When I was on Sabbatical several years ago, I happened to be in Dallas Texas looking at churches to learn from, and I happened to drive past an Episcopal church with the banner advertizing an upcoming service called the “U2-charist.” Well, needless to say I was intrigued and changed my Sunday morning plans so that I could join this church for worship.
I have since discovered that this wasn’t unique to that Dallas congregation. There are a number of churches who have set a service of communion to the music of U2. Much like the study series on the old Mayberry television show, the church is often looking to popular culture as a way of connecting faith and life. Much of it seems shallow and desperate, but sometimes it helps us hear the gospel in new ways.
The Irish band U2 has always been upfront about their Christian faith, though many - inside and outside the church - deride them for it. But I have always found their subtle presentation of faith to be captivating. Perhaps, and this seems to be what upsets many inside the faith, it is their uncertainty that is so intriguing. U2 songs seem to be more about questions than about answers. The song reflected in the title of this study epitomizes that best for me. The final verse and chorus reads like this: I believe in the Kingdom Come / Then all the colours will bleed into one / But yes I'm still running / You broke the bonds / You loosed the chains / You carried the cross / And my shame / And my shame / You know I believe it / But I still haven't found / What I'm looking for.
Sort of an “I believe, help my unbelief” kind of theme. Where many of us live our lives, somewhere between doubt and certainty. Which just might be the oddest way possible to begin a reflection on the Baptism of the Lord.
If you keep up on all things liturgical then you know that the Sunday after Epiphany is the Baptism of the Lord. So, we go from Christmas and all that celebration, to Epiphany (which is on the 12th day of Christmas - hence the song) and the wisemen finding their way to the child, and then we leap forward some 30 years to the baptism of Jesus. The main characters of the story are Jesus (duh) and John the Baptist. And I doubt that you could find a couple of guys more certain about faith and their role in the world than those two. They seemed to radiate faith and confidence. That was part of John’s appeal, I believe. Folks flocked to this wild man from the desert with his questionable sartorial choices and fad diet from an entomologist’s nightmare. There was more than the curiosity factor at work here. There was a longing for certainty. Mark’s version which we year this time, pares down the conversation and the sermon, but the other gospels reflect a man who railed against doubters and the powers of this world that would confuse us. He hands out advice like a man writing a Dear Abby column. He knows what’s what and who is whom. Mark, on the other hand, just gets to the point, he knows his place, the role he is called to play in this drama of salvation and he plays it with passion. Take a look:
Mark 1:4-11 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." 9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
So, where does all of my musing about uncertainty come from? I can’t read about John without remembering Jesus comments later on, in Matthew and Luke. Jesus says to the people and their fascination with John “What did you go out to see?” (Matt 11:7-15 & Lk 7:25-30) And in both accounts these remarks are occasioned by the questions that came from John when he had been imprisoned and faced certain death. Suddenly even John’s certainty seemed elusive.
What did they go out to see? Someone who knew. Someone who had found what he, and they, were looking for. So John gave it to them, with water and with words. They glimpsed in the gathering of the multitudes (I love the preacher estimate of the size of the crowd in our passage “the whole countryside ... all the people of the city”) That was why they splashed into the river to be baptized by this crazy man. He had something they wanted. He saw what they were looking for.
And he pointed it out. It’s not me, he declared over and over, though they thought it was him. That’s why they kept coming and kneeling and letting the water of his certainty wash over them. But it wasn’t him, it was another, it was that guy. That guy was Jesus, who came to be baptized by John. Not, I believe, because he needed the repentance and the certainty that was on offer. But because he wanted to be present. He wanted to align himself with a move back toward God, a movement toward certainty. And because he wanted to be a memory that would come back to them when the doubts came creeping back in.
Glimpses, that’s what we get. We want certainty, we want to be sure. But we get hints. We get whispers. And yet the baptism of Jesus reminds us that those hints are all around us. Just open your eyes and see and be reminded. See presence in the drops of water that bead up on our glass on a humid day. Because baptism tells us that if this water is a carrier of the Holy Spirit, then any water can be. The water you showered with this morning, the water you drank when you were thirsty after a long hard day, the water you gaze out upon in your favorite rest and renewal place, it is all vibrating with the Spirit. It is all a reminder that you were claimed, that you are a beloved child with whom God is well pleased.
Of course we need reminders of our baptism. It is too much of an event to keep in our hearts all the time. We forget what a transformative moment baptism is. We forget that everything old is torn away, like the heavens were rent apart, as Mark says. We forget that our orientation is from that moment, our new life is claimed in that moment. We forget that what we are looking for, longing for is already ours in that moment. We lose our grip, we forget it even happened. We are still running, we are still looking for what we already have.
Remember your baptism. It isn’t just an empty ritual for Sunday mornings. It is a way of living that keeps our eyes open for the descending doves of the Spirit. It is a choice that we can claim to embrace the possibilities in front of us instead of the doubts within us. It is an opportunity to know that we are loved and claimed and that whatever darkness is hiding away in our past or our hearts need not define us any more. It is a family we’ve entered into, who will run with us as we search for what we are looking for, and who will avoid saying “told you so” when you realize what you are looking for has been with you all the time.
I have since discovered that this wasn’t unique to that Dallas congregation. There are a number of churches who have set a service of communion to the music of U2. Much like the study series on the old Mayberry television show, the church is often looking to popular culture as a way of connecting faith and life. Much of it seems shallow and desperate, but sometimes it helps us hear the gospel in new ways.
The Irish band U2 has always been upfront about their Christian faith, though many - inside and outside the church - deride them for it. But I have always found their subtle presentation of faith to be captivating. Perhaps, and this seems to be what upsets many inside the faith, it is their uncertainty that is so intriguing. U2 songs seem to be more about questions than about answers. The song reflected in the title of this study epitomizes that best for me. The final verse and chorus reads like this: I believe in the Kingdom Come / Then all the colours will bleed into one / But yes I'm still running / You broke the bonds / You loosed the chains / You carried the cross / And my shame / And my shame / You know I believe it / But I still haven't found / What I'm looking for.
Sort of an “I believe, help my unbelief” kind of theme. Where many of us live our lives, somewhere between doubt and certainty. Which just might be the oddest way possible to begin a reflection on the Baptism of the Lord.
If you keep up on all things liturgical then you know that the Sunday after Epiphany is the Baptism of the Lord. So, we go from Christmas and all that celebration, to Epiphany (which is on the 12th day of Christmas - hence the song) and the wisemen finding their way to the child, and then we leap forward some 30 years to the baptism of Jesus. The main characters of the story are Jesus (duh) and John the Baptist. And I doubt that you could find a couple of guys more certain about faith and their role in the world than those two. They seemed to radiate faith and confidence. That was part of John’s appeal, I believe. Folks flocked to this wild man from the desert with his questionable sartorial choices and fad diet from an entomologist’s nightmare. There was more than the curiosity factor at work here. There was a longing for certainty. Mark’s version which we year this time, pares down the conversation and the sermon, but the other gospels reflect a man who railed against doubters and the powers of this world that would confuse us. He hands out advice like a man writing a Dear Abby column. He knows what’s what and who is whom. Mark, on the other hand, just gets to the point, he knows his place, the role he is called to play in this drama of salvation and he plays it with passion. Take a look:
Mark 1:4-11 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." 9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
So, where does all of my musing about uncertainty come from? I can’t read about John without remembering Jesus comments later on, in Matthew and Luke. Jesus says to the people and their fascination with John “What did you go out to see?” (Matt 11:7-15 & Lk 7:25-30) And in both accounts these remarks are occasioned by the questions that came from John when he had been imprisoned and faced certain death. Suddenly even John’s certainty seemed elusive.
What did they go out to see? Someone who knew. Someone who had found what he, and they, were looking for. So John gave it to them, with water and with words. They glimpsed in the gathering of the multitudes (I love the preacher estimate of the size of the crowd in our passage “the whole countryside ... all the people of the city”) That was why they splashed into the river to be baptized by this crazy man. He had something they wanted. He saw what they were looking for.
And he pointed it out. It’s not me, he declared over and over, though they thought it was him. That’s why they kept coming and kneeling and letting the water of his certainty wash over them. But it wasn’t him, it was another, it was that guy. That guy was Jesus, who came to be baptized by John. Not, I believe, because he needed the repentance and the certainty that was on offer. But because he wanted to be present. He wanted to align himself with a move back toward God, a movement toward certainty. And because he wanted to be a memory that would come back to them when the doubts came creeping back in.
Glimpses, that’s what we get. We want certainty, we want to be sure. But we get hints. We get whispers. And yet the baptism of Jesus reminds us that those hints are all around us. Just open your eyes and see and be reminded. See presence in the drops of water that bead up on our glass on a humid day. Because baptism tells us that if this water is a carrier of the Holy Spirit, then any water can be. The water you showered with this morning, the water you drank when you were thirsty after a long hard day, the water you gaze out upon in your favorite rest and renewal place, it is all vibrating with the Spirit. It is all a reminder that you were claimed, that you are a beloved child with whom God is well pleased.
Of course we need reminders of our baptism. It is too much of an event to keep in our hearts all the time. We forget what a transformative moment baptism is. We forget that everything old is torn away, like the heavens were rent apart, as Mark says. We forget that our orientation is from that moment, our new life is claimed in that moment. We forget that what we are looking for, longing for is already ours in that moment. We lose our grip, we forget it even happened. We are still running, we are still looking for what we already have.
Remember your baptism. It isn’t just an empty ritual for Sunday mornings. It is a way of living that keeps our eyes open for the descending doves of the Spirit. It is a choice that we can claim to embrace the possibilities in front of us instead of the doubts within us. It is an opportunity to know that we are loved and claimed and that whatever darkness is hiding away in our past or our hearts need not define us any more. It is a family we’ve entered into, who will run with us as we search for what we are looking for, and who will avoid saying “told you so” when you realize what you are looking for has been with you all the time.
Shalom,
Derek
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