My Son the Beloved
Sunday, January 11th, 2009
Epiphany 1B
Mark 1:1-11
Theme: introductions
(Note: As is usually the case, I was working on the manuscript Saturday evening, and … it was coming … but with difficulty … there came a point where I had to step away from it, which was at that point where I ask “what does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?”. Sunday morning came and the morning was unusually hectic. I sometimes have about a half hour during the Sunday School hour where I can review and/or re-center my thoughts on the message, but that didn’t happen this past Sunday. I knew something different was ‘brewing’, so that when the time came, the manuscript went by the wayside, for the most part, and this is what came out.)
1 The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
2 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
3the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight” ’,
4John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.6Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’ 9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the
Transcript
Over the last few weeks I have been engaged in a new online activity. I am becoming familiar with the ins and outs of social networking. I’ve set myself up on Facebook, a web service that allows me to upload pictures and information about myself, tell people what I am doing at any given moment in the course of my day – or what I am getting ready to do if I am leaving the house – and basically keep people informed about what is going on in my life. I was able to let folks know of events in the church family in December as well as last week, and I also told people that we were in
The neat thing about the site is that I have been able to connect with people that in truth I didn’t ever expect to reconnect with for the rest of my life – childhood friends from Chile, classmates from middle school, high school, and college, a few people from seminary … it’s been a wonderful experience, both of Leslie’s brothers refer to it as ‘Crackbook’, because it is addictive … and it CAN be … there was a comment from a friend of Leslie’s from seminary who posted, “I detect a pattern: why is it that when I have laundry to do I always stop and say, “just let me check in on Facebook for just a COUPLE of minutes …”
But it has opened up what was a world that was only in my memory and has turned it into not just a virtual reality, but an ACTUAL reality – people post pictures minutes after they’ve taken them. I’m seeing the daughter of one of my fellow MK’s who is now 16 and a junior in high school, who the last time I saw her was MAYBE 3 or 4 …
It has made it necessary for us all in some ways to reintroduce ourselves to each other. We know who we were back then, and depending on how far back you go, the who you were wasn’t quite formed, or was in the process of forming. I’m not saying I’m done forming, please! But it has been enlivening, it has been in some ways worrying – to see how some people are struggling, but in other ways it has been encouraging and rewarding to watch and see how well people are handling their lives.
So what does that have to do with Mark, you ask?
The Gospels each, as I mentioned last week, endeavor to introduce Jesus Christ as the Messiah. In some cases to a Jewish community, in other cases to a Hellenistic, a Greek community, in other cases to a mixed community. And the way they are each presenting their stories is tailored to their audience.
We find in Mark’s gospel particularly – actually this characterizes the entirety of the Gospel – it is spare. It is not excessively wordy. It packs all the necessary information into just a few words. What is interesting is that Mark completely skips the birth narrative. There is no Christmas story in Mark. But there is, right there at the beginning, the baptism story. Matthew and Luke are the only Gospels that include the Christmas story, but all four Gospels, AND Romans AND Acts include the Baptism of Christ. It makes you think that maybe the early church viewed the baptism of Christ as maybe a little more significant than the birth.
What is it that happens at OUR baptism? What do we say? We are baptized into a family of faith – or words to that effect. We are baptized into becoming a new creation – we are buried in death, raised to new life. Is that what was going on with Jesus? After all, he WAS God incarnate. He was one that probably didn’t need to be baptized for his sins, first of all, and second, didn’t need to be baptized into new life in himself, that would have been kind of redundant.
It poses an interesting question. It was a signal event in the ministry of Christ. It was a proclamation, on John’s part, of who Jesus was.
The fact that John is included in each of the Gospels as well, as part of the baptism story echoes the tradition of prophetic foretelling – prophetic presentations of the word of God. Prophets in the Old Testament, if we read, ‘The word of God came to Moses, came to Jeremiah, came to Ezekiel…’ John had the distinct privilege of being present when the Word of God came to him in the flesh. And through that event came to all of us.
(Long pause – then, a deep breathe, a sigh, and to Leslie: “I’m going to jump … it’s okay (heeheehee)” (here’s where I really didn’t know what was going to come out next) … and stepping down from the pulpit onto the floor)
When I was first … there have been cases where someone has approached me about being baptized, and I’ve agreed to talk with them about what it means, what is involved, what it means for that person. By and large those conversations have uncovered an understanding of baptism that is relatively clear, that it is a statement of faith, that it is a point beyond which one has agreed to be associated, if that is a mild enough word, to be related to Jesus Christ. There have been a few instances where those conversations have begun and it has become fairly clear that the understanding is that the baptism is viewed more as a … more as a thing where it is “Let’s get this over with so I can be saved and I can get on with my life,” regardless of what the baptism means, what the story of the gospel means. If we take our example from Christ, baptism initiates us into a life of faith that involves hardship, and struggle, and journey, and suffering for God’s sake.
If we view baptism as a ticket to heaven, I think we may be a little off base. In agreeing to baptism we agree to whatever God has for us. WHATEVER God has for us, whether it is facing the trials of the mission field, whether it is facing persecution, whether it is facing the ridicule of family or the trial of chronic illness; there are no guarantees that our life will be, in the earthly sense any easier when we choose to follow Christ.
I think that’s what the Gospels and Mark in particular – in leaving his ending open-ended (we’ll get to that later) – but there is a … there is a way in which Mark presents the story of Jesus that is almost staccato – it’s almost like “and then he did this, and then he did THIS, and then THIS happened, and then they went HERE,” and it builds to a final face-off with the ruling authorities.
Did you all see the marquis at that Baptist church across from Hardee’s in town? They just changed it in the last couple of days. I drove by it yesterday, and read it for the first time. It says “If you got paid for being a Christian, would you starve?” And that got me to thinking. How well off WOULD we live if we got paid for living like a Christian?
I have to confess, there might be weeks when we might be eating beans. And there would be other weeks when, gloriously, we would have … chicken. J
This Sunday in the lectionary is the Baptism of Christ, of course. I would invite us all to reflect on our own baptism, in whatever form it was, and how that baptism speaks to our life of faith today.
If we live in the reality that that statement made a difference in how we carry on our lives on a daily basis, or if it was an event that is marked on a calendar and is left there.
You hear me say this again and again. The Gospel is something that we do not simply state, that we do not simply SPEAK, but that we LIVE, that we put into practice every time we walk out our door, every time we get out of bed, every time we speak to our children or our spouses, or our friends and relatives, or strangers. It MAKES A DIFFERENCE.
Let’s pray.
For lifting us out of the waters of baptism, we give you thanks O God,
For plunging us under them as well, for offering us new life, for offering us fullness of life through your son. We ask, O God, that that fullness would be constantly renewed constantly lived out. Lord we ask you to walk alongside, to be in us, to change us to your image, to your likeness. Lord make us slaves to your Spirit. Through him who gave his.
Amen.
Manuscript
This is what I had put down the night before …
Over the last few weeks I have been engaged in a new online activity. I am becoming familiar with the ins and outs of social networking. I’ve set myself up on Facebook, a web service that allows me to upload pictures and information about myself, tell people what I am doing at any given moment in the course of my day – or what I am getting ready to do if I am leaving the house – and basically keep people informed about what is going on in my life. I was able to let folks know of events in the church family in December as well as last week, and I also told people that we were in
The neat thing about the site is that I have been able to connect with people that in truth I didn’t ever expect to reconnect with for the rest of my life – childhood friends from Chile, classmates from middle school, high school, and college, a few people from seminary … it’s been a wonderful experience, but it has required me to reintroduce myself to them, to some degree, depending on how much time has passed since we last communicated… in some cases, I am a totally different person from the one they knew. It’s been an interesting exercise in discovering how I want to present myself – introduce myself – to people who are in many ways more like new acquaintances than old ones … since our initial contact was from a time when neither one of us had formed much of an idea of who we each were …
This morning we are continuing the thread from last week – about introductions.
We find in Mark’s Gospel an introduction that is spare, but that packs all the necessary information into a few words… why do you think it was so important for Mark and Luke to include John so early in the story? Matthew does as well, after slogging through the genealogy of Jesus and the story of the birth and the wise men… Luke also, after going through the birth narrative, along with the story of Jesus’ visit to the temple when he was 12, includes John in the introduction of the Gospel – ALL the Gospels include John – he is an integral part of the story because he was the one who baptized Jesus. He was the one who first proclaimed that Jesus was the Messiah. He was the voice crying in the wilderness … out of sync, out on the fringes of acceptable society, out – just OUT.
So why, do you think, was it so important for ALL the Gospel writers, along with Paul in writing to the Romans, and Luke, writing again in Acts, to relate the story of Christ’s baptism?
Was it to make a point that Jesus was Baptist?
I don’t think so.
Was it to elevate the importance of John as a prophet?
I don’t think that either.
What was it then? Why is the story of Jesus’ baptism in all four gospels and two additional epistles, when the BIRTH story – the telling of Jesus’ BIRTH ITSELF, is only found in Matthew and Luke?
I think it has to do with definitions – or defining events. Everyone is born. In that sense, Jesus was like every other human being on the planet. The birth story can be “dolled up”, it can be embellished, detailed, described, but it is, after all is said and done, the story of a woman having a baby; actually a pretty routine event, even considering the difficulties surrounding their circumstances.
Not everyone is baptized, or has the heavens torn open, and a dove descending on them while the voice of God is heard to say “this is my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.” It’s just not an everyday occurrence.
Remember, the gospel writers were intent on making a point. Their FIRST goal, over and above all else, was to make people understand that the person they were talking about, the main character in the story, was more than a Galilean carpenter, more than a philosopher, a teacher, a prophet, a healer, and a rebel, he was and is God incarnate.
That was why John the Baptist or John the son of Zechariah, as Luke names him, plays such an integral role in the Gospel narrative. He is the first to name Jesus as who he was publicly after Simeon and Anna in the temple shortly after his birth. Mary and Joseph knew at his birth, but they kept it kind of quiet. He was the one who shouted it, so to speak, from the mountaintops – from the wilderness … he was the one who acknowledged his position before Christ as an example for all of us to follow – in not being worthy to untie the thong of his sandals …
So what does this mean for
It means that we take John’s lead in recognizing who we are, and in recognizing who Jesus is – but more than simply recognizing, we are called to obedience, and faithfulness, and trust. You see, if we don’t live out what we say we believe, it’s just words.
Let’s pray.
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