Year B
Genesis 1:1-5
Psalm 29
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11

May the words of my mouth… O God… speak your Truth…

In the beginning…  the earth was a formless void…   and darkness covered the face of the deep…  then God said…  Let there be light…  and there was light…  but wait a minute…  according to Genesis Chapter 4…  it wasn’t until the fourth day…  that God created the sun…  and the moon…  and the stars…  so what is this light that’s described in Chapter 1… does it refer to what’s put on a lamp stand…  something that’s both a particle and a wave…  or does it perhaps refer to something more intangible…  like the Wisdom described in Proverbs 8:22-24… when Wisdom says…  the LORD created me at the beginning of his work… the first of his acts of long ago…  ages ago I was set up…  [at the first…]  before the beginning of the earth…  when there were no depths I was brought forth…  when there were no springs abounding with water…

Pastor Martin Billmeier asks…  is this light the whole plan…  the dawning realization on God’s part of what God is going to do…  that would be an epiphany for God…  is the light goodness and the darkness evil…  so that the potential for both is there from the beginning…  the possibility for evil dawned on humans soon enough…  in what was also an epiphany of sorts… 

The Gospel says that as Jesus was coming up out of the water…  the heavens were torn apart…  and the Spirit descended on him like a dove…  perhaps like the dove that returned to Noah’s Ark with an olive branch…  with a sign of life…  in its mouth…  perhaps the heavens were torn apart to reveal that Jesus will embody God’s movement in the world…  that Jesus is God’s love made flesh for us…  this Beloved One comes up out of the waters realizing who he is…  and becomes the One to light our way in the darkness of this life…

The Episcopal Church and the ELCA both understand the Sacrament of Baptism…  as an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace…  Martin Luther understood that a sacrament is an act that is commanded by Christ…  uses a material or earthly element…  and through connection with the Word is the bearer of God’s promise…

In the waters of baptism…  we are lovingly adopted by God into God’s family…  which we call the Church…  are given God’s own life to share…  and are reminded that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ…  we are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever…  

In today’s Gospel…  John is in the wilderness proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins…  turning away from the absence of light…  or anything that diminishes light…  and back to God…  and people from the whole Judean countryside…  and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him…  confessing their sins…  and were baptized by him in the river Jordan…

You see…  in Jesus…  God will not stay distant from us like in the Temple’s Holy of Holies…  will not stay safely hemmed up in Heaven…  where some of us want God to remain…  so we can do what we want…  in v. 10…  when the heavens are torn open…  we see an example of God’s unruly behavior…  of the God who leaves the Holy of Holies and goes wherever healing is needed…  God runs loose through human history…  through the person and ministry of Jesus…  and we are players in God’s ministry…  if we take our discipleship seriously…  we are players in the same reign…  and so what does it mean to follow Jesus into this ripping apart of boundaries…

Matt Skinner…  Professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary said that what John’s ritual is…  is not Christian baptism as we understand it… which is dying with Christ and being raised with him…  because the focus of this John’s act…  is on the people confessing their sins…  what John is doing with this baptism of repentance…  is calling people to truth telling…  and Jesus validates this baptism of truth telling…  in the moment that God chooses for Jesus to receive his commissioning…  to receive the Spirit…  for the fabric of the universe to be literally altered…  it is in this moment of truth telling…  sometimes deeply painful truth telling…  that the people of God must be honest with themselves…  and with each other…  about who they are and about what is real…

The events of this past week…  ask us to decide who we believe to be telling the truth about whether the outcome of November’s presidential election was stolen or not…  and whether there’s been Gospel level…   baptism of repentance…  truth telling about it…  truth telling so stark that it’s alarming…  

Because it seems at least…  that not telling the truth has resulted in the inciting of insurrection…  not telling the truth has resulted in the US Capitol being stormed…  not telling the truth has resulted in damage to your and my property…  not telling the truth has resulted in injury to those committed to protecting our elected officials…  not telling the truth has caused people to die…

On Friday…  the Episcopal Church’s Presiding Bp. Michael Curry…  issued a statement about Tuesday’s events at the Capitol…  he reminded us that as Jesus got closer and closer to the cross…  he spoke most consistently of love…  and that the way of love… is the way of sacrifice…  the way of selflessness…   which seeks the good of the other as well as the self…

And he quoted Archbishop Desmond Tutu…  who said during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa… Love… forgiving…  and being reconciled to our enemies…  or our loved ones…  is not about pretending that things are other than they are… . it is not about patting one another on the back or turning a blind eye to the wrong…  true reconciliation exposes the awfulness of the abuse…  the hurt…  and the truth… it could even [sometimes] make things worse for a while…  it is a risky undertaking…  but in the end it is worthwhile…  because in the end…  superficial reconciliation only brings superficial healing…  but only an honest confrontation with reality can bring forth real healing…  and I believe this is the healing which Jesus embodied…  the healing to which God is calling the church…  and as his disciples…  it is that to which we must aspire…  we need to be so dedicated to love…  and to the truth…  that we can bless not only those with whom we agree…  but we can bless those who we think have got it all wrong…  and we can then invite the Holy Spirit into our mutual circumstance for healing and reconciliation… 

The Corinthians said that they’d been baptized into John’s baptism of repentance…  they may have known what they were turning away from…  but may not yet have known what they were turning to…  because they didn’t know there was a Holy Spirit…  and when Paul had laid his hands on them…  the Holy Spirit came upon them…

I think we sometimes resist the Holy Spirit…  because we cannot control it… and we’re afraid of its unpredictability…  when Jesus described the Spirit to Nicodemus…  he said that it’s like the wind…  which blows where it chooses…   and you hear the sound of it…  but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes…  so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit… and the wind described in today’s passage from Genesis…  which swept over the face of the waters…  also means breath…  or Spirit…  and if God’s Spirit brings order to chaos…  because love brings order to chaos…  then all I can ask over and over again for myself…  and for all of you…  is Come Holy Spirit…  Come… and help us turn over and over again…  back towards speaking nothing…  but truth…