It is raining again. Or still. Or maybe it is just dripping from the trees. Or running from the mounds of dirty snow on the sides of the road and driveways. Maybe it is just the squeltchy ground that threatens to suck the shoes right off our feet that makes us think it is a downpour.
A week ago we are on the brink of the latest snow-pocalypse. And then it came, dumping over a foot of snow and then dropping the temperature into the negative numbers for days at a time. We barely get dug out from that and the thermometer registers in the 40's, and we’re swimming. Or hydroplaning. Or simply sloshing our way around. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to be out of the deep freeze, but the resultant chilly Okefenokee swamp, Northeast Indiana version, is not a whole lot better.
Plus, we get to celebrate Jesus’ baptism this weekend. First Sunday after the Epiphany, there it is in all its confusing yet soggy glory.
Matthew 3:13-17 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" 15 But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."
Why did he do it? That is the question that has troubled theologians and biblical scholars for centuries. John was clearly preaching a baptism of repentance from sin. And Jesus was without sin. So, why did he need this. Matthew was troubled by the whole event as well. So he included a conversation that none of the other gospel writers used. John, flustered by Jesus’ appearance in the soggy foot line into the river, stammers out, “this isn’t right! You should be baptizing me,” he shouts, “I’m not worthy of this honor.”
You notice he doesn’t say, you don’t need what I’ve got, Jesus. Which is what you would think he would have said. And, to be fair, maybe that is implied in the statement he did make. But maybe, John’s trouble was not with what Jesus was doing, but with what he was being asked to do. He didn’t feel ready, or worthy, to be the one who poured that water. He didn’t want to be the one who invited the Spirit. He didn’t want to be the one who said the words. He knew he wasn’t clean enough, wasn’t pure enough, wasn’t holy - in the best sense of that word: set apart for God’s purposes - wasn’t holy enough.
But Jesus says, Matthew tells us, that he’d let it slide for now. Let it be so for now. What does that mean? Don’t worry about it John, just go with the flow here. It’ll make sense later. If not to you, then to someone, some time. Maybe. “For it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Wait, what? To fulfill all righteousness? That sounds like Jesus wasn’t righteous until his baptism. That can’t be right, can it?
Well, some scholars interpret that phrase - fulfill all righteousness - to mean to fulfill the prophecy, to fulfill God’s plan. Jesus was saying to John that we’ve got to go through these motions, we’ve got to perform this ritual in order to follow the script that God has put in place. We’ve got to play our parts so that people will know that this is the real thing. That we are getting the show on the road.
And folks were satisfied with that. After all, it was Jesus, who is going to argue with him? Well, not me, certainly. I may, however, want to argue with some of Jesus’ interpreters. So, give me a sec while I scootch way out on this here limb that I’m sawing on. Let’s back up a wee bit. Back to where John the Baptist is defining what he is doing and what the one who is coming after will be doing. John says, after laying out the Pharisees with a few choice epithets, in verse eleven: “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
Now we see why John said he was not worthy, because he had already said he was not worthy, so he was just being consistent. But it is that “I baptize you with water for repentance” that I want us to dwell on for a moment. Repentance in our minds usually means something like being sorry for our sins. We’ve messed up and we feel remorse, and that remorse means we are really serious about it. So, John says I want you to feel real bad about what you have done, then we’ll know whether you are truly repentant or not.
Except that isn’t what the word meant when John said it. Repentance or metanoia in the Greek, means turn around. It means a change, of heart, of direction, of purpose. It means transformation. I means a new beginning.
For us, of course that means turning away from sin. From our tendency to put ourselves first, to prejudge the other because of some external factor, to react with anger or violence as a first resort, there is a whole lot we need to turn away from. No question about that.
But what if the righteousness that Jesus was trying to fulfill was teach us how to focus more on what we are turning toward instead of what we are turning away from? What if his words to John standing there knee deep in the muddy Jordan were for us as much as for him. Let it be so for now, the eternal now, the now of our lives, the now of our choices, the now of our possibilities and our hope. Let it be so for now, an opportunity to be transformed, to start over, to turn around and see where God is sending us. Or, better yet, how God is claiming us.
Because that is what happened that day, and has happened every baptism since. The heavens open and the Spirit descends and the voice proclaims that this is my beloved child, and God is pleased with them. With you.
All that happened at your baptism, that chance to start anew, that grace given and freely shared. But wait, you say, that happened a long time ago. Maybe I was a baby in my mother’s arms. Maybe I was a child who just did it because everyone else did it, or it was time to do it. Maybe it was later in life, but still, I’ve learned a lot since then, or worse, I didn’t learn anything since then. I need that new start, that transformation, as much now at then, if not more now. But my moment has passed?
Not in the least. Because you remember your baptism. Not literally, since many of us can’t remember our baptism we were too young. But we remember that we were baptized, we remember that that chance for renewal, for the fulfilling of all righteousness has been given to us. And never taken away. That’s what we remember, that grace falling down on us like a winter rain, like a dove from the heavens, like the voice of acceptance and love. And because we have received, we can turn around. We can start over. We can be transformed by the water and the Word.
It takes both. John Chrysostom, the fourth century Archbishop and famed preacher of the Word, told us that. That is the mingling of the water and the Word that makes baptism effective, that makes the ritual a true opportunity for transformation. And the amazing thing is that there is water everywhere!
As overflowing as the waters from the melting snow, God’s grace overwhelms us, washes over us, carries us away to new beginnings and new hope. Remember your baptism as you slosh through your lawns this weekend. Remember God’s overwhelming love for you. You are my beloved, with you I am well pleased. Amen.
Shalom,
Derek
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