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Baptism of the Lord January 13, 2008 Matthew 3:13-17
Wade in the Water
As I read the Scripture this week, I kept hearing the song “Wade in the Water” playing in my mind. Now, most of you probably do not know this about me yet, but I love to listen to spirituals and mass choirs “get their praise on” as they say. I like to hear some Christian rap occasionally, especially if it is based on Scriptural narrative. I like how it gets my whole body involved in the worship of God, rather than just my head, my intellect, as we ‘frozen chosen’ are often accused of. And of course, growing up in the South, I was definitely influenced by a strong African-American emphasis on call and response, on ‘owning the worship,’ on recognizing that God is not some distant, heavenly figure that looks on us from afar but is a very engaged God, a God of the fray. And I think spirituals tend to evoke that - how our whole lives are lived in the presence of this God who comes to us, who is living life with us. In the Scripture, Jesus says that he must be baptized to fulfill all righteousness but also I think to fully embrace what we need and who we are. Listen to the simple lyrics of the spiritual. “Wade in the Water, wade in the water, children, wade in the water, God’s gonna trouble the water.” The images are rich. God is involved, has always been troubling the water. I images I see are the Holy Spirit hovering over the chaos waters before creation began, the walls of water on either side as God’s Spirit pushed and held back the Red Sea, Jesus urging the disciples to push out into the deeper waters of Galilee, Jesus walking on the raging waters, and I see the dove descending upon Jesus as he rose up from the waters of Jordan.
As Walter Brueggemann would constantly say in Old Testament class back at Columbia, God is not the object here but the ever active subject – the Holy Spirit is constantly involved in creation, in calling, in baptism. In the Isaiah text, Eugene Peterson translates it as “Take a good look at my servant. I’ve bathed him with my Spirit, my life.” For Jesus, when the call of the Holy Spirit led him out from his home and family, his village, his friends and familiar surroundings to go out to the Jordan, this constituted a radical act on his part. The family knew that crazy cousin John had wandered out into the desert beyond the Jordan river years ago and now had heard that he was back dressed in crazy clothes and preaching hellfire repentance or else to all who came out to hear him. He was making a spectacle of himself and many enemies as well as he called out the powers that be in Jerusalem to warn them of their corruption and failure to truly follow God’s call on their lives. Again, as Peterson translates John’s speech to the people, “Brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to make any difference? It’s your life that must change, not your skin! And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as father. Being a descendant of Abraham is neither here nor there. Descendants of Abraham are a dime a dozen. What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire. I’m baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. But the main character is coming and he will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He’s going to clean house!” That’s who Jesus has gone to be baptized by – this crazy man who obviously has a death wish as he yells out at the religious and political leaders in Jerusalem. So you can see how this was a radical act that truly upset Jesus’ family. It was an embarrassment and shameful for him to go and wade out into the waters of the Jordan and submit to a baptism of repentance at the hands of this desert-dirty prophet. He was separated out, putting everyone on notice that he had followed God’s call away from his old life and into a new one that had been set before him. And God the Father claimed him in that baptism. In some older manuscripts of the text, the voice from heaven says “This is my son, whom today I have begotten.”
And the first disciples who followed after Jesus, those in the early centuries of the church continued that radical act of following the Spirit’s call, of wading into the waters of baptism, of being separated out for God’s good purposes in the world. The early church took this call very seriously, one of a new life, a new vocation to be about the Kingdom work that had been set before them as members of Christ’s body. After a significant time of study and mentoring in the faith, the new believers would be baptized at Easter sunrise to represent their being clothed with Christ, going down with him into death and rising up out of the waters with him into new life. The old person had gone and the new one that lives by the power of the Holy Spirit was raised up. Even to this day, baptism is a radical act that we have watered down, that we do not see truthfully anymore – it is a profound gift and responsibility to be claimed by the waters of baptism, to be claimed by the Holy Spirit, to respond to God’s good grace by wading out into the waters of new life, new loyalties, new relationships – to embody within our communal life how our ultimate loyalty is to the Body of Christ in every time and place. It is a faithful act of following in Jesus’ footsteps and obeying his command – for we are, through those waters of baptism, set apart as the called out ones for the sake of the world.
And again, the actor, the subject, the one who calls each one of us, the common factor in all our Scriptures this morning, in all our lives this morning, is the person of the Holy Spirit who embraces us and moves us to step out into the water in faith. And we are called out not simply for salvation’s sake but for the furthering of God’s will. To call all people to recognize the gospel of God’s love and sacrifice for the world. Our vocation is to proclaim and embody that good news for the sake of the world and its recreation. We are all, everyone here, lay and clergy alike, claimed and called in our baptisms to be about the ministries God has set for each one of us. Heady stuff, right? Lots of responsibility. That’s why it is imperative that we realize none of this is possible without the Holy Spirit calling, empowering, and sustaining us. I say this for the sake of all of us gathered together this morning because again we are all called to ministries of Christ’s Body in the world but specifically to the new elders we ordain today and to those already ordained. As we join together in the common ministry of the church that God has made us partners in, we must always remember that if we do not trust in the leadership and empowering of the Holy Spirit, we will accomplish nothing. God must be the one who works through us or all we do is in vain. And it is a great responsibility and work that you embark on today, for remember what happened after the baptism of our Lord; he was immediately taken by the Holy Spirit out into the desert to be tested in his faith. As ruling elders of this church, there will be times of hardship, controversy, or just plain weariness in the work, because we are simply human beings and we cannot accomplish God’s work among us without God’s Spirit. But I want you to take heart and be emboldened to wade out into the waters of your calling as ordained leaders of this church because Jesus has walked this way before you and the fire of the Holy Spirit has been vouchsafed to each and every one of you through the grace and calling of your baptism. Praise God that our God continually troubles the waters of our lives and will not let us go. Amen.
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