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Epiphany 2, 01/20/2008
Sermon on John 1:29-42, by David Hoster
John saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, `After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.' I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel." And John testified, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, `He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God." (NRSV)
STEPPING OFF THE CLIFF
John the Baptist is about law. Jesus is about grace.
People came to John to be baptized with water that cleaned away the guilt of their offenses against religious law. John restored people to an original state of purity before they went afoul of the legal system.
The baptism of Jesus began where John's left off. Once Jesus passed through the baptismal waters made familiar by John, the Holy Spirit took Jesus to an entirely different level. Jesus was baptized not only with water but with the Spirit as well.
Baptismal immersion in the Spirit is something so profound that it reaches far beyond any original purity we might have known prior to falling afoul of the law. The Spirit reaches all the way back to the beginning of the world, the moment of creation when that same Spirit roared across the waters as God spoke the words, "Let there be..."
Immersion in the Spirit is not about law and forgiveness, but rather creation and grace. Law might prepare us by clarifying who and what we ought to be, but creation in the Spirit takes us to places we've never been, to do things that have never occurred to us, for purposes that we've never imagined. Creation means exactly that: something brand new, unprecedented, unpredictable. When you dive into the Spirit, listen for the voice of God roaring out those words, "Let there be..." God only knows what that will be. The old rules and laws don't apply any more.
That's not the easiest step in the world for most of us to take. The truth is that we like the law. We like to know what's expected of us. Most folks wish their clergy would tell them what God wants so they can do it and feel good about their chances of getting into heaven. People are saved a lot of worry when the church confines itself to mere law enforcement. Interesting perspective isn't it? We fancy thinking of God's law making it harder for us by denying us things we'd really like to do. The truth is that law makes everything easier. Just obeying means we don't have to think, wonder or worry about the big issues in life. What's hard is the unpredictable, unprecedented step off the edge of the cliff. That takes faith.
At the Last Supper, Jesus told his disciples that there were many more things he wanted to tell them, but they couldn't bear them. They were not ready for baptism in the Spirit that wouldn't come until they had experienced the crucifixion, resurrection and fifty days of hiding out in terror. There were many things that the disciples could not bear at the Last Supper because they were still living by the old rules and weren't ready for the step off the edge of the cliff.
Law was everywhere and everything for the disciples. They were governed by fear of the civil laws of the Roman Empire and Caesar's local stooges. They were governed by their acceptance of the religious laws of Israel that Jesus frequently chided them to take less rigidly. They were governed by the "natural law" of prophecy that said Israel had violated God's rules so badly that a Savior and a new messianic age were inevitable. And they were governed by a deep hope in the unspoken moral laws of the universe-the laws we all hope are true-which say that good, faithful people will be OK in the end. God will reward them.
Those are a lot of laws to take seriously at the same time. It's a complicated dance. Being on the side of the Savior appears to put the disciples on the wrong side of the civil authorities. At the same time, being on the side of the Savior spawns the arrogant fantasy that they will sit on the right and left hand of the Son in his glory. Still, do the dance, they tell themselves. How can you go wrong if you've sided with Jesus, even if you don't quite get everything he has to say? God will surely reward you. It's simpler that way. Nothing to think about, wonder or worry about.
But there were unbearable things ahead for these disciples. Jesus would be killed in the worst possible way, making that law about the Savior look null and void. Then Jesus reappeared, but not in glory. Not in any public way at all. He just walked through the wall, told them to relax, and vanished again. A few laws of nature went right out the window. The queasy uncertainty about Jesus reduced the disciples to abject terror of the dirtiest, ground level form of law-the law of political hardball played by those authorities who killed Jesus and want to kill them as well.
Their terror was unbearable. They were powerless and without hope. Agony and death seemed inevitable. Worse, they feared there might not even be a God to assure a fair outcome for their good faith in his so-called son. They were adrift on a chaotic sea with no firm ground, no rules, to cling to.
And then the Spirit roars across these waters and they are immersed, baptized. They do all the things that were utterly out of reach. They talk to foreigners as though they were intimate family members. They trumpet their Savior in the streets for all to hear, especially the authorities. They give up their private property. They give up their egos. They endure imprisonment, and some even death. They give up their grip on the religious law of Judaism and embrace gentiles. They pour themselves into prayer. They trust their lives unconditionally to God.
Any of these things would have been unbearable in their law-bound past. All of them together are unbelievable, but these disciples are far past the laws that made things unbearable. They ride a crest of grace that makes all the once-terrible things transient and irrelevant. They are at the leading edge of the Spirit as it blows through the world's chaos being shaped by the voice of God shouting, "Let there be human beings who are the body of Christ!"
Grace and creation.
That's how the most important things happen in the world. I could point to dozens, but I'll mention only one that we all understand. Generations of African-American leaders overcame their unbearable fear of the laws of lynch mobs and southern sheriffs, the social laws of shame that told them to stay in their place, the widely accepted "law" of nature that said some people are inherently less human than others. Over many decades, they rode a wave of grace and the Spirit into a new creation.
Grace and creation apply, as well, to ourselves as individuals. The times that we experience grace are the times that we openly face the seemingly unbearable fear generated by some iron law that convinces us that we're not articulate enough or smart enough or good enough or attractive enough or well enough liked or respected, or that things seem so cast in concrete that change is impossible. The most cornball example I can think of is Luke Skywalker turning around his father, Darth Vader, but can't we all think of examples-perhaps from our own families-where a step like that right off the edge of the cliff solved some insoluble and egregious family conflict and brought a new world into being? How many of those opportunities are lost because people believe things cannot change and that they simply must accept the iron rule that binds everything immovably in place?
As we reflect on the world of law versus grace, of passivity and fear versus creation, I propose a spiritual exercise.
Reflect on the things that seem stuck to you. What in your life and experience seems subject to the law that says things can never and should never change? What are the things that make you feel weak-kneed and raise up your fear?
For some of us, that might be public and political-something like the awful immigration detention center near Taylor, or the conflicted relationship between police and civilians in east Austin, or the treatment of gays and lesbians as second-class citizens. For others it might be much closer to home in workplace, neighborhood, church or family. For still others it might be a personal demon, perhaps some sin of the father that shapes the life of the son (substitute yourself and your own gender here).
For grace to break free, you have to confront the place where law has made grace unlikely or even impossible. For creation to break free, you have to face up to the broken and incomplete places in your life and your world. For God to come alive, you have to take faith and hope to ungodly places.
Our faith wasn't given to us as numbered footprints to step through and feel safe that we're getting into heaven. Our faith was given to us to change the world into the realm of God. God isn't bound by the rules you and I take so seriously.
God is God.
God isn't "safe."
What "let there be" will God roar out when he enables you to take the unbearable step off the edge of the cliff in faith?