Baptism of the Lord
January 14, 2017
Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11
When considering my sermon title for today, I googled
“eighth day.” “Eighth Day” is the title of multiple books, movies, songs,
there’s even a Jewish rock band with that name. But none of them used the
phrase in terms of what it means for Christians. For us who follow Christ, the
eighth day is the day of resurrection, it’s Easter, it’s the first day of the
new creation, after things have been made right again through Christ’s salvific
work on the cross. The eighth day, as our opening hymn put it, is “God’s
re-creation of the new day.”[1]
We read about the very first day in Genesis this morning. We’re familiar with
the six days of creation and the seventh day being a day of rest. Well, the
eighth day starts the week over again. It’s the next Sunday. And Sunday is
resurrection day, where the old has gone and the new has come, for those of us
who are in Christ.[2] We
are those who are in Christ because of our baptism. In a little bit we’re going
to remember our baptism by reaffirming the covenant that was made when we were
baptized. We “who are baptized live in this eighth day.”[3]
We work with God to restore wholeness and health to all that has been marred by
darkness and sin. We work towards growth and new life, that’s the work of the
kingdom, that’s what the kingdom looks like. We live for and in the eighth day.
The eighth day is
about a move from chaos to order. We read this morning Genesis 1 about “In
the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,” [how] the earth was
a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from
God, [the Holy Spirit], swept over the face of the waters.” In the beginning
was chaos and darkness. “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was
light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from
the darkness.” In the midst of the darkness, God shined a light and brought
forth order by separating the light from the darkness. God spoke, and it
happened. God’s voice brings forth the light, because God was already there in
the chaos. The Holy Spirit was there, hovering over the waters. The two main
ingredients you need for baptism right there, water and the Holy Spirit,
already present at the beginning of creation. God was already at work in the
chaos. You may not actually remember being baptized; I was seven weeks old. But
we baptize babies because of God’s prevenient grace, God’s grace that comes
before we know God, before we know we need God. God’s grace is present there in
the chaos, before there was creation. You may or may not remember your life
before Christ. Some of us, including myself, have been in church all our lives.
Others of us can remember before and after: the chaos before, the destruction
before, the lack of love before, the seeking for belonging… and then finding
community. When we are baptized we join God’s family. We join not just this
local church family but join with Christians throughout the ages and around the
world. We join a really big family. It’s a move from being on our own to being
God’s, from chaos to order and community.
The eighth day is
also about transformation. The single most interesting commentary I read on
John’s and Jesus’ baptisms commented on how John prepared people; Jesus
transformed people.[4]
John got people ready, right? He “preached a baptism of repentance for the
forgiveness of sins.”[5]
John said the kingdom of God is coming, Jesus is coming, get ready. Repent,
change your lives, be forgiven. And in our reading from Acts, Paul explained, “John’s
baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one
coming after him, that is, in Jesus.”[6]
John baptized for repentance. But then Paul baptized the people in Jesus’ name
and they received the Holy Spirit. John used water, Jesus baptized with the
Holy Spirit.[7]
Transformation comes through water and the Spirit, both there present at the
beginning of creation as God transformed the chaos into order. This is what
happens through baptism, through resurrection.
Left
in storage at the first church I served was a kiddie pool. It wasn’t bought for
the kids. It was bought by the previous pastor who did a lot of adult baptisms
and these adults wanted to physically show the new life they were entering
into. While we typically sprinkle in the Methodist Church, an immersion baptism
symbolizes this death to the old self and old life and birth to new life in
Christ. God brings order out of chaos and life out of death. God delivers us
out of death and into eternal life. It’s what happens with Noah and the flood,
it’s what happens when Jesus calms the storm on the sea. It’s what resurrection
is, victory over death, victory over chaos. This is salvation, this is
transformation. Many baptismal fonts, for those of us who don’t immerse, are
often octagonal, as in eight sides, to symbolize this new life and
transformation on the eighth day.
However,
people can’t always see God’s purpose when they are not transformed.[8]
The people in Ephesus received John’s baptism, which was good, it was a start,
but John’s job was to point the way to Jesus. And so Paul baptized them in the
name of Jesus and the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and they
prophesied. They were transformed. Their lives were changed. Just like all the
people Jesus healed, their lives were changed and transformed. Becoming part of
God’s family changes us. It changes our priorities, it changes how we use our
time, how we spend our money, how we view other people, with love and
compassion. Life on the eighth day is different than living in the other days.
It is transformed.
Finally, life on
the eighth day is about ministry. Our baptism is the basis for all
ministry. It’s why we do what we do. There are a lot of good things we can do
because they’re good things to do. I found this mindset among a fair number of
mission agencies when I was exploring serving God in another country. It’s the
thought that we do good things because we’re Christians and so we’re supposed
to do good things. That is too vague and too broad. We’re called to specific
things. I am here, the pastor of
Lisbon United Methodist Church in Lisbon, MD. I am called to be the mother to my two children, not to yours, and to be
Lee’s wife, not your spouse, or anyone else’s.
I
was at a mandatory two-day retreat this past week for those of us who are
provisionally ordained and the first speaker talked about the difference
between when God calls and when God speaks. He was using the Hebraic model,
found throughout the bible, and he pointed out that God always begins with a
call. God calls Abram. Next week we’ll read about God calling Samuel. God calls
Jeremiah and Isaiah and Jonah and Paul and so many more. And before God tells them what he wants them
to do, he waits for them to respond to the call. God calls Isaiah, Isaiah says,
“Here I am,” then God tells Isaiah to go, and Isaiah goes. You’ll be hearing
more about this model the next few weeks, because it was really
thought-provoking. It’s even what we do here in worship. We begin with a call
to worship, essentially saying out loud, “Here we are, Lord.” We hear God speak
through the scriptures and through the sermon and through the music. We respond
to God’s word through affirming our faith, through music, through giving our
tithes and offerings, through communion, through reaffirming our baptismal
covenant. Then, the last two steps are God granting peace and humanity guarding
that peace. We exchange the peace with each other, and we go forth in that
peace, to share that peace with the world.
So, God calls. We say, “Here we are.” And God gives us an
assignment. There are things God invites us to as individuals and there are
assignments we’re given as a church. It’s that assignment as a church that I’d
really like to spend the next few months discerning and identifying. What
specific ministry, or ministries, is God calling us, Lisbon United Methodist
Church, to do? What is the specific work he has for us here? This is part of
what I’d like to do in the meet-n-greet listening sessions I’d like to finally
set up. (I was asked to wait until after Christmas, if you’d wondered why they
hadn’t happened yet.) And this isn’t so much what do you want. In fact, it’s
not at all about what you want. It’s about what you dream of God doing here.
This is about dreams and visions. It’s about things we can’t do on our own and
yet we know that that’s what God wants us to do and become. Have any of you
heard of BHAG’s? Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals. God-sized visions. We’re going to
begin today by remembering our baptism, remembering that we belong to God and
our primary identity is as God’s beloved children. We’re going to spend some
time listening to the voice of God and saying “here we are, God.” Here we are.
Present. Ready. Listening. Ready and willing to do what you ask of us. Why?
Because of our baptism. Because we live in the eighth day, the day of
restoration and new creation. What piece of creation is God assigning to us to
work towards its restoration? What is it? What’s our vision?
Here’s an example of what it’s not: to grow our
congregation back to the size it used to be. There are two problems with that.
One is that we’ve already been there, done that, and this is about God doing
something new. The something new may include that, but that’s not going
to be the main part. The other problem is that that’s something we can wrap our
minds around. I’m talking about something bigger.
A vision that could only come from God. A dream that could only come from God. I have some ideas of what it might
include, but it’s going to take all of us to pray and discern and figure it out
together. You may have figured out that I don’t do top-down leadership. My role
here as your pastor is to walk with
you, to pray with you, to be in
ministry with you, not do it for you. We all live in this eighth day
together, we’re all in this work of restoring and redeeming creation together
with God.
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