1 EPIPHANY, YEAR B

SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NORWAY, MAINE

THE REV. ANNE G. STANLEY

11 JANUARY 2009

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Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11

Have you ever wondered why every one of the four gospels, plus the Book of Acts AND Paul’s Letter to the Romans all tell about Jesus’ baptism, but only two gospels and no other book describe the events surrounding Jesus’ birth?

Six baptism accounts to two Christmas stories? Why do you suppose that is?

Could one reason possibly be that Jesus’ baptism was seen to be a hugely important event? More important even than his birth? You’d never know it from the way we do things today.  Even in the church. How many of us here know

the actual DATE of our baptisms, or even the year? We remember our birth dates, wedding dates, anniversaries of you name it---but our baptisms?

Epiphany is the season in the church of showing. The season that presents events, one after the other, in Jesus’ life, that show who he was. His birth didn’t quite do it. It seems he needed time to mature, and something else had to happen, something big, to get him started for his real work. Epiphany is a season of manifestations or showings or revelations of Jesus’ true identity. Beginning with his baptism, as his ministry is launched.

After his presumably quiet, uneventful childhood and young adulthood

in or near Nazareth, Jesus approaches his final three or so years of life. Something, we don’t know what, but something prompts him to venture down to the Jordan River for baptism. After all, everybody knows about John the Baptizer,

the prophet with all the disciples, the one who is famous for his preaching and his baptizing. So people who repent of their sins and want to be washed clean

traipse out to John in the wilderness. And one day, Jesus shows up, too.

There’s a lot we don’t know about this. We don’t know what inspired Jesus to go to John for baptism. We don’t know who else was there. Was there a crowd standing around on the river bank or even in the water? We don’t know if John recognized Jesus, his cousin, or if he treated him in any special way. We don’t know why Jesus, who his own followers later claimed was free of sin, why Jesus had to repent and be baptized at all. And we don’t have a clue about Jesus’ reaction to his own baptism.

But there are some things we do know, we and Jesus, although oddly, the crowds don’t get to know it. “As Jesus was coming up out of the water, HE saw…..” not THEY saw.  This was no ordinary, run of the mill baptism. No, “off you go now, you’re done, next in line, please step up, get your baptism here…”

This was no ordinary baptism.

“As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw:

            the heavens torn apart

            a dove-like Spirit descending

and (he heard)…..a voice from heaven: “You are my Son…I love you

                        and you are pleasing to me.”

Can you imagine?

The heavens don’t just open, like stage curtains. The heavens tear apart, they rip, they split open. Even the Greek word gives us a clue to the violence of this moment: schizomai. The heavens split, tear, rip.

What does this look like? What does this sound like?

If you open a door, you can close it again. We open our mouths but we can quickly snap them shut. We can open our wallets or our hearts but it’s easy to close our wallets again. And it’s all too easy to close up our hearts.

But if we rip something, making its edges all jagged, it’s pretty much curtains for whatever it use to be. In fact, when Jesus died, remember, the curtain of the temple ripped apart?  When something tears, it’s never the same. Like Humpty Dumpty, you can’t put it back together again.

And the dove.  Have you ever stood under or near a mourning dove or any pigeon when it decides to take off? With a terrific whirring of wings and a sudden rush of air.  You almost cringe. 

This baptism of Jesus was no gentle, routine religious ritual. Jesus stands there, dripping wet, and he sees and he hears and feels it all and we can only imagine how he is reacting. Terrifying? Violent? Dramatic? And then speaks the voice of assurance: “You are my Beloved Son,  with you I am well pleased.”

Jesus’ baptism….our baptisms. Jesus, filled with the Spirit of God, showing God forth now, manifesting and revealing God now and from then on in his very being.  And we, baptized with that same Spirit, filled in the same way, filled with Jesus himself, empowered also to reveal God in our lives.  Imagine what we are! Imagine it!

And imagine, too, the heavens torn open, ripped apart that day NEVER TO BE CLOSED UP AGAIN!  God with us and in us in a new way. No more barrier, no more impermeable curtain, no wall no more intact heaven.  Like the temple curtain, through which God reached through to his crucified Son, never to be sealed away from us.

Any birth, no matter how quick, is a violent and dramatic event. Hard work for mother and baby, even sometimes for the dad!  Our rebirth in baptism is also dramatic, whether we’re baptized in a lovely church or a quiet lake or somebody’s living room.  Dramatic whether we know it or not. The heavens rip apart, the Spirit descends with a rush of air. And our work begins, our work, which was also Jesus’ work, our lives, like Jesus’ life, revealing God, doing justice and loving kindness, changing the world by identifying with the world’s needs, especially identifying with those who suffer.

Jesus’ baptism identified him to himself, showed to himself who he himself was, and bit by bit people came to recognize him, although most of the world knew him not.

Our baptisms give us our true identity, too. The world can see us, too. And what is it that the world sees in us? A hard question. “You are my beloved Son, my beloved daughter….I am pleased with you….”  How do we use the power of the gift of our baptisms?

We do it with God’s help, always. Even with the terrifying drama of the coming of the Spirit, plunging dove-like through the ripped-apart  heavens, even so, the blessing of God’s help comes with it, giving us the possibility of being strong, giving us all we need to live as God’s baptized children.  “You are my beloved; with you I am well pleased.” God’s blessing, which can never be sent back, can never again be enclosed behind a put-back-together barricade!  God-with-us forever.