Genesis 1: 1-5
NPMC
Psalm 29
Baptism of Jesus
Acts 19:1-7
January 11, 2009
Mark 1: 4-11
Anita Retzlaff
Winds of Change
Grace and peace to you from God the
Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. In our moment of silent
meditation this morning let us pray for the people of Gaza and the people of
Israel as they live and die in the heightened conflict of these last days. Many
there will be praying for peace and so we join our prayers with theirs today.
Let us pray.
Motivational speakers, writers and wellness gurus dot the landscape of
cyberspace and bookstore shelves in unprecedented numbers today. The book
titles, articles and CDs that have crossed my path in the last two weeks alone
make me take careful note of the phenomenon of our deep desire, our craving for
balance and joy in life. Eckhart Tolle’s The New Earth is one example. I also
received a newspaper article of a letter exchange by Jean Vanier and a
correspondent discussing peace as a way of life juxtaposed to North America’s
strident notions of patriotism, and finally I watched a New Agey CD called The
Secret that posits the law of attraction as a way of achieving things we want in
life – these have all come to me recently.
Then on Wednesday a friend passed along a new book by Gary Null entitled Living
in the Moment: A Prescription for the Soul. Null’s book launches into an
extended and scathing analysis of the Baby Boomers describing how my generation
has become so absorbed and frenzied in amassing wealth and possessions that we
have bankrupted the spiritual and societal future of our young adults. He holds
the boomer generation “responsible for our society’s descent into social apathy,
trivial pursuits and unhealthy lifestyles.” (p. 4)
I quote Gary Null:
…the baby boomer generation has left a legacy for future generations that is
fundamentally unsustainable and impermanent. When boomers were handed the baton
from [their parents’ generation] to further shape the country, they ended up
placing their trust in the very things that brought unhappiness and disease. All
those things and values they thought would bring them happiness, such as the
perfect spouse, the perfect job, and piles of possessions, led in so many cases
to disheartenment. When boomers reached their ascendancy during the late 1980s
and onwards, they dismantled many of the institutions and infrastructures that
were the gifts of [their parents generations’] legacy: Family and community
cohesion and togetherness eroded and were replaced by the highest divorce rates
and single-parent families in American history; the tradition of feeling assured
that there was a job for you disappeared when downsizing and corporate mergers
based on the whims of those who stood to gain the most wealth became the norm;
those boomers who came into corporations and institutions as trust babies, never
having needed to prove they were worthy of their inheritance through hard work
and effort, virtually destroyed what was handed to them, and the appreciation of
spending within one’s means was replaced by a culture of debt and speculation
that now contributes to America’s uncertain economic future and its standing in
the community of nations. Perhaps worse, the boomer values of consumption and
exploitation-corporate and individual-coupled with its addiction to wastefulness
continue to deplete the nation’s environmental resources at an unprecedented
rate. (pp. 63-64)
I unload all of this for a reason, not to berate anyone or point fingers or even
to complain “O, ain’t it awful!” but rather to say that these are uncertain and
tumultuous times and collectively we are desperate for something stable,
predictable and wholesome to calm our fears and to lead us to a path that feels
right.
We welcome winds of change that would carve, out of the rough places in our
lives, a plain, a future more easily navigated and anticipated than the rugged
landscape of our present predicaments. As the Spirit once brooded over the
emptiness and void of an uncreated deep, bringing into being a world teeming
with energy and life and possibility, we too wait upon the Spirit to breathe new
possibilities into the caverns of despair that threaten to swallow us and all of
our anxiety-ridden expectations. In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth by the Spirit-filled gift of life. This Spirit remains active today,
creating new life as it did in the age-old stories of faith that we read about
in our bibles. The wind of the Spirit came upon Mary in announcing the birth of
Jesus and appears again in this morning’s scripture at the baptism of Jesus by
John.
Baptism by the Spirit is the antidote that has power to quell our fears in
bewildering times, to urge an examination of our vague dis-ease with some of the
lifestyle choices we have made and to plumb the depths of our heart’s desire. We
look to the baptism of Jesus to give direction to our lives.
We read of John baptizing those who confess their sin, repent and open
themselves to forgiveness. It is a new beginning, another chance. I like the way
Eugene Petersen translates this in his biblical rendering, The Message. “John
the Baptizer appeared in the wild, preaching a baptism of life-change that leads
to forgiveness of sins. People thronged to him from Judea and Jerusalem and, as
they confessed their sins, were baptized by him in the Jordan River into a
changed life.” (Mark 1: 4-5)
It is the changed life that we long for. It is what Jesus shows us in receiving
baptism himself – not that he needed another chance but rather, that in
solidarity with all of us who seek life change, who repent, he accepts the
Spirit’s ministrations as a sign of the new community that comes about through
the baptism of the Spirit. Maybe that sounds a little ungainly. I would like to
unpack that a bit.
Baptism – well, we tend to put it off these days, just like we put off marriage
and other commitments that will tie us down. We leave such momentous decisions
until such a time that we are really ready to clean up our act, a time when we
are more prepared to live the settled and somewhat boring life of commitments.
Baptism – a rite of initiation that implies promises made and kept,
responsibilities acknowledged and acted upon. Are we really ever ready for
making such life-defining vows? Repentance, forgiveness and all of the other
things that baptism implies combine to make this a daunting and heavy
commitment.
But John’s baptism wasn’t daunting and heavy, it was a baptism into a changed
life. That’s not heavy – that’s freedom. And Jesus himself was baptized not only
by John but by the Spirit. Isn’t that what we really crave; to be in tune with
the heart of Christ and to live our days with a feeling of new possibilities and
released from dread? That is the offer; that is the power of the Spirit. The
winds of change hover over our desiccated imaginations and infiltrate our
shriveled hopes, filling us with new courage and pointing us toward a new order
of things. This is the power of baptism.
That Jesus accepts baptism from John has to be a sign for us. He is washed by
the waters of new life and the heavens are rent, torn open. As Jesus receives
the Holy Spirit in baptism the presence of God is palpable, immediate and
history turns on that moment as it did again at the crucifixion when the temple
veil was rent, torn, ripped in two.
The winds of change blow over the face of the earth and a new creation appears.
At the Spirit’s descent a community of love is inaugurated. Jesus is baptized in
solidarity with all those who follow in baptism after him. This community of
love is no small thing; it is the matrix in which life-change happens. And do
you know the ingredient of life-change, that security we all seek? It is the
simple recognition that you are loved unconditionally by God.
One other gift that I received came on Wednesday morning at our time of prayer
in the lounge. From the writings of Catherine of Sienna, a 14th century
spiritual teacher we hear God speaking to us:
It is necessary
to bear with others
and practice continually
the love of your neighbour
together with true knowledge of yourself.
Only in this way
can the fire of my love
burn within you,
because love of neighbour
develops from love of me.
It grows as you learn
to know yourself
and my goodness to you.
When you understand that you are loved by me
beyond measure,
you will be drawn
to love every creature
with the same love
with which you yourself know
to be loved.
You cannot adequately
or directly
repay the love that I have for you,
because I have loved you without being loved,
creating you out of love
in my own image and likeness.
But you can repay me in my creatures,
loving your neighbour
without being loved first,
without any consideration
for repayment,
now or in eternity.
The new order, the new community that is created at the baptism of Jesus, the
community that we become a part of in our own baptism, is a community of love
that challenges our society’s empty and anxious preoccupations. In the name of
Jesus, once baptized by John in the Jordan, we stand for peace in a world that
says it is ridiculous to love one’s neighbour first and especially irresponsible
to love an enemy. By the authority of Christ who emerged from baptismal waters
that would carry him to suffering and death, we protest the inequalities and
injustices in our world. By the power of the risen Lord visited by the Spirit at
every key moment of his earthly life, we come to understand that we are loved by
God beyond measure. Baptism reminds us always, whenever and wherever it is
enacted, that it is the love of God that brings life change - not money, not
successful children, not things, not vacations, not the right friends, not even
a pain-free day.
The winds of change, the Spirit of creation that hovers over the world, present
at the baptism of Jesus and present in every waking moment of our lives – the
breath of God that rends the heavens - gives each one of us the power and the
authority to speak love in a world where multitudes search for a consolation
that remains elusive. We are made new, each day is made new, by the Spirit of
God seeking union with us in Christ Jesus our Lord. AMEN