his baptism in the Jordan river
Sermon 20160110 Epiphany1C
Text: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
I bind this day to me for ever,
by power of faith, Christ’s Incarnation;
his baptism in the Jordan river;
his death on cross for my salvation;
his bursting from the spiced tomb;
his riding up the heavenly way;
his coming at the day of doom:
I bind unto myself today.
Here in ancient Palestine, it’s a sunny day along the Jordan River. Blue sky, white clouds drifting by. Word has gone round that John the Baptist is in the area to preach, "harangue" is a better word, as John takes himself quite seriously as a prophet, “you brood of vipers,” he loves to shout; but John is always great entertainment and he offers the ritual baptism to wash away sins, which many of us need. Folks have come out from nearby villages so there’s a crowd now, people watching, talking, laughing. It’s not a somber occasion, families have brought picnics out. Some, those gathered close to the riverbank, have come out to be baptized. Most (like you) have come out to watch, and it’s a festive occasion for friends, neighbors and relatives to gather. You are there, back in time wrinkled from two thousand years later, and it reminds you of an old time tent revival and dinner on the grounds, more fun than religious, though everyone knows God is there.
God is there, you see, God is here, God comes to us, the knowledge and love of God enfolds us, reveals God to us, in these stories.
Here in church we stand up to sing the Sequence, our gospel hymn, and we remain standing for the proclamation of the gospel. This is not because we’ve always done it that way, but because our theology is that God the Son comes present in and as the gospel itself, in the reading and hearing of the Word. Jesus Christ is here, the gospel is the creating and saving Word. I said last time, that in the Koran, Allah tells Mohammed that Jews and Christians are “people of the book,” and so we are: God is present to us, for us, Emmanuel, God with us, in and as the word, God’s stories, as the word is read, spoken and heard. God powerfully present in these stories, when you yourself can wrinkle time and be present at the baptism of Jesus Christ. We did not simply “read about it,” you were there, and Jesus is here.
We are baptizing today, and Jesus is here with us, and it is my ongoing proclamation that each of these powerful, and sometimes subtle, Bible stories, and with them God who inhabits the stories — the stories become yours personally at your baptism. That’s not to say that if you are not baptized you cannot claim the stories, you certainly may claim them as your own. But upon your baptism the stories become inalienably your personal property as a Christian. Nobody can take them away from you now.
These past weeks we have heard Christmas stories, and an Epiphany story from Matthew, the coming of the Magi, customarily The Epiphany story of the Western Church. But the original and classic Epiphany story, still so in the Eastern Orthodox church, is the story of Jesus’ baptism. Our story today, from Luke, is precisely The Epiphany, God the Father through the Holy Spirit, telling Jesus “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And there is subtlety here, which I’m not going to point out, you have to see it for yourself.
In telling his stories, fantasy fiction including Narnia where Aslan the Lion is the Christ figure, even the Logos (perhaps most clearly for those who “see”, in The Magician’s Nephew as Aslan sings Narnia into existence in the pitch black darkness of The Beginning) — C. S. Lewis likes to be more oblique than direct in the telling. Subtle, otherwise there’s no mystery and the story would be dull if the writer explained everything to you. But it’s exciting, even gripping, and you are meant not just to hear as an observer, but to enter into the story as a participant, “you are there,” and get all wrapped up in the story as it happens.
A dozen years ago when I had the ministry at our school, Holy Nativity Episcopal School, that Father Steve has now, chaplain and religion teacher, I used The Chronicles of Narnia one year as the teaching medium. We read the books, and saw the movies …
And I’m thinking of C. S. Lewis’ making his stories oblique (subtle) so that the reader must work out the meaning of the story at each step and stage of the action. If you just watch a Narnia movie or read the story, they’re exciting enough, but if you’re not attuned to perceiving the subtle -- if you are not attuned to perceiving the subtle -- you will not “see.” The NT Greek word would be ἴδωσιν (they will see, comprehend, understand, grasp) (the original word is ὁράω, which means I see with my mind, an inward, even spiritual perception) — it means “I get it". You have to be perceptive and work at the stories or you learn nothing, see nothing, because it’s not just idle entertainment.
For example. I remember when we had watched Edmund in the first Narnia story, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", Edmund Pevensie the traitor, Ed selfishly betrayed his brother and sisters and for that sin he had to be handed over to the Satanic Witch to be killed — but then Aslan took Ed’s place, gave himself up to be slain by the Witch, slain as ransom for Edmund (do you "get it" yet?), and then the morning after Aslan was slain the Pevensie children go to the stone table where Aslan was tied down and stabbed to death, the scene of the murder, only to find that the table is broken and Aslan is not there, Aslan has risen — I asked my 6th grade students, “Do you get it?” Don’t you get it? They looked at me and at each other with blank faces. No, they did not get it, they did not get it. Just a fun story, exciting and a bit scary, Father Tom reading stories and showing movies and bringing donuts every week fresh and warm from Krispy Kreme. They did not "get it.” Well, I knew they had not and would not (after all, Lewis himself said the stories are not “evangelical,” he said they are “pre-evangelical” to help prepare you for later hearing and understanding the gospel, ready to accept Jesus Christ as your savior), so I used that episode in the Narnia story and movie to help them “tune in” and “perceive” instead of just watching the action. Because Narnia is NOT a Saturday morning kiddee matinee or cowboy movie; it’s pure theology.
For example. I remember when we had watched Edmund in the first Narnia story, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", Edmund Pevensie the traitor, Ed selfishly betrayed his brother and sisters and for that sin he had to be handed over to the Satanic Witch to be killed — but then Aslan took Ed’s place, gave himself up to be slain by the Witch, slain as ransom for Edmund (do you "get it" yet?), and then the morning after Aslan was slain the Pevensie children go to the stone table where Aslan was tied down and stabbed to death, the scene of the murder, only to find that the table is broken and Aslan is not there, Aslan has risen — I asked my 6th grade students, “Do you get it?” Don’t you get it? They looked at me and at each other with blank faces. No, they did not get it, they did not get it. Just a fun story, exciting and a bit scary, Father Tom reading stories and showing movies and bringing donuts every week fresh and warm from Krispy Kreme. They did not "get it.” Well, I knew they had not and would not (after all, Lewis himself said the stories are not “evangelical,” he said they are “pre-evangelical” to help prepare you for later hearing and understanding the gospel, ready to accept Jesus Christ as your savior), so I used that episode in the Narnia story and movie to help them “tune in” and “perceive” instead of just watching the action. Because Narnia is NOT a Saturday morning kiddee matinee or cowboy movie; it’s pure theology.
To recap: Aslan is Jesus in the Narnia stories and this scene is perhaps the most poignant juncture in the whole Narnia series: Aslan gives his life for the sins of Edmund, allows the Satanic Witch to kill him instead of Edmund, saving Edmund from death, Aslan dies in Edmund’s place. And the next morning when the Pevensie children go to the place where Aslan was killed, to cut loose his bonds and clean up the death scene, there is no corpus, no body, Aslan is not there: he is risen. I will always remember the lightbulbs coming on, awareness, recognition, realization, the epiphany that came over the face of every student in my class that morning. Oh!! Oh, yeah!!!
The students learned at that epiphany moment to be perceptive about stories, to find Jesus in the stories, because he is there just as much as in the gospel stories we read here in church. And we found Jesus not only in Narnia together, but again the next year as we watched and read Tolkien, The Hobbit, and Lord of the Rings. And year after that when we read and watched Harry Potter, because yes, Jesus is at Hogwarts if ἴδωσιν (ὁράω) you “see” him. See, perceive, realize, discern, understand, experience — him.
Just so today, Jesus comes present in Luke’s story of the Lord’s Baptism. God is present as the story is read. You are there at the River Jordan on that warm sunny day under a clear blue sky. The others who are there do not “see,” cannot hear the Spirit, because the voice is speaking to Jesus only, “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” but Luke takes us there in the story and tells us what is happening to Jesus, so we know, you and I know. From outside the story observing, suddenly we’re inside the story participating, as the Spirit lights upon the man coming up out of the water, and God the Father reveals to us that This One Jesus is God’s beloved Son. It’s not “just a story,” God is in the story. The story is God’s own Self present in the midst of us this moment as the story is read and heard and understood. And we stand because The Holy is present.
In my sermon a couple weeks ago, I confessed that I have little regard for the doctrines of men, dogma worked out to settle theological squabbles, disputes, fights, bloody wars among bishops with their armed militias fighting each other in the church’s early centuries, fighting, exiling and killing each other in fierce disagreements about the Nature of Christ (because that’s what happened, that’s why we have the Nicene Creed). I will grant the Holy Spirit’s inspiration of the Church Fathers’ thinking and deciding, fine. But I will not “idosin” see Jesus in doctrines and creeds. Rather, “horauw” I “see” Jesus in the stories that come to us in the Bible as the Inspired Word of God. Inspired and, yes, inerrant as God’s means of coming among us. God comes obliquely, subtly, such that we have to discern, perceive, “see” God anew in each story, as in each story, God comes present. Each story stands on its own, the scholars’ technical term is “pericope” a little story that’s independent, cut out and stands on its own. As sensible Episcopalians we know and understand God by Scripture, Tradition and Reason, and we are not discomfited that one story contrasts with other similar stories in the next book of the same Bible. As we do our various types of Bible study we are not rationalizing among stories to decide which among differing stories is true and which is false, we are looking to see God who is present for us, even sometimes obliquely, quite subtly, God present with us every time the Gospel is opened and we stand before God in awe and gladness, to hear — The Holy Gospel, the Good Story, of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Victoria Thomas Catherine Cole, the stories become yours today, as you become God’s child, as God inhabits your being powerfully, so that the love of Jesus may shine through your life and be seen by others.
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
Baptism sermon in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida on January 10, 2016, the First Sunday after the Epiphany. The Rev. Tom Weller. As my “theme” was “seeing” that God is present in our sacred stories, I played rather loose with the NT Greek words ἴδωσιν (aorist 3rd person plural), they will see, comprehend, understand, grasp, "get it") and it’s root word ὁράω (1st person singular), I see, but it’s the sense of what Jesus means when he uses the word at Mark 9:1, “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see (ἴδωσιν) that the kingdom of God has come with power.” If we can’t see Jesus present in the gospel stories as we anticipate and hear them, we settle for just someone else’s, the evangelist’s, memory of Him.
The other thing is that in transiting from Apple's "Pages" to the blogpost, the type often messes up distractingly when I shift from regular font to italics and back. That may happen here, but I give up, because it's time for me to go for my Monday morning walk. TW+
The other thing is that in transiting from Apple's "Pages" to the blogpost, the type often messes up distractingly when I shift from regular font to italics and back. That may happen here, but I give up, because it's time for me to go for my Monday morning walk. TW+