THROUGH THE DEEP WATERS
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Text: Isaiah 43:1-7; Luke 3:15-17, 20-22
OK, the party’s over. It’s the second week of the new year already. Alabama has been crowned the national champion. Time to put away the decorations and get on with it. Forget the glitz and glamour of the holidays. It’s time for a reality check. And sure enough, here comes John, right on schedule, calling us names and exhorting us to get our acts together before it’s too late. Well, really, we haven’t even had time to write our thank you notes and finish up the Christmas goodies. Couldn’t he hold off just a little longer, let us sleep in just one more day? No, not John. The time is now, the place is here, the word is hot on his lips - “Repent and be baptized.”
I suppose this awkward disjuncture has something to do with the way we celebrate Christmas, too often sentimentalizing the coming of the Holy One and missing the meaning of God-with-us. But John neither misses the point nor is willing to waste one second in driving it home. Curious character, dressed in animals skins, wild-eyed and ragged around the edges, he roams the wilderness east of Jerusalem proclaiming the day of the Lord and calling all to accountability. He is not a rabbi or a philosopher. He is a prophet and a man of action. He has a task to accomplish, with limited time to accomplish it. He has a vision that he must make plain to all who will hear. “Repent, for the time is at hand when God will come among you with power and might. ‘Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ God is sending his Messiah both to judge and to redeem. Get ready! Repent and be baptized before it’s too late.”
Well, really! Not only is he rushing us out of our holiday bliss, he is using language we’re not used to and don’t really want to hear. People don’t talk like this in polite society. He seems rather rude, he looks funny and he does not smell very nice. Surely God’s messenger is not coming to us like that. Not in Palo Alto. Not in 2010. It’s an interesting story, but why would we traipse out into the desert to listen to some crazed preacher, comparing us to snakes and challenging our life-styles?
It’s probably true that John would not come to us in such a guise today, but the messenger of God would still need to get our attention. Something about him or her would need to shake us from our complacency and challenge our too-comfortable way of living. True, we are not used to hell-fire and brimstone preaching, though some of us grew up with the taste of it lingering like ashes in our mouths. But, we’ve escaped all that. Our religion is much more nuanced and sophisticated and we don’t need John to rock the boat. Besides, where is the good news here?
In Bible study, when we considered those who did go out to hear John, we realized that they might not have been so unlike us after all. We wondered at their attraction to this radical prophet, crying in the wilderness. It wasn’t just the poor and disenfranchised, the sick and the weak who went to hear John. We find people of means and power, toll-collectors and soldiers, priests and rabbis in the crowd. And when he excoriates them, they neither flee nor defend. They don’t shout back or heckle the prophet. In Luke’s account, their response is, “What then should we do?” (Luke 3:10). Somehow, John has struck a chord with them, hit a nerve, touched a deep need of theirs, and, his strange manner and trappings notwithstanding, they are ready to do something different with their lives. Repentance, turning around, change is not out of the question.
Do we need a word like this at all, living in Palo Alto, at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, after Christ walked the earth? Does repentance have any meaning for us? Is there any need for change in your life or mine? Do we ever find ourselves wading through waters, wondering how we got in so deep and how we’ll get to the other side? John is not talking New Year’s resolutions here; he’s talking about a radical transformation in our relationship to God and to our sisters and brothers, God’s children all. Maybe our own relationships need some adjustment if not transformation.
Just before Christmas, I finished reading all seven volumes of The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis’s wonderful collection of fables about life in worlds beyond our world. It is largely children who seem to find their way to the other side, into these fantastic realms. It makes one think of someone who once said, “Unless you become like a child, you’ll never enter…,” never get to, the other dimensions of life God has prepared for you and all creation. The key character in all the novels is Aslan, the magnificent golden lion, son of the “Emperor-Over-the-Sea.” In all his glory, Aslan, clearly a Christ figure, is compassionate, tender, warm and self-giving – at times - but he is also awesome, demanding, impatient with wrong-doing and a fierce warrior against the forces of evil. What the children learn again and again throughout the novels is that Aslan is “not a tame lion.” Yes, he gives freely of his love and compassion, but he also demands passionately righteousness and loyalty. It is a wonderful image of one who lures by divine love at the same time he expects his followers to live into that powerful, life-changing love. Aslan is an awesomely fearful and magnetically compelling character.
This is what John is saying about God. God is not tame, but the great God of the Universe, through whom all creation came into being, comes to us again and again, in utter grace, reaching out to us with everlasting arms, drawing us close, naming us as God’s children, asking us to live up to that name. This love of God is at the same time tender and fierce, comforting and challenging, healing and empowering. The wonder of this love is that one who is not at all tame offers it so freely and abundantly.
The ancient prophet, Isaiah, caught a glimpse of this wonder in proclaiming God’s word to his people in exile. “…thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” There is such power in naming. Peter Storey says that “Names tell us we are loved and call us into accountability. What greater accountability can there be than to know that we are called by God’s name, created for God’s glory?” (Peter Storey, “Somebody’s Calling My Name,” The Christian Century, December 20-27, 2000, p. 1332). Something similar happens to Jesus in a much more intimate way, when rising from the baptismal waters, he prays to God and God responds with the name that will characterize his life and ministry. “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Isaiah continues his message of love and redemption. Speaking for God, he says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life.” We all go through deep waters at some time or other in our lives; we all pass through the fire. It may be the loss of a spouse or a child, a sibling or a friend; it may be a dream that doesn’t come true; it may be a failed relationship; it may be an illness; it may be struggling with addiction; it may be some painful memory of abuse. Maybe it’s an ethical dilemma. Maybe it’s heartache for the hungry and homeless. Maybe it’s anger with greed and frustration with consumer compulsion. Maybe it’s anguish over the destruction of war. Maybe it’s a mixture of more of these things. Maybe it’s your own unique struggle. The point is that the river is deep and wide. Our boats are so small. Sometimes we reach the place that seems as if we can ever get across, certainly not on our own.
The message is clear. This God who made us and holds our existence in a mighty hand, loves us like a parent and desires to live with us in harmony and sweet communion. Whatever deep water we find ourselves in, God will make a way. Whatever we go through as we walk this earth, God will walk with us and guide us, if we will take her hand and let her lead. Though John’s message sounds harsh in our ears, this is really the essence of his proclamation and that of the one whose coming he announces. It is a call to live in love and harmony, in peace and justice, in fairness and equity with all creation. It is an invitation to recognize that we are beloved children of God and God will care for us.
In spite of their arid homeland, those people who came out to hear John must have had experience of their own “deep water.” They must have seen or felt something in their lives that was challenging, fearful, unsettling and unsatisfying. They wanted something different. They wanted to be named and known as children of God, even if they weren’t immediately aware of that desire. When the hearers ask, “What then should we do?” John responds, “‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’” The text goes on “Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’ Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages’” (Luke 3:11-14).
Jack Good teaches us that when we repent, when we are baptized, when we rise to walk with Christ in newness of life, our naming has consequences. He says, “Names are sacred words by which we are individualized. Jesus, in baptism, received a new name. So do his followers. Baptism...sets each of us apart as a particular kind of person - one owned by God. Those who have been baptized are called to live out the meaning of this remarkable reality. The unbaptized also belong to God, but they have had no public opportunity to announce and celebrate that fact; thus they are apt to feel no motivation to act on its implications” (Jack Good, “Naming Names,” The Christian Century, December 27, 2003, p. 19).
We are called by name, we are baptized and we are blessed. Daily we need to remind ourselves that this is so, for our own well being and the health of all creation. God’s own children – beloved, beloved, beloved – we will be led through the deep waters to the rich and abundant life God has prepared for us. Thanks be to God. Amen.
43:1But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 2When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. 3For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. 4Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. 5Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; 6I will say to the north, “Give them up,” and to the south, “Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth— 7everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”
15As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” 18So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. 19But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, 20added to them all by shutting up John in prison.
21Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”