Mark 1:4-11
January 11,
2015
I consider today to be a
hard-to-preach Sunday. I don’t say that
because of the texts before us, but because this is a feast day. On any feast day, whether it is Christmas,
Easter, the Transfiguration or the Baptism of the Lord, it’s hard not to wonder
what I can say that could possibly be any different than what I said last
year. Or the year before that. Or the year before that. Or the year before … well, you get the
picture.
The Biblical scholars that I refer
to on a regular basis say that when it comes to feast days, such as this one, a
wise preacher preaches the text, not the feast.
That is sage advice. Except the
text we have before us in Mark’s gospel is about Jesus being baptized. So it would seem that preaching the text is
remarkably similar to preaching the feast.
What to do?
When I’m struggling to write a
sermon, I take my questions to friends and family. Perhaps talking through the text will give me
a spark of inspiration. This time I asked
a good friend about his baptism. He’d
told me once before that he was baptized in the last several years, rather than
as a youth. He grew up in a
denomination, as I did, that emphasized believer’s baptism. Although he expressed an interest in baptism
when he was young, he didn’t pursue it.
As I understand it, he didn’t put it off because of theological reasons
or lack of belief. It’s just that the
older he got the idea of getting in front of people and being baptized was a
bit unnerving. He finally reached the
point when it seemed strange not to be baptized so he approached his preacher
and asked about taking this step. As he
told me, the denomination he was involved with believed that baptism was a
necessity for salvation. So the sooner
he was baptized the better. But it was not
necessary for him to be baptized in a worship service. His baptism happened on an afternoon.
That was the only aspect of his
particular story that I questioned. In
our tradition, whether we are baptized as infants or believers, we strongly
believe that we are baptized into a congregation, into a community of
faith. Baptism outside of a worship
service is a strange concept to me. If I
were to do this, I would definitely be breaking some denominational “rules.” When I expressed my concern about this to
him, he said, “Well, Amy, do you think God cares?” My immediate and honest response was,
“No. I don’t think God cares.”
My friend’s question and my answer led
me back to our text from Mark’s gospel. What
does Mark actually say about the baptism of Jesus? Is Mark outlining a doctrine or describing a
significant event in the life of Jesus?
Mark’s gospel, from his first word
to his last, is urgent. A fact that I’ve
pointed out before is that the Greek word translated as “immediately,” is used
at least 42 times throughout the gospel.
Again, this conveys a sense of urgency.
There is no time to waste. Jesus
is here. The Son of God is in our
midst. The kingdom of God is upon
us. That’s what Jesus preached and
taught. The kingdom of God is upon us. Now.
Immediately. This immediacy means
that not only does Mark not give us a
birth story for Jesus; he also does not
give us a backstory about John the Baptizer.
With that familiar urgency, John the Baptizer appeared in the
wilderness. Does this mean he was
traveling from someplace else and stopped in the wilderness? Was he born there? Did he grow up in the wilderness? Was he orphaned and raised by the animals
there? We don’t know, and it doesn’t
matter. What does matter is that he
appeared and was preaching and practicing a baptism of repentance for the
forgiveness of sins. His message must
have struck a nerve with people, because folks were flocking to him in droves from
across the countryside of Judea and from all of Jerusalem. However John was not baptizing them and being
done with it. As he baptized he
preached.
“I’m baptizing you with water, but there
is someone coming who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” As one preacher put it, John may get them
wet, but the One who is coming will light a fire under them.
In the midst of this Jesus came to
be baptized. Mark’s account has some
significant differences from Matthew and Luke.
John and Jesus do not converse.
John does not protest Jesus being baptized by him. As in the other gospels, when Jesus rose out
of the water, the heavens were opened. A
dove descended. A voice was heard. But in Mark’s telling, only Jesus witnessed
these things. He saw the sky split
open. He saw the Holy Spirit like a dove
descending. He heard God’s voice. “You
are my son, my beloved. With you I am
well pleased.”
Another interesting aspect about
Mark’s version is that the sky did not just open, it was torn apart. The Greek word used here is schizo.
You might have already guessed that we get words such as schism and schizophrenia from this word.
Mark uses it only one other time.
When Jesus hung from the cross and took his final breath, the curtain of
the temple – that barrier that separated God from the people – is schizo.
It was torn apart. Two preachers
commenting on this made the same point.
What is opened can be closed again.
But what is torn apart is not so easily put back together.
God does not merely open the heavens
when Jesus is baptized. The sky is torn
apart. God breaks in and there is no
return. The barriers that once separated
God from us are gone. When Jesus was
baptized, God rushed in.
Mark’s telling of Jesus’ baptism is
not merely about a sweet moment. It is
wild. It is dramatic. It is vivid. Seeing it in this light makes me wonder if
I’ve been asking the wrong question on this particular feast day. It makes me wonder if I’ve been asking the
wrong question about baptism all along.
Usually the question I ask of
baptism – of Jesus’s baptism and of our own – is what does it mean? What does it mean to be baptized? Recounting the symbolism of baptism is easy. Jesus was baptized as an example for his
followers, for us. When we are baptized,
especially through immersion, we die and rise with Christ. In infant baptism, we emphasize that God’s
grace is working in our lives whether we know it or not. We make promises at our baptisms, or they are
made for us. We affirm our faith at our
baptisms, or it is affirmed on our behalf.
All of this is good. I believe
that all of this is true. But I still
think that another question needs to be asked.
Perhaps the question is not so much about what our baptism means as it
is what are we baptized to do?
Jesus’ baptism was not an end in
itself. It was a beginning. In the next moment after God praised him and
confirmed his identity as his Son, Jesus was driven into the wilderness. The moment he left the wilderness, his public
ministry began. The skies were torn apart
at his baptism, and so was his life. He was baptized not just to be God’s Son,
but he was baptized to do God’s work. He
was baptized to fulfill the prophets’ words, to show the hands of God in the
world, to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven was and is here. He was baptized to do.
What are we baptized to do? Whether we are baptized as infants or as
older believers, whether we are immersed in a pool or sprinkled at a font, our
baptism does not only symbolize our adoption as God’s children and our faith that
God is working in our lives; it is a call to action. It is a call to a new way of living. It is a call to do as much as it is a call to
be. It may seem that our baptisms are
just a small splash of water – on our heads, on our bodies – but it seems to me
that with our baptisms the heavens are torn apart once again. There is no going back, no easy mending of
what has been torn. To be baptized is to
be changed. Even if we don’t know it,
remember it, or understand it. To be
baptized is to be changed, and it is to be called to do. What are we baptized to do? Are we baptized to preach, to proclaim, to
heal, to serve, to teach, to sing, to pray?
What are we baptized to do?
That is my question. I ask it of myself, and I ask it of you. When you think of your baptism, yes even
those who were baptized as infants can still think of their baptism, what do
you believe it has called you to do? It
was just a small splash of water, but that small splash changed
everything.
What has your baptism called you to
do?
Let all of God’s children say,
“Alleluia.” Amen.
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