"With water and light ... sharing our faith."
Our readings this morning are a wondrous blend of lectionary texts from the celebration of Epiphany that we marked on Friday, and the Baptism of Jesus, that we mark today.
We have the visit of the Magi to the Holy Family in the days following Christ’s birth, we have the celebration on God’s gift of Creation, and we have Jesus grown into an adult and being baptised at the River Jordan by John.
In some ways, these texts seem divergent and unrelated. But if we step back and consider the season we’ve been journeying through, and the underlying message of Faith, we can not only see the connections, we can celebrate those connections as a means of strengthening ourselves and our community to continue to journey forward into our lives and our world, and face whatever comes our way.
Ultimately we are a hopeful people. I would go so far as to say that hope is almost hard-wired into our beings so that we can keep moving forward no matter what the odds might seems to be. Hope gives us the motivation to face the uncertainties and challenges of life, and KNOW that we will not only survive and endure, but we will succeed.
Think about how pervasive hopeful images are in our culture … they are literally everywhere if we dare to look.
I had a few pop to mind over this last week – the scene in the Lord of the Rings movies when Gandalf is taken prisoner and held in the tower as the forces of evil and darkness are preparing to conquer middle earth. After the fight between wizards, Gandalf is lying on the cold stone floor when a moth arrives, fluttering through the tumult and devastation unfolding all around to deliver a message to Gandalf – a message of hope … the soft fluttering flight of the moth is HOPE made real … as you follow this story though, you realize that Tolkien built on this theme of hope throughout the journey of the Frodo, Sam and their companions. What began as a quest to return a ring to its place of creation became a journey that was no longer about the destination at all. Instead the journey itself became the source of hope – over and over, just when things seemed their bleakest and it appeared that the forces of darkness and evil were about to win, something broke through to keep the various characters moving forward … The stories of The Lord of the Rings were crafted by the pen of JRR Tolkien in the deep dark hours of World War Two and shared with his son Christopher who was serving in the RAF.
Through the fantastic world of Frodo and the others, Tolkien whispered a message of hope for both the inhabitants of middle earth as well as his fellow residents of this earth …
This flicker of hope is found too in places like John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Fields” that begins by acknowledging the beauty of the bright red poppies blowing between crosses where fallen soldiers lie … this juxtaposition is powerful because it takes note of the presence of hope in the midst of destruction.
Life will endure despite our best efforts to the contrary … Hope is Universal and unconditional.
We will find evidence of Hope if we dare to look … over and over, in our literature, in our art, in our scriptures we are confronted with this universal truth that no matter how dark it may be – no matter how alone we may feel – no matter how bleak things may seem to be – Hope WILL break through and we will be able to celebrate that God is with us …
So in the darkened streets of a forgotten village in a backwater corner of a long ago empire, a simple oil lamp shines in the darkness and welcomes in the various visitors who had come to celebrate the arrival of the new born King … In the coldest and darkest season of the year, we are invited to remember and recall these happenings as a way of reminding ourselves collectively that this HOPE is real …
Hope as light shining forth in the darkness.
Hope as the promise of a new born child – not just the Christ child, but every child …
Then we hear the ancient words of Genesis that celebrate the crafting of Creation at the hands of God … over and over we conjure the image of God bringing into being the various bits and pieces of this world in which we live, and at the end of each ‘day’ God leans back and with a joyous smile announces – “it is Good” … light and dark – it is good … water and land – it is good … trees and bushes and vast grassy plains – it is good … animal and fish and birds – it is good … and lastly, but certainly not least, man and woman and the human family – regardless of what we have managed to do in recent decades, and putting aside the silly tendency we have toward things like greed and selfishness and destruction – we began with the pronouncement “it is good.”
Creation unfolds as a place and a gift overflowing with blessings … we stand in the midst of a planet teeming with life and with goodness – we need only open our eyes and our beings to it …
The story of creation is about taking this hope and making it real. Relearning how to live in a place of awe and wonder that gives rise to a gratitude that is not grovelling but rather APPRECIATIVE of what is around us.
Have we ever really thought about what we have as a people and a culture? How incredibly fortunate we truly are?
We live in house where at the flick of a switch we have light and power. We can turn a tap and have hot and cold running water in an instant. We have cupboards and fridges full of food. We have so much stuff collectively that one of the biggest growth industries even as the economy has faltered has been the self-storage places. ALMOST every town in North America has a self-storage place today – something that was unheard of a generation ago.
We have so much stuff, we have to rent extra space to store it … yet, despite ALL of this – do we appreciate it? Or have we grown complacent in our views? Do we have too much stuff and too little appreciation of what we have?
Perhaps that’s the whole point of the Genesis story – to appreciate the blessings that we have, and to realize that these gifts are truly good … our job is to appreciate them more, and to appreciate the source.
And so, with hope and gratitude, we approach our final reading – the Baptism of Jesus … we have light and God and now we bring in the cleansing life giving power of water …
Every minister, if he or she was being honest and candid will likely admit to having a conversation at some point in their ministry that goes something like this:
Hi, I’d like to have our kid done.
Done?
Yeah, done – you know with the water when you splash some on them and say a few words …
You mean Baptism?
Yeah, that’s what mom (or grandma) called it. Baptism. We’d like to get our kid done …
Many of my colleagues resent these phone calls, and there have been books written on informing and educating these callers about the importance and significance of Baptism, and how to bring them back in line with the theological and traditional underpinnings of the Act of Baptism as a celebration within the Church … meanwhile, eyes glaze over and people say “fer crying out loud, we just wanted to get the kids done …”
Personally, I don’t mind these phone calls. Part of me knows we may never see that family again, but another part of me realizes that in that moment they are asking for something and they are reaching out to a Church to find confirmation that this ‘kid’ is as important to God and to someone else as it is to them. They may be calling because Grandma has put pressure on them, but when we hold open the door and affirm that this child has value and is a precious child of God we are not only living our theology, we are saying that this family has a place here with us.
Baptism is about the abundant and limitless gift of Grace. In Baptism we are affirming that EVERYONE is a child of God and EVERYONE has a place.
As Jesus rose from the waters of Baptism, the words “this is my son, my beloved” echoes across the universe.
In our Baptism we rise from the water with the same words echoing across the universe.
Baptism is an affirmation of God’s love for ALL people.
So that family calling to ask about getting their kid ‘done’ is opening the door for us to welcome them in and affirm what we may so easily forget: that God’s love rolls down in abundance for ALL people, and like water flooding over creation that love brings life to all of us.
Hope … Gratitude and appreciation … and the abundance of God’s grace … that is what we are to be about in our faith journey, and that is what undergirds everything we do and everything we are as a Church and a people of faith. Epiphany is the season when we REMEMBER that and go back into the world recharged and enthusiastic because of what we’ve recounted and experienced in the streets of Bethlehem.
Now is the season when we, like the Magi go home by a different route to share with the world all that we have seen and heard and experienced … now is the season that we celebrate the abundance of God’s love throughout our world not just for us – but for everyone !!
May it be so – thanks be to God … Let us pray …
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