Göttinger Predigten
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1. Sunday after the Epiphany/Baptism of our Lord, 01/10/2010
Sermon on Luke 3:25-22, by Luke Bouman
Luke 3:15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John 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. 17 His 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." 18 So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. 19 But 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, 20 added to them all by shutting up John in prison. 21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22 and 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."
New Beginnings
Susan stepped out onto the back deck of the house. While others were kissing and dancing and singing "Auld Lang Syne" she had slipped her coat and scarf out of the closet and quietly escaped the midnight revelry. Now she stared up at the stars and dreamed and resolved, lamenting the year that was and hoping for something new, something better in the year to come.
2009 had not been kind to her, though she knew she was not alone. She had lost her job, lost her relationship with her boyfriend, moved back in with her now aging parents. Now, as she took stock of her life on this night of transition from old to new, she realized the enormity of her loss. She had lost her self, her identity. Everything that she had created since she left home for college some 25 years earlier now seemed to have collapsed back into itself. She was simply her parent's daughter again to most people. Correction, she was her parent's out-of-work daughter, for whom they and seemingly everyone else felt sorry.
She sighed. She hardly noticed that tears had begun to drift slowly down each cheek. Though the night was cold, she felt the solitude of the outside preferable to facing her loneliness in the midst of the crowd of her friends celebrating inside. Hiding was best, she thought, as she hoped she could stay hidden until her "ride" came looking for her to take her home. But she couldn't hide from Sharon.
Sharon had glanced out of the kitchen window and watched Susan for a moment. Then she quickly fetched her own coat and hat and quietly slipped outside to join her friend. They hadn't talked much in the last few months since Susan's serial misfortune. Sharon had let her live in her silent exile, waiting for the right moment to talk. In truth, she did not know what to say anyway. But now, in this moment, it felt like time to reconnect and she went out to do just that.
At first Sharon was afraid that Susan would shy away from her presence. She approached slowly, and put her hand on Susan's shoulder. The reaction was a surprise. Susan turned and immediately hugged Sharon so tightly she might have burst for the power of it. Sharon hugged back and Susan dissolved into her friends embrace, first sobbing, then rocking, then laughing at the sheer absurdity of the two of them, out in the bitter cold, sharing the first hug of the New Year with one another.
They stood for a long time, watching the stars, standing side by side. Then Susan muttered, "This year has to be better than last year, it can't get any worse." Sharon nodded, just being present for her friend. Finally she responded, "It is time for a new beginning for you." Susan nodded in return, as they stood in expectant silence.
God's New Beginning
John the Baptist proclaimed a new beginning. To be clear he knew and said that he, himself, was not that beginning, but that he was there to prepare people for this beginning. And the people were ready! They longed for an end to their exile. They longed to be themselves again, to have their own nation back, not under the hands of some foreign ruler, but their own. John's words of hope pointed to the time when they might have such a thing back. So they flocked to the banks of the Jordan, hoping for something new, something better.
Of course, the "new" is not always welcome. Herod and other rulers prospered under the status quo. They were threatened by the new. They didn't want to see changes that would challenge their status or position. To tell the truth, if the people had been listening, they would have also been questioning whether or not the new was going to be good for them. John's words of the separation of the grain and the burning of the chaff were not especially comforting, except if you saw yourself as the grain and the foreigners as the chaff.
But John's baptism, echoing the cleansing experience of Israel's wandering in the wilderness, promised that though there be trials, there would also be renewal. There would be rebirth. Each individual would come and be challenged to repent, reorient and be washed clean for the new age that was about to dawn. God had done this all before, not only in the Exodus, but also in the return from exile in Babylon. God was a God of new birth, even from the bitterness of death. Thus, the drowning waters of the Jordan, symbolized for people just such a hope, that God would do what God had done before, but now with them.
But the puzzling thing is what Jesus is doing here. Jesus does not need forgiveness. He participates in the hope of his people, but has no need to be prepared for the new age. Luke's Gospel has made it clear from the stories of Jesus' birth that as God becomes human the new age has already begun. Why does Jesus also come to be baptized?
Well, it is one thing to be born a king, but it is another to be anointed, is it not? And that's what happens here. Jesus' baptism is his anointing. Just as Samuel did with David, just as the Elijah and Elisha did with the kings of old, so now the new prophet, John, does with the final "messiah" (anointed one), Jesus. And we get a glimpse of why this is no ordinary king. The heavens open, the voice speaks at the anointing prayer, the vocation of the king, of the nation, is revealed. "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." Jesus would be Messiah, but a Servant King, not a military one. Death and despair, sin and the broken creation are the enemies to be conquered, not Rome. God is indeed doing something new.
And this new creation signals something new for us all as well. All who are baptized into the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit are now initiated into Jesus' very mission and reign. We are given a name and an identity that cannot be broken by time or circumstance. We, too, become God's beloved children. We, too, join Jesus in serving, even to the point of our deaths. We, too, learn that death and despair, sin and the broken creation are conquered though Christ, even while we feel their lingering effects. We live between what is and what will be. But we live with our identities emblazoned on our foreheads, a sign of the cross, traced in baptism, which will be retraced in a few short weeks on Ash Wednesday. We live in hope and courage. For though everything else be taken away, this one thing cannot, all because of Jesus, God's anointed, and his cross.
You Are God's Child!
Sharon held Susan for just long enough. Then she plucked up her courage and did something that had been done to her at a church retreat not long before. She faced Susan and took her thumb, lovingly, intimately tracing a cross on her forehead. Susan looked puzzled at this gesture out of place.
"It is the one thing that you can't forget and that you haven't lost," said Sharon. "You are a beloved child of God, and you are worth more than what has happened to you."
Susan took in the enormity of these words and the tears began to flow again, but this time they were the tears of someone who knows when they are deeply cared for and loved. She turned away, not embarrassed, rather to look at the stars with different eyes. The One who had created and numbered them had indeed numbered her among all of the daughters of God. Perhaps she had forgotten who she was instead of losing her identity. All of the possibilities of her childhood, all of the hopefulness that she possessed as a college student flooded over her for an instant and she became content. She was loved, forgiven, and free to become. What she was to become was as yet unknown, but it was an adventure waiting for her to discover.
Without another word, Susan smiled and together she and Sharon rejoined the party, ready to welcome the New Year.