Saturday Sermons from the Sidelines: “Delighted!”

Baptism of Our Lord, 2021, Mark 1:4-11

How often have you longed to hear it? “I am delighted with you.” Some of us crave that affirmation from parents and rarely receive it. Some of us search for that approval from a spouse and end up disappointed. Some of us hope for that applause at work or at school, on a team or in a friendship. And we walk away still wanting it. Some of us look for that adulation in the public praise of elections and editorials. And we’re left sadder and wiser.

Delight these days is in short supply.

Sometimes a person important to us bestows the blessing. When that happens, it’s like being wrapped in a favorite blanket. It’s like sitting in the warm sun on a cold winter afternoon. It’s like being held in the arms of another and seeing the smile. The gift of delight makes me feel bigger, better, more alive, more…well, more “me”!

Is it any wonder we are desperate for someone, anyone, to be delighted with us?

Some would say this is a foolish wish. Others would say it is a childish need. Still others would say it is a sign of pathetic weakness. Get real. Grow up. Sprout a pair – as the crude and popular talk would have it. No one is paid to notice you, appreciate you, make you feel better about yourself. Delight is what happens in fairy tales, not in the real world. Delight in yourself if you must, but don’t expect it from anyone else.

In the face of that bleak barrier to blessing, we pull into ourselves. We get protective, defensive, and distant. We grow hard shells and thick skins. We armor up and hunker down. We stiffen our spines and our upper lips. We go it alone rather than risk rejection.

I’m not talking merely about personal and individual feelings, although that matters a lot. The number one mental health issue in our country is loneliness. The Pandemic has made a bad problem that much worse. But I’m also talking about life in the grocery store, on a Zoom meeting, in a political campaign and the halls of government. We live in a first-strike culture where the strategy is reject before you get rejected.

Delight these days is in short supply wherever you go.

I wonder if God’s baptismal words to Jesus catch your attention the way they do mine. “You are my Son, the Beloved. With you I am well-pleased.” The translation is too tame by half. God sees Jesus passing through the waters of the Jordan from the wilderness to the land of promise. And God says to Jesus, “I am delighted with you.”

God, I wonder, could you be delighted with me too? Even in the asking I feel bigger, better, more alive, more…me. But, no, it doesn’t last. I know me all too well. There’s far too much in me, in my past, in my heart, in my head – far too much that is anything but delightful.

I get the first part of the gospel reading much better than the second. People streamed out to the Jordan to confess their sins. They had to come clean before they got clean. They had to repent before they could repair. Maybe they felt better for a while, but they went home. And I imagine they found themselves in the same muck and mess as before.

Not much reason to delight in that.

A small girl had recently learned how to dress herself. One day her mother found her crying on the edge of her bed. “What’s wrong, dear?” the mother asked. “Do you feel sick?” The little girl shook her head. “Do you know,” she wailed, “that I have to put my clothes on every day for the rest of my life?” She fell back on the bed in tears.

That little girl had seen the lifetime of shirts and skirts, of dresses and pants, of socks and shoes. The enormity of it all was more than she could bear. When I confess, and even when I repent, I find the enormity of it all more than I can bear. Someone may call me delightful, but I have a hard time hearing it.

I had a seminary professor who began every class the same way. “Beloved in Christ,” he would say, “God knows you better than you know yourself and loves you anyway!” Most days I have trouble remembering that. Perhaps you do too. But that’s part of what I hope we can hear today.

God delights in you! All evidence and experience to the contrary, God delights in you! I can’t make you believe it or accept it, but there it is. God delights in you!

I know this because God delights in Jesus. Jesus comes up out of the waters of the Jordan, and the sky is torn open. What seems like an impossible barrier between us and God is removed. The loving Spirit of God comes and rests on Jesus like a favorite blanket, like the warm sun on a cold winter afternoon, like the arms of a loving parent, like a peaceful dove.

Jesus’ baptism reminds us that God’s delight is not Plan B. It’s not some detour or deviation. In the beginning God created all things. And God called everything that God had made “very good.” The Hebrew of Genesis 1 and 2 is far more expressive. When God was done making it all, God clapped God’s metaphorical hands and said, “Very good!”

God delights in Creation. Jesus comes to restore that delightful relationship, no matter what it takes. That includes you. Beloved in Christ, God knows you better than you know yourself and loves you anyway!

God delights in you!

But there’s all that stuff we talked about in the beginning of this conversation. My life doesn’t feel very delightful most of the time. What about that?

God’s delight is not just talk. Love is much more than a feeling. God’s love is action, the action of taking on the pain and problems, the vanity and violence, the despair and death that are so much a part of our lives. God focuses all that killing power into one point in cosmic time and space. That one point is the cross.

With that cross God absorbs in Jesus the worst that sin, death, and evil can dish out. On the other side is delight without end. We Christians call that Resurrection. We Christians call that the New Creation. We Christians call that life in Christ for all.

God delights in you…and you…and you…and you! It would seem that God delights in difference.

Just look at Creation. How many different kinds of bugs are really necessary on this planet? In fact, we don’t know precisely how many bug species there are, because scientists keep discovering more of them.

Whether all these bugs are necessary or not is beside the point. God the Creator finds them delightful in their buzzing and clicking, hopping and crawling, flying and swimming diversity.

God delights in you…and you…and you… and you! God delights in difference! Do we?

If we are telling the truth about ourselves as Christian churches, the answer must be no. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., described 11 a.m. on Sundays as the most segregated hour of the week in American society. King was talking about the time Christians spent in worship. That time was rarely spent worshipping with people of another race.

King offered his critique nearly sixty years ago. It’s still the case today. Before we get too far along, we must acknowledge that our congregations simply reflect how we live our lives. It’s not that if we could just make Christian churches more diverse, then our lives would be more diverse as well. That’s backwards. If we are unwilling to take delight in diversity Monday through Saturday, we won’t find it delightful on Sundays either.

You are made in God’s image. God delights in you. All human beings are made in God’s image. God delights in all of us. “God’s fingerprints rest upon every single person without restriction,” Jemar Tisby writes in How to Fight Racism. “The image of God extends to Black and white people, men and women, rich and poor, incarcerated and free, queer and straight, documented and undocumented, nondisabled and disabled, powerful and oppressed. All people equally bear the likeness of God,” Tisby concludes, “and thus possess incalculable and inviolable value” (pages 28-29).

God is delighted to death with you…and you…and you…and you! “God does not mistake unity for uniformity,” Tisby writes. “God celebrates diversity” (page 29). If we are going to live out the image of God renewed in us through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, we will celebrate diversity too.

That’s what love looks like, and love is an action – not just a feeling. Delighting in diversity is hard work for white Christians. It costs us to make it real. Our white privilege, position and power will have to die. Our white supremacy and white centrism and white fragility will have to die. Like the people who came to the Jordan, we have come clean before we can get clean. We have to repent before we can repair and reconcile. But we have to start somewhere.

God delights in us, and longs for us to be bigger, better, more alive, more…well, more “us”! So, we’re not in this on our own, thank God! Next week, we’ll talk some more about how we can grow out of our despair and into God’s delight. Amen.

Text Study for Genesis 1:1-5; Baptism of Our Lord B

The Holy Spirit’s Landing Pad

I often wonder why the lectionary committee has selected, based on historical practice, this text for Jesus’ baptism. It certainly must be to connect the waters of baptism with the waters of Creation, swept by the same Holy Spirit, “the Lord and Giver of Life.” The Creator “speaks” the cosmos into existence. Just last week we were reminded of the Word that is in the beginning with God and through whom all things are made. That Word is enfleshed in Jesus of Nazareth. At his baptism, he is spoken into his role as God’s beloved Son, the Messiah and Lord of all.

Baptism into Christ is not only rooted in the act of Creation. Baptism is (New) Creation. I want to take this opportunity to talk at greater length about baptism from our Lutheran perspective. In light of this first reading, we can think together about the relationship between God’s Word and the water. When God speaks, the waters of chaos are brought to order. It’s nothing in the water itself but is rather the creative power of God’s Word. So, Luther can write in the Small Catechism, “Baptism is not simply plain water. Instead,” he says, “it is water used according to God’s command and connected with God’s word.”

Kirsi Stjerne describes this as “heavenly water for the Holy Spirit’s landing.” This is one of the ways that our baptism is similar to and rooted in Jesus’ baptism. She notes that Luther insists that just as the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus in baptism, so that same Spirit comes to rest upon us as well. I would remind us that this is the Spirit that hovered over the face of the deep at Creation and brought light and life to the Cosmos.

Lois Tverberg connects some of these scriptural dots as she reflects on rabbinic methods of textual interpretation. The Spirit of God broods over the waters of chaos and Creation happens. In Genesis 8, we read that God causes a wind/spirit/breath to move over the earth and the flood waters subside. “More than one rabbi has noted that this replay of the first creation scene is telling us,” Tverberg writes, “how God was, in effect, creating the world anew after the flood” (Kindle Location 2594). At the Red Sea, God drives the waters back with a strong east wind (Exodus 14:21). And, of course, we see the Spirit descending on Jesus in the midst of the waters of the Jordan. Creation and New Creation are one thing.

Luther certainly makes this connection is his wonderful “Flood Prayer” which is incorporated into our ELW baptismal liturgy. “We give you thanks, O God,” the presider prays, “for in the beginning your Spirit moved over the waters and by your Word you created the world, calling forth life in which you took delight” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship, page 230). For Luther, the watery connections begin with Creation and extend through nearly every mention of water in the Hebrew scriptures.

That is especially the case with the crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus. The Flood Prayer directly connects that crossing to both Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan and his death and resurrection. So the Creation of out of nothing in Genesis 1, the rescue of the fleeing slaves, and our own participation in Christ’s death and resurrection through baptism are the same act of Creation spoken by God’s Word in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Flood Prayer concludes with a petition that the one who is baptized will receive that same gift of New Creation. “Pour out your Holy Spirit,” the presider prays, “the power of your living Word, that those who are washed in the waters of baptism may be given new life.” Creation, redemption, and sanctification are all the singular act of the one God who brings light out of darkness, order out of chaos, life out of death.

“Baptism, then, signifies two things – death and resurrection,” Luther writes in The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, “that is, full and complete justification” (page 70). He refers us to Paul’s words on baptism in Romans 6, the passage that concludes with our walking “in newness of life.” The God who creates with the Word by the power of the Spirit redeems the dead sinner into new life and empowers that life for daily discipleship. “This death and resurrection,” Luther concludes, “we call the new creation, regeneration, and spiritual birth” (page 70).

Baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ demonstrates to us how Creation actually “works.” In baptism, for the sake of Jesus God fills us with the Holy Spirit. In this way we are growing into what God made us to be from the beginning. Just as God fills us with light and life, so God fills all of Creation with that same Spirit of life and light. “The world is charged with the grandeur of God,” wrote Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.”

Psalm 29 is a celebration of the glory, power, and beauty of the Creator shining through the Creator’s work. This psalm might serve well as a call to worship at this service. It is a glimpse of the heavens torn open and the glory of the Lord revealed. The image of the Lord enthroned over the flood in verse 10 is especially potent in connection with the first reading from Genesis 1. And it is another touch point with Luther’s baptismal prayer.

Baptism shows us God’s heart and character in Creation. The finite is able by Divine mystery to encompass the infinite. We call that Incarnation. In baptism, we also become “containers” of the infinite Spirit of love in Christ. By analogy we can see the same thing happening in all of Creation. In many congregations on this day, worshippers will remember their own baptisms. It may be powerful to help them connect their individual washings with the Spirit that fills and animates the whole cosmos.

In the same way that this creative event was not visible to everyone at the baptism of Jesus, so for us the impact of baptism may have a certain hidden element. “A certain hiddenness remains with baptism and how it conveys God and God’s grace,” Stjerna writes. “We receive this grace invisibly,” she continues, “but this does not mean its fruits should remain invisible” (page 44). The fruits of the New Creation are acts of love for the neighbor.

The Holy Spirit gives the gift of faith by grace for the sake of Jesus. And we respond with acts of loving service that overflow our full hearts. “Is it possible,” Stjerna asks rhetorically, “that the fruits of lives transformed by such grace could remain hidden?” No, it is not. “For our whole life should be baptism,” Luther writes in the Captivity, “and the fulfilling of the sign or sacrament of baptism, since we have been set free from all else and given over to baptism alone, that is, to death and resurrection” (page 72).

References and Resources

Berge, Paul — http://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/content/pdfs/17-1_Communion/17-1_Berge.pdf

Crouch, Frank L. — https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/baptism-of-our-lord-2/commentary-on-acts-191-7

Hermann, Erik H. The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (The Annotated Luther Study Edition). Minneapolis, MN.: Fortress Press, 2016.

Hultgren, Arland — https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/baptism-of-our-lord-2/commentary-on-acts-191-7-2.

Hurtado, Larry. Mark (Understanding the Bible Commentary Series).

Juel, Don, and Kiefer, Patrick — http://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/content/pdfs/8-1_Spirituality/8-1_Juel-Keifert.pdf.

Lose, David — http://www.davidlose.net/2015/01/baptism-of-our-lord-b/

Bruce Malina;Richard L. Rohrbaugh. Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels Kindle Edition.

Roberts, Alastair — https://politicaltheology.com/the-politics-of-the-individual-mark-14-11/

Stjerne, Kirsi. No Greater Jewel: Thinking about Baptism with Luther. Minneapolis, MN.: Augsburg Fortress, 2009.

Tappert, Theodore, ed. Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel. Vancouver, BC.: Regent College Publishing, 1960.

Lois Tverberg. Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus: How a Jewish Perspective can Transform Your Understanding. Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker Books, 2017.

Ulansey, David — http://www.mysterium.com/veil.html Volck, Brian — http://www.ekklesiaproject.org/blog/2015/01/assumed-and-healed/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=assumed-and-healed

Text Study for Acts 19:1-7, Baptism of Our Lord B

Happy Day of Epiphany, by the way! Have your magi made it to the manger in your nativity scene? Blessed Christmas to our Easter sisters and brothers in Christ!

I don’t think I would read this text at worship unless I planned to preach on it. On its face, it is confusing and opaque. It has the potential to make people wonder about whether their own baptisms are “valid” or whether they need to be re-soaked in some way to make things official. I’m not sure it’s worth the risk without some explanation and comment. On the other hand, I think it’s an interesting focus for a sermon on baptism, if one wants to accept the challenge.

The narrative really begins at the end of chapter eighteen. We are introduced to Apollos of Alexandria, a Jew who was “an eloquent man, well-versed in the scriptures” (Acts 18:24). Apollos had received instruction in the “Way” of the Jesus followers. “He spoke with burning enthusiasm and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus,” we read in verse 25, “though he knew only the baptism of John.” Priscilla and Aquila, of Corinth (who had been trained personally by Paul) set him straight on that score.

Photo by Sebastian Coman Travel on Pexels.com

Apollos crossed the Adriatic over to Achaia and was successful in public debates with Jews regarding the scriptural proofs that Jesus was the Messiah. It appears that a type of Christian practice based on John’s baptism was the developing norm in the region, because Paul encountered it in Ephesus as well. The test, for Paul, was whether their baptism had resulted in the presence of the Holy Spirit in the form of ecstatic gifts. Not only had the Holy Spirit failed to make an appearance, but the Ephesian believers had not even heard of such a thing (at least in connection with baptism, we must assume). Paul corrects this deficiency, the Spirit shows up, and all is well.

Without regular instruction and reminders, our thinking about and practice of baptism can go off the tracks pretty quickly. In 1542, Luther sent a letter of comfort and encouragement to his theological colleague, Justas Jonas. Luther observed in the letter that without constant vigilance, the law of works could easily replace the gospel in worship. He mentioned the case of a pastor in Ronnenberg who taught that baptism with warm water was invalid, since fire was “mixed” with the water, rendering the water impure. “Behold the boldness with which our fearless foe [Satan] operates,” he wrote to Jonas.

The reading from Acts 19 is a clear demonstration of several things – that John’s baptism is not a Christian baptism, and that John continued to be a theological “wild card” in the early church for a couple of generations after the Day of Pentecost. And in the early church, proper instruction and practice were regarded as important for the reception and release of the power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers.

This is not to diminish the baptism of John. “The baptism of Jesus by John inaugurated Jesus’ earthly ministry,” notes Arland Hultgren. “It marked the moment when he was designated God’s Son by a voice from heaven, and was endowed with the Spirit to carry out his work on earth (Mark 1:10-11). Likewise, in Christian baptism, the event marks the inauguration of a new life and vocation for the one being baptized,” he concludes. “These points can all be inferred and developed out of the Gospel for the Day.”

“Something else was at work besides the form of the baptism,” Frank L. Crouch writes. “The key element was the living presence of God in the life of the believers. Paul’s first question to the believers is not “how were you baptized?” (although he does get around to that). His first question is whether they have received the Holy Spirit (19:2). Do they live their lives aware of, open to, filled with, and guided by the Spirit of God? That constitutes the key question of this passage, a question worth directing to ourselves and our own communities of faith today.”

“Regardless of how or where we were baptized,” Crouch concludes, “how is our life in the Spirit now? How are we living out our baptism now?”

Luther would ask us how we are putting our baptism to use in our daily lives. “Thus we must regard Baptism and make it profitable to ourselves,” Luther writes in his Large Catechism, “that when our sins and conscience oppress us, we strengthen ourselves and say: Nevertheless I am baptized; but if I am baptized, it is promised me that I shall be saved and have eternal life, both in soul and body…We have, therefore,” he concludes, “no greater jewel in body and soul, for by it we are made holy and are saved, which no other kind of life, no work upon earth, can attain.”

Hultgren notes that this text from Acts connects baptism to catechesis. While the validity of baptism doesn’t depend on a proper or adequate understanding of what’s happening (that is, no one is made worthy of baptism by knowing anything), making use of the full benefits of baptism is enhanced by a deeper understanding of the Spirit’s work in the sacrament. Perhaps that is what we see in this text more than anything else. Paul led the Ephesian Christians into a deeper appreciation of the baptismal gift and as a result unlocked their ecstatic spiritual gifts.

We live in a time when baptismal instruction for parents and sponsors is nonexistent in most places. Our witness as the Church suffers as a result of this lack of depth and insight. So, I want to take a few moments to review our Lutheran perspective on baptism. Kirsi Stjerne reminds us of how Martin Luther regarded baptism into Christ.

I want to pick out some salient points from Stjerne’s fine little book, No Greater Jewel, to inform our review. “We baptize because of Jesus’ example, by his command, and trusting in his promise,” she writes. “We baptize because we want Jesus’ presence to continue in our lives and we desire all the blessing of God that follows from that” (page 17). Baptism was, Stjerne notes, a matter of identity for the earliest Jesus followers. Thus, baptism in the name of John, as described in Acts, was a quite different matter from baptism in the name of Jesus.

“Why was baptism such a risky enterprise?” she asks. First, baptism connected one to an odd religion that didn’t fit the civil sensitivities of ancient people. Ordinary people in the Roman Empire found Christianity, well, just plain weird. Second, Christianity was not sanctioned by Roman law and was thus regarded as a foreign and perhaps subversive “philosophy.” Third, and “most radically, in baptism one accepted a view of God who cared personally about every human being, so much that God had taken on flesh and blood and come to live among us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. This was,” she concludes, “simply unheard of and strange” (page 18).

Perhaps we live in a time when this good news is once again simply unheard of and strange, a time when people find Christianity, well, just plain weird. The last time that happened, the church grew by leaps and bounds. This time? We shall see…

References and Resources

Berge, Paul — http://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/content/pdfs/17-1_Communion/17-1_Berge.pdf

Crouch, Frank L. — https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/baptism-of-our-lord-2/commentary-on-acts-191-7

Hermann, Erik H. The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (The Annotated Luther Study Edition). Minneapolis, MN.: Fortress Press, 2016.

Hultgren, Arland — https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/baptism-of-our-lord-2/commentary-on-acts-191-7-2.

Hurtado, Larry. Mark (Understanding the Bible Commentary Series).

Juel, Don, and Kiefer, Patrick — http://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/content/pdfs/8-1_Spirituality/8-1_Juel-Keifert.pdf.

Lose, David — http://www.davidlose.net/2015/01/baptism-of-our-lord-b/

Bruce Malina;Richard L. Rohrbaugh. Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels Kindle Edition.

Roberts, Alastair — https://politicaltheology.com/the-politics-of-the-individual-mark-14-11/

Stjerne, Kirsi. No Greater Jewel: Thinking about Baptism with Luther. Minneapolis, MN.: Augsburg Fortress, 2009.

Tappert, Theodore, ed. Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel. Vancouver, BC.: Regent College Publishing, 1960.

Lois Tverberg. Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus: How a Jewish Perspective can Transform Your Understanding. Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker Books, 2017.

Ulansey, David — http://www.mysterium.com/veil.html

Volck, Brian — http://www.ekklesiaproject.org/blog/2015/01/assumed-and-healed/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=assumed-and-healed

Text Study — Mark 1:4-11, Baptism of Jesus B

Continued from the previous post…

Malina and Rohrbaugh flesh out a few more details in today’s gospel reading. “The wilderness was viewed as outside the control of structured society. By going there,” they note, “John (and those following him) has symbolically withdrawn from the established social system” (page 175). This was not only a withdrawal from the seat of power in Jerusalem but also a symbolic critique of that system of power. They note that Mark’s terminology forgiveness can also be used to describe cancellation of a financial debt. Again, John points to someone other than the established authorities as the source of such remission.

Why was Jesus baptized for repentance leading to the forgiveness of sins? This question troubles the other gospel writers enough that they find ways to address the question directly. Mark is not troubled in this way. He understands that in the baptism, Jesus is recapitulating and fulfilling the role of Israel in the Hebrew scriptures. He enters the Land of Promise through the waters of the Jordan and makes a new start in being a blessing to the world. Jesus leaves home and family to embrace this alternative setting.

Alastair Roberts notes that this is also a place where one prophet succeeds another. “It was at the Jordan that Moses passed the baton of leadership to Joshua, Moses’ preparatory desert ministry being succeeded by the mission of Joshua within the Promised Land,” he writes. “It was at the Jordan in 2 Kings 2 that the desert prophet Elijah passed the baton of his prophetic mission to Elisha, a prophet who worked many wonders in the land.” With a simple reference to geography and a brief description of the Baptizer’s prophetic couture, Mark gives us layers of meaning for the event.

The words of affirmation, acceptance – are directed to Jesus personally in Mark’s account. These are words of vocation as well, apparently, since Jesus is driven immediately by the Spirit into the wilderness to test his vocation as God’s Son. But we’ll save that reflection for the first Sunday in Lent. For Jesus, baptism ultimately means dying (see Mark 10:39). That dying is the prelude to new life (see Romans 6, Colossians 2:12, Titus 3:5).

Nonetheless, the words are for us as well in our baptisms. “This is where we are being led by the Incarnate Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit,” writes Brian Volck, “to a place where we, too, are named beloved sons and daughters of God.” Why was Jesus baptized? Gregory Nazianzus wrote in his great treatise on the Incarnation that what Jesus does not take on cannot be healed. Therefore, Jesus takes on everything there is about being human in order to heal all of humanity.

At the baptism, the sky is “torn open…” Hurtado notes that this may be an allusion to the words of Isaiah 64:1 – “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence…” The appointed psalm captures the power of such a theophany (an appearance of the Divine) in wind and storm. “The point of the allusion,” Hurtado suggests, “would be that Jesus’ calling by God is to be seen as the fulfillment of the prayer and hope for God’s new deliverance and revelation that Isaiah 64 reflects” (page 19).

Paul Berge writes, “The “tearing asunder” that takes place now, in the inaugural event of Jesus’ life, will be echoed in the final event of Jesus life. Jesus’ last cry and breath from the cross will signal the “tearing asunder” of the temple curtain, an event which inaugurates God’s presence among us in Jesus Christ, a presence no longer confined to the temple (Mark 15:37-39). (The verb, “to tear asunder” [sxizein in Mark 1:10; 15:38], appears only twice in the Gospel of Mark, thus serving to frame an epiphany theology that continues throughout the gospel.)”

David Ulansey amplifies the connection between the “tearing asunder” of the heavens at Jesus’ baptism and the “tearing asunder” of the Temple curtain when Jesus dies. He points to a brief note in Josephus’ Jewish War which describes the outer curtain of the Holy of Holies in the Temple as being decorated with a beautiful representation of the sky. “Portrayed on this tapestry,” Josephus writes, “was a panorama of the entire heavens.” The baptism is the beginning, and the crucifixion is the culmination of God’s return to reclaim the cosmos for salvation and life.

The voice from heaven reminds us of several passages from the Hebrew scriptures, especially Psalm 2:7, Genesis 22:2, and Isaiah 42:1. Hurtado notes that these texts “were understood by some in Mark’s time as foreshadowing the Messiah…and so the allusion to these passages explicitly designates Jesus as the one foreshadowed” (page 20). So, Jesus’ baptism is a call story resonating with the stories of prophetic calls in the Hebrew scriptures.

The first Sunday after Epiphany is always the Festival of the Baptism of our Lord. It is an appropriate time for all of us to remember our own baptisms into Christ’s death and resurrection.

In our baptisms, we too are called chosen and beloved. We have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever, as we hear in our liturgy. David Lose writes, “Baptism reminds us that wherever we may go and whatever we may do or have done to us, yet God continues to love us, accept us, and hold onto us. And for a generation that has been sold cheap affirmation as a substitute for genuine acceptance, there is no more powerful word.” But that same liturgy pivots to a call at the lighting of the baptismal candle and the words, “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Jesus’ baptism, of course, means far more than, “God likes me! God really likes me!” The baptism declares that the old regime is soon to pass away. God is returning to rule just as God promised. This is the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, for those who are oppressed by the old regime. It is, at least in the short run, bad news for those who depend on the old regime for power and privilege, for status and security, for wealth and wellbeing. Good news for some is quite often bad news for others.

Alastair Roberts puts it this way. “In the face of corrupt leaders and institutions, these common people bore the identity of Israel in themselves, returning to the banks of the Jordan River so that they might be restored and re-established as a people in God’s favor. Most importantly,” he concludes, “it was as the great individual bearer of Israel’s identity and destiny that Jesus himself was baptized.” When it comes to the Gospel, there is no purely personal dimension. The personal is always political, and vice versa. When we say that Jesus is Lord, we are saying that someone else (such as Caesar) is not.

“The world is a different place because of Jesus, we learn,” Juel and Kiefer write in their Word and World article. “A barrier separating God from his creation has been torn away. But people still live as if nothing had happened. The epiphany makes no obvious impact. Hiddenness is the dominant motif. So is surprise. The Jesus who comes to accomplish God’s promised deliverance is not the sort expected.”

References and Resources

Berge, Paul — http://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/content/pdfs/17-1_Communion/17-1_Berge.pdf

Crouch, Frank L. — https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/baptism-of-our-lord-2/commentary-on-acts-191-7

Hermann, Erik H. The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (The Annotated Luther Study Edition). Minneapolis, MN.: Fortress Press, 2016.

Hultgren, Arland — https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/baptism-of-our-lord-2/commentary-on-acts-191-7-2.

Hurtado, Larry. Mark (Understanding the Bible Commentary Series).

Juel, Don, and Kiefer, Patrick — http://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/content/pdfs/8-1_Spirituality/8-1_Juel-Keifert.pdf.

Lose, David — http://www.davidlose.net/2015/01/baptism-of-our-lord-b/

Bruce Malina;Richard L. Rohrbaugh. Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels Kindle Edition.

Roberts, Alastair — https://politicaltheology.com/the-politics-of-the-individual-mark-14-11/

Stjerne, Kirsi. No Greater Jewel: Thinking about Baptism with Luther. Minneapolis, MN.: Augsburg Fortress, 2009.

Tappert, Theodore, ed. Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel. Vancouver, BC.: Regent College Publishing, 1960.

Lois Tverberg. Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus: How a Jewish Perspective can Transform Your Understanding. Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker Books, 2017.

Ulansey, David — http://www.mysterium.com/veil.html

Volck, Brian — http://www.ekklesiaproject.org/blog/2015/01/assumed-and-healed/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=assumed-and-healed

Text Study for Mark 1:4-11; Baptism of Jesus B, 2020

Ripping Clouds and Hovering Birds

Epiphany is the season of God’s “appearing” among us. We heard this at Christmas in Titus 2:11 – “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all…” This verse has the Greek verb from which we get “Epiphany.” Every Sunday in Epiphany we get an additional insight into God’s appearing among us in Jesus, our Lord, Savior, and Messiah. “This text from Mark 1:4-11 and the text from Mark 9:2-9 frame the gospel texts of the season of Epiphany,” writes Paul Berge. “In this season we move from the baptism of Jesus to his transfiguration; it is a season of epiphany in the revelation of the one whose life and ministry foreshadow his death and resurrection in Jerusalem.”

It begins with the coming of the Magi to the manger on January 6. Jesus is treated as a king, and his birth is announced to these wandering Persian mystics – that is, to the whole earth. With this beginning, we understand that God’s appearing is, as Titus notes, “bringing salvation to all…”

You may remember from a previous text study that the first three verses of Mark’s gospel serve as the “title” of the document and the prophetic superscription. The preaching of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus really mark the beginning of Mark’s gospel account. “It is interesting that,” Larry Hurtado writes, “although Mark presents the human characters in his story, even the disciples, as largely unable to perceive properly who Jesus really is until his resurrection, the reader is given in the opening line the titles that prove to be Mark’s favorite terms for communicating Jesus’ true dignity – Christ (Messiah), and Son of God” (page 15).

Lois Tverberg offers some helpful thoughts about Jesus as God’s “Son” in her book Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus. To be a “son” in the ancient Near East, she notes, was to resemble the father in personality and potential. Immediately in his gospel account, Mark describes Jesus as carrying the character of God. This fatherly gift and vocation are confirmed at the baptism when God calls Jesus his “beloved Son.” Jesus carries the “family name” and goes into the “family business” – the reign of God present among us.

Tverberg points helpfully to the ways in which being a child of God work themselves out then in the New Testament. We can perhaps expand on that in our thinking and study. For example, last week we read in John’s prologue, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13). If we are God’s children by grace through our faith in Jesus, then we carry the character of God as well. We have been brought into the family business and carry the family name.

In the Rite of Holy Baptism, we remind worshippers of this as we name and mark the one baptized. We utter the person’s name immediately followed by “Child of God.” This helps us, perhaps, to understand John’s words a bit more clearly. A better translation of the text above would be something like God “gave the authority to live as children of God.”

Just as Jesus’ status as God’s Beloved Son is both gift and vocation, so it is for us as well. We are gifted with a place in the family by God’s grace in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. And we are called to grow into that gift as we live faithfully as God’s children. This is affirmed, for example in the words from the third chapter of John’s first letter: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are…Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed” (verses 1 and 2).

We as readers of Mark’s Gospel know from the very beginning who this Jesus is and what he is about. “There is a certain secrecy surrounding Jesus in the book,” Hurtado continues, “but the reader is let in on the secret right at the beginning” (page 15). This is true even at the baptism, where we hear the words God speaks directly to Jesus. It seems in Mark’s account that this speech is not a public event (as opposed to reports in the other gospels) but rather somehow “internal” to Jesus’ experience. We, the readers, are the only ones let in on the secret at this point.

Malina and Rohrbaugh amplify this point. “Here the description of the heavens opening makes public what would otherwise be a private and meaningless event. But since no onlookers or witnesses are described as being present,” they suggest, “it is clear that Mark intends his readers to be the confirming public such a grant of honor requires” (page 175).

I am not so sure that Mark is so clear about the public or private nature of the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove. Even if it were public, however, the meaning of that event would have, in Mark’s telling, been lost on those present at the event. It is really only at the crucifixion, when the Temple in the curtain is torn asunder, that a public pronouncement of Jesus’ identity is made. And then, it is the ambiguous report of a Roman centurion.

There is, however, more to this descent of the dove. This is the good news of Jesus, the Messiah (Christ), the Son of God. Tverberg reminds us that in the Hebrew scriptures, “Whenever God appointed a leader over Israel, [God] filled him with his ruach, [God’s] Spirit” (Kindle Location 2601). The Spirit of the Lord was an “anointing” for kings and prophets, sometimes accompanied by actual oil and at other times not.

In particular, Tverberg notes, we can read the Messianic promise in Isaiah 11, that the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon the branch from the stump of Jesse. “The same Spirit of God that hovered over creation,” according to at least one rabbi, “would rest upon the Messiah.” And the Hebrew word used in these passages really is “hovered,” like a bird hovering over a nest. “When you’re aware of the avian imagery,” Tverberg writes, “it’s hard not to think of another scene of God’s ruach fluttering over water, when Jesus is baptized in the river Jordan” (Kindle Location 2678).

This is the link to the appointed reading from Genesis 1:1-5 that we will study in a few days. Keep in mind the Spirit hovering over the water as we go forward. In the meantime, we’ll finish up with more comments on this gospel text in the next post.

References and Resources

Berge, Paul — http://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/content/pdfs/17-1_Communion/17-1_Berge.pdf

Crouch, Frank L. — https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/baptism-of-our-lord-2/commentary-on-acts-191-7

Hermann, Erik H. The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (The Annotated Luther Study Edition). Minneapolis, MN.: Fortress Press, 2016.

Hultgren, Arland — https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/baptism-of-our-lord-2/commentary-on-acts-191-7-2.

Hurtado, Larry. Mark (Understanding the Bible Commentary Series).

Juel, Don, and Kiefer, Patrick — http://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/content/pdfs/8-1_Spirituality/8-1_Juel-Keifert.pdf.

Lose, David — http://www.davidlose.net/2015/01/baptism-of-our-lord-b/

Bruce Malina;Richard L. Rohrbaugh. Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels Kindle Edition.

Roberts, Alastair — https://politicaltheology.com/the-politics-of-the-individual-mark-14-11/

Stjerne, Kirsi. No Greater Jewel: Thinking about Baptism with Luther. Minneapolis, MN.: Augsburg Fortress, 2009.

Tappert, Theodore, ed. Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel. Vancouver, BC.: Regent College Publishing, 1960.

Lois Tverberg. Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus: How a Jewish Perspective can Transform Your Understanding. Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker Books, 2017.

Ulansey, David — http://www.mysterium.com/veil.html

Volck, Brian — http://www.ekklesiaproject.org/blog/2015/01/assumed-and-healed/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=assumed-and-healed