Feast of the Baptism

 

Feast of the Baptism-Mark 1:1-11

In these seasons of Christmas and Epiphany, the gospel of Mark stands out: no shepherds, no wisemen, no star, no angel Gabriel – no birth narrative at all. Instead “the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God begins with John leading a revival down by the river Jordan. It is a baptism of repentance for people who feel that somehow or other they had become separated from the love of God. John’s baptism is a kind of reset – I have been walking away from God, I am going to turn around and begin walking with God once again. We read that all of Judea and all of Jerusalem has turned out for this ritual bathing led by John – a character who lives in the wilderness, is dressed in camel skin and eats locusts dipped in honey for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Appetizing! Most there would recognize him as looking a lot like the prophet Elijah who is supposed to return one day to announce the coming of the messiah, God’s anointed – christos in Greek, as in The Christ.

 

Wilderness in the Bible recalls the 40 year period of spiritual formation following the Passover and Exodus event. We tend to think of wilderness as, well, a dangerous place. From the biblical perspective, it is where a disparate band of slaves became a people. The 40-year sojourn lays out the normative way to be the Israel of God – a name given to Jacob after wrestling with God one night. Israel means something like, “he who wrestles with God.” Which in itself is the normative way to be people of faith: to wrestle with God; to travel with God; to be led by God; fed and sustained by God with bread that is given daily. That’s why we pray for “daily bread.”

 

So, here are thousands of people of every possible background who have turned out for to reset a life lived with God.  Upwalks a young adult from Galilee named Jesus who says, “I want to be a part of all of this – I want to be baptized.” Then it happens. The Holy Spirit descends upon him “like a dove,” and a voice from heaven announces, “You are my son, my beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  His part of the story is only three short sentences. He then goes off on a forty-day retreat back into the wilderness where it always begins to sort out just what all this means – to be God’s son, to be God’s beloved, to be told that God is well pleased with you. He figures out that this is good news – evangelion in Greek, which roughly means “good angel,” or “good message.” It is good news for all of us. He then spends the next few years of his life spreading the Word, the Good News: you are God’s beloved, God is well pleased with you, turn around and walk with God, for this is eternal life. The Kingdom of God is at hand; it is near; it is so close you can touch it. Take just one step and you will enter it!

 

William Countryman in his book, The Good News of Jesus, illustrates just how we and the church have done an excellent job of mangling this message by saying things like, “good news, if you are really really good God will love you,” or, “if you are really really sorry you have not been very very good God will love you,” or perhaps worst of all, “God loves you, now get back in line before God changes God’s mind!” These messages which we have all heard in one way or another simply are not good news. The Good News is that God loves you and is well pleased with you. You are God’s Beloved!

 

That’s it: you are God’s beloved. Many of us find this hard to believe. It can be hard to wrap one’s head around such a liberating and mystical truth. Yet, what happens when we do not accept this news tends to lead to dysfunction. Alienation is another word that comes to mind – alienated from God, alienated from others, and alienated, most of all, from being ourselves – our true self.

 

As my friend in Jesus and mentor N. Gordon Cosby always used to say, “Being [capital B] must always precede doing.” Much of what presents itself to us as religion is about doing, about technique, about belief and doctrine, when at the end of the day, the essence of religion and religious experience is meant to be about Being – simply Being. It turns out that is not so simple in a world that is relentlessly encouraging us to keep busy doing things.

 

Indeed, Evelyn Underhill, one who spent a lifetime examining the Spiritual Life, the experience of the living God, reminded us in Advent,1936: “We mostly spend [our] lives conjugating three verbs: to Want, to Have, to Do. Craving, Clutching and fussing, on the material, political, social, emotional, intellectual - even on the religious – plane, we are kept in perpetual unrest: forgetting  that none of these verbs have any ultimate significance, except so far as they are transcended by, and included in, the fundamental verb, to Be: and that Being, not wanting, having and doing, is the essence of a spiritual life.” [The Spiritual Life, Harper&Row; 1936 – p. 20]

 

This “Being” is given many names – contemplative prayer, mindfulness practice, centering prayer, raja yoga, Sabbath time. The entire Bible begins with the image of God resting on the seventh day. Just prior to that resting God creates humankind in God’s image. Put these two things together and one might easily conclude resting, Sabbath, Shabbat, mindfulness is the vital part of what it means to “Be.” And our Book of Common Prayer tells us that in Baptism we are “fully incorporated into the Body of Christ.” The Body of Christ, baptized by John, came up out of the water, the Holy Spirit descended upon his body “like a dove,” as a voice from heaven said, “You are my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” When we were baptized, whether or not we remember, that same voice says to each of us, “You are my Son. You are my daughter. You are my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

 

It is said that “silence is God’s first language.” It is in silence, in quiet, when we give ourselves the gift of what God gave us in the longest of the Ten Commandments: Sabbath, Shabbat, time to just “Be.” In such contemplative practice we begin to wrap our head around this good news that we are God’s beloved. That God is well pleased with us. Shabbat is a once-a-week practice, but these days we may need daily Sabbath time to remember who we are and whose we are: we are God’s Beloved; God is well pleased with us.

 

It took Jesus forty days to process this news. He then set off to share it with others. He continues to invite us to walk with him, to walk in his way – the way of eternal life. Eternal life is not something we pray to experience later, after “this life” is all over. There is only one life - Eternal Life. Eternal Life begins in creation and continues now and forever and ever for those of us who take the time to simply Be and accept this Good News. In fact, we can accept it or not. But even if we don’t, we are still God’s beloved, and God is still pleased with us, and for now that is enough. Amen.