breaking up through the water and into the fresh air, and as his face emerges from the water, at the same instant, Jesus sees something breaking down through the heavens and into Jesus’ field of vision, and he sees the dove, and hears the voice.  Mark tells us that immediately after seeing this vision, Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness, where he was tempted for 40 days.  And so Jesus’ baptism was not only a kind of initiation, but also a preparation for the rigors of the wilderness, and for his life of ministry.

For those of Jesus’ time – and for us as well, though we’re not as close to it – water was a blessing, but a dangerous blessing.  Water was and is needed for life, and indeed half or more of the human body consists of water.  Water was needed for crops and animals, but too much water can be as bad as not enough.  Water as a means of transportation was especially hazardous; the Gospels and the book of Acts tells us of times when Jesus’ disciples and when Paul were out on boats and got caught in storms, and indeed Paul was shipwrecked at least once.  So water is a blessing, but not always a well-behaved blessing.

As we remember the baptism of Jesus’, I think we’re invited to, in words I spoke earlier in the service, “remember our baptism, and be grateful.”  Now, I’m not unhappy that, unlike the baptism of Jesus, our baptisms take place indoors.  To baptize outdoors would pretty much eliminate baptisms at this time of year – in the words of the old song, “baby, it’s cold outside”, and while I’ve seen kids fishing off Bridge Street going into Bridesburg, I’d be uneasy asking anyone to take a dunk in that water….a little too close to the chemical plants for my ease of mind.  At the same time, by sprinkling water indoors, I think we lose a sense of the wild, untamed nature of the grace that God offers in baptism.  The first letter of Peter compares the grace of baptism to God’s grace is saving Noah and his family from drowning in the great flood – and it’s easier to get a sense of being saved from drowning when you’re being dunked in a river than when you’re being sprinkled at the font.

God’s grace is wild, untamed.  I’d like us to think again of a time when we’ve been absolutely soggy, drenched, soaked to the skin.  That’s the kind of grace God offers in baptism – a grace that, like water, wants to soak into our clothing and get in our eyes and ears and between our toes and up our nose.  Those among us who have dealt with flooded basements, either as homeowners or as contractors, know that water flowing underground will always find a way – you can’t stop the water; all you can do is re-direct it, re-channel it, so that it has somewhere to go besides your basement.   And the grace God offers in baptism is like that water, unstoppable, always trying to find a way in.  And at this time of year, when water gets into tracks on the roadway and expands when it freezes and contracts when it melts, we get potholes.  And the grace God offers in baptism is also like that – if God’s grace can find a crack, an opening, it’ll work to widen that opening to get into our lives.

And, like Jesus’ baptism, our baptism is a means of initiation and incorporation into God’s renewal movement of revitalizing, not only the church, but the world, and a preparation for ministry.  Just as Jesus was prepared by his baptism to face off against Satan in the wilderness and to carry out his earthly ministry, our baptism is preparation for us to do the same.  Baptism is not an end – not just an item to check off our “to-do” list as parents – but a beginning, the beginning of a lifetime of service to God and neighbor.

“And just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."  In our baptism, God has claimed us as beloved sons and daughters.  May we, prepared by the waters of baptism, live as beloved sons and daughters of God.  As beloved sons and daughters of God, may our thoughts, words, and actions bring glory to God and show love and mercy to neighbor.  Amen.