River of No Return

When Jesus also had been baptized and was praying the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on 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.” (Luke 3.21-22)

Formative Years

Earlier in the week, as we dismantled our sanctuary’s Christmas décor, I joked with our pastor about how suddenly the liturgical calendar lurches ahead. One Sunday it’s Epiphany; a week later, we’re at the Jordan, celebrating the Baptism of the Lord. “We barely get the Baby born and the before you know it, He’s grown and in the water,” I chuckled. “It does come quickly, doesn’t it?” she replied.

Because modern sensibilities put great stock in our formative years, we’re apt to feel cheated by the gospels’ relative silence regarding Jesus’s youth. We want to know more about His upbringing—what His family dynamic was like, what His boyhood friends and neighbors were like, how His human personality took shape. But the gospels don’t exhibit much interest in these details. All told, they give us four brief peeks into His story once the Magi leave. And the timing of these accounts is problematic. In Luke, we observe Jesus’s circumcision and naming eight days after He’s born, followed 32 days later by His presentation in the Temple, in keeping with Jewish custom that the mother—now “purified” and able to be seen in public after 40 days of post-natal seclusion—present herself and her child to the priests. In Matthew, we learn that Joseph and Mary whisk Jesus off to Egypt to escape Herod’s assassination attempt on the Child’s life. We’re told they remain there until the tyrant dies, roughly four years later.

Which is it? Did the Holy Family go underground until the threat passed? Or were they seen by many, basking in the adoration of two esteemed Temple prophets, Simeon and Anna, who proclaim the Infant as the fulfillment of their Messianic hopes? Since we know so little about Jesus’s childhood, we politely overlook these discrepancies and assume “all of the above.” The fourth childhood siting happens in Luke, when the 12-year-old Jesus strays from his parents to discuss theology with Temple leaders. His response to Mary’s scolding—“Did you not know I must be in My Father’s house?”—suggests early awareness of His divinity and mission. That’s all we have to tell us young Jesus knows Who He is. How He reaches this understanding isn’t explained.

The Beginning of Our Story

So we follow Jesus, now 30, to the Jordan with some frustration. Yet, thinking more about the rapid fast-forward to His baptism, it seems less jarring. John the Baptist is the last in a very long line of prophets announcing a Savior, and it’s fitting that his eyes see what his ancestors could only envision. One minute, he’s telling his followers, “One Who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of His sandals.” (Luke 3.16) The next minute, there Jesus is—the Word Made Flesh—standing before him. In this magnificent moment we witness a living example of the believer’s yearning to see Christ fully, as Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13.12: “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” The instant Jesus appears and asks John to baptize Him, the very meaning of the Baptist’s life—concealed in a fog of prophetic faith that has sustained Israel for centuries—becomes clear. Surely John’s heart leaps with the same joy that caused him to dance inside his mother’s womb when her cousin, Mary, visited with the Christ Child resting inside her. Surely John whispers to himself, “This is why I’m here. I was born and have lived for this day!”

While differing accounts of Jesus’s birth and youth confound us, clarity surfaces when all four gospels converge on His baptism with nearly identical retellings. The writers uniformly agree that this is the signal moment—the proof-point that erases all doubt about Who Jesus is. It’s the pivotal event that leaves prophetic promises behind to grasp the reality of God’s presence, alive and at work in our world. We know what we’re looking at. But do we really see what’s going on here? Jesus humbles Himself to be baptized by a man who is too low to consider tying His shoes. He leaves the water and prays, immediately communing with His Maker, Who responds in a supernatural fashion confirming that Jesus is God’s Son—“the Beloved”—Whose obedience to God’s will pleases God. And it is in that humble obedience that our lives find their meaning and purpose. It’s here, at the Jordan—the River of No Return—that our faith is transformed from profession to confession. The Good News of the Gospel shifts focus. It’s now about us, the beginning of our story. Questions about Jesus’s formative years fall away, replaced by questions about ourselves. What brings us to this place? What compels us to follow Christ in baptism? What hopes drive us to this definitive act of faith? For even if we were baptized as infants, there comes a time in all of our lives when we confess the truth that flows in Jordan’s water: We belong to God. God loves us without restraint. Our humble obedience pleases God.

Supreme Assurance

If we follow Christ in baptism, it stands to reason we should leave the water with the same confidence in God’s love and acceptance that proclaimed Jesus as God’s Beloved Child. This breathtaking demonstration is given to us, for us, to bring clarity and meaning to our lives. It defines us every bit as much as it defines Jesus and we do ourselves a great disservice by thinking less of ourselves than what God proclaims us to be. In the turbulent three-and-a-half years that followed Christ’s baptism—when He was tempted, tried, and ridiculed to death—no doubt He reached back to this moment and its supreme assurance of God’s pleasure. No doubt the apostles did likewise as they faced unjust persecution and many of them suffered torture and death. And, as we confront the challenges of faithful living, we should do the same.

Whatever shapes us during our youth—good and bad, lovely and ugly—loses its gravity once we grasp the meaning of baptism. Following Christ, we plunge into a River of No Return and rise from its waters irrevocably changed. It matters not how others see us, what they say or think about us. There is no turning back. God claims us as beloved children. We enter the river in humble obedience; we leave it prayerfully, eager to commune with our Maker. We belong to God and God is well pleased. That’s the Good News of the Gospel.

If we follow Christ in baptism, it stands to reason we should leave the water with the same confidence in God’s love and acceptance that proclaimed Jesus as God’s Beloved Child.

The Problem with Prophets

Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him. (Mark 6.20)

Wild and Crazy

If John the Baptist lived today, where would we put him? By no stretch of the imagination could we leave him to his own devices—that’s for sure. John’s a prophet cut from a decidedly old-fashioned mold, the inheritor of a longstanding tradition of loony quirks like those Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and so many others employed to get Israel’s attention. We never see John in a temple or synagogue, politely debating theological nuances with the religious elite. As far as we know, he never stood in anyone’s pulpit. He’s so far beyond the pale of traditional faith that even he realizes it. That’s why he sets up shop miles from Jerusalem, the epicenter of all things holy, alongside the Jordan’s muddy banks.

If you’re curious about this wild and crazy man, you’ll need to go looking for him, because he most assuredly isn’t coming to you. He’s not going to clean up, swap his camel’s hair coat for clerical garb, mind his manners, or do other “appropriate” things just so he can tip off the Sabbath crowd that the Savior they’re praying for is due any minute. John is going to be what God tells him to be. He’s going to say what God tells him to say. And if his demeanor and message offend your refined tastes, hang back in Jerusalem with the rest of the fancy set. But know this: you’ll miss the Breaking News that God is sending via this filthy, cantankerous character. And once you figure out that the world as you know it is no more, you’ll be so far behind you may never catch up.

A Kicker and a Screamer

John is everything that respected religious leaders seldom are—a kicker and a screamer. These are not affects he invents as his “brand.” They’re evident in him before he’s born. While in his mother’s womb, he kicks up a ruckus when her cousin, Mary, shows up pregnant with the Christ Child. And that little prenatal dance of his will set the course for his life. As the first human to recognize Who Jesus is, God will entrust him with the task of alerting the public.

John declares this big news in a big way, a dangerously unconventional way meant to shock people back to their senses. He doesn’t ask approval to preach his prepare-the-way message. He doesn’t author a controversial bestseller that launches him onto the speaker circuit. He heads off to the middle of nowhere—a place where he’s entirely dependent on God’s protection and provision—and starts yelling his head off. “Get ready! Somebody’s coming!” he screams. “It’s the One you’ve been waiting for and you better prepare yourselves, because He’s gonna turn the world upside down!” Strangest of all, he reconfigures the Jewish mikvah, a ceremonial bath to purify someone made unclean by touching a corpse, into what he calls “baptism.” It’s the centerpiece of John’s ministry, as he baptizes his followers not to cleanse them from the stench of death, but to prepare them to receive God’s promise of new life.

So we ask again: if John showed up today, where would we put him? It’s highly doubtful we’d open our pulpits to him, or offer him a seminary position, or invite him to join a talk-show panel discussing faith’s role in society. No, John would end up exactly where he is in the gospels—as far from us as he can get, a roadside attraction not unlike alligator farms and gigantic dinosaurs and other weird tourist traps strewn along desert highways.

The problem with prophets like John is that we find their outré behavior fascinating, but we don’t take kindly to their words. This is the root of the tragedy in Mark 6.15-29. John’s kicking and screaming in the hinterlands have made him famous. Everything he says gets back to Jerusalem, where it falls on the ears of the objects of his tirades. Chief among them is Herod Antipas, the puppet king of Galilee. Through some very untidy dealings, Herod has married his half-brother’s ex-wife, Herodias, who is also his niece. As John sees it, this creepy arrangement epitomizes everything that’s wrong with Israel and stokes his urgency for the Promised One to appear. None of the gospels quotes John’s diatribe against Herod, but we can safely imagine it goes something like, “Look at this mess! This so-called ‘king’ better get his act together, because he’s in for serious trouble when God’s King gets here and sees what’s going on!”

Once word of this reaches Herod, it’s all downhill for John. The king arrests the surly prophet, but isn’t sure what to do with him. The rest, as they say, is history. Herod throws himself a birthday party and asks his stepdaughter to dance for his guests. (In legend, she’s called “Salome,” but Mark identifies her as “Herodias,” which means either she’s named for her mother or Herod’s family is so screwed up the writer can’t keep the players straight.) Mark does, however, clue us in that Herodias—Herod’s wife—isn’t as ambivalent about John as her husband seems to be. Before the dancing starts, he tells us Herodias “had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him.” (v19) When the daughter asks her mother what she should request as payment for entertaining Herod’s guests, Herodias doesn’t flinch. “Ask for the Baptist’s head on a platter,” she says. Somewhere between blowing out the birthday candles and turning off the lights, John’s head arrives.

Offending Powers That Be

We’ve heard this story so many times, seen it play out in at least a half-dozen kitschy movies, that it’s become a cliché—literally. When we push too hard, when we start kicking and screaming about the travesties of justice and moral responsibility around us, we’re told to button up or else they (whoever “they” are) will have our heads on a platter. And Mark appears to bear this out. But he also tucks away a fascinating detail in the narrative that merits attention. After noting Herodias’s grudge against the Baptist, he tells us, “Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him.” (v20)

We are not called to save our own necks. We’re called to be righteous and holy, eager to do what God requires of us. John’s calling comes straight out Isaiah, another prophet who didn’t know when to shut up. “Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins.” (Isaiah 58.1) It is a calling we, as messengers of God’s grace and power, must also honor. The problem with prophets isn’t that they’re loud and messy. It’s their courage to speak truth to power. And though we may never land in John’s shoes, declaring what’s just and holy will perplex people. We may never wind up in jail for offending powers that be. But we will find ourselves at plenty of birthday parties, barbecues, and social functions where those who care only about saving their necks will think we’re out of our heads. So what if they do? God charges each of us with delivering the Breaking News of the Gospel. It’s our job to keep kicking and screaming. Get ready! Somebody’s coming and He’s gonna turn the world upside down!

The biggest problem with prophets today is the vast majority of them—meaning us—don’t have the guts to do the job.

The problem with prophets like John is that we find their outré behavior fascinating, but we don’t take kindly to their words.
Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/07/14/the-problem-with-prophets/. 

Unintimidated

“Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked. “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. (Acts 8.30-31)

It Just So Happens

The Acts of the Apostles is a real page-turner with all the makings of a great novel: indelible heroes in Peter and Paul, a huge, colorful supporting cast, and a plot propelled by hair-raising events and startling epiphanies. Serendipity is the name of the game, because the Early Church is everywhere at once, yet in terms of cohesive vision and structure, for quite a while it’s nowhere at all. Acts’ author, Luke, is fond of starting episodes with “now,” “in those days,” and other pivotal phrases that mean, “It just so happens.” With more players entering the scene and more occurring in new places, each transition becomes more dramatic.

If Luke were an ancient novelist crafting epic fiction, we’d marvel at how he contrives coincidence to weld his storylines together. But he’s an amateur historian recording what he sees and hears. What’s more, his motives for composing Acts (and his Gospel) as a means of reaching fellow Gentiles place crucial importance on credibility, totally negating serendipity’s value as a literary device. When reading Acts, we can't lose sight that its fortuitous twists and turns are more than happenstance—actual or contrived. Something bigger than coincidence forges its fragments and figures into one narrative. Something not readily visible or logically apparent pulls the story together and pushes it forward. And that’s Luke’s point. The Holy Spirit plays the dominant role here. Its presence, guidance, and movement shape every aspect of Christian life. “It just so happens” because the Spirit sees that it happens.

Something Speaks

By Acts 8, the wonder of Pentecost and the resurgent Jesus movement are old news. The sect creates big problems for the religious majority. Everything the new-fangled "Christians" teach and do is so far beyond the pale of mainstream Judaism there’s no reasonable way of reeling them in. A fervent counter-activist, Saul of Tarsus, spearheads a campaign to destroy the Church; the first casualty, Stephen, is railroaded through the courts and stoned. The Apostles scatter, ostensibly to lower their profile in Jerusalem. Yet (it just so happens) their scattering launches the Church’s missionary era, as new believers in the provinces join their ranks. One apostle, Philip, goes to Samaria, where he converts many. Once things quiet down in Jerusalem, he rejoins the Apostles.

Philip’s not there long before the Holy Spirit, in angelic form, sends him out again. No destination is given. All he’s told is “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (Acts 8.26) The instruction must sound odd, as there’s not much of anything there. Philip obeys, though, and along the way, he happens to meet an Ethiopian eunuch—“an important official in charge of all the treasury” of Ethiopia’s queen (v27). It just so happens the eunuch also is departing Jerusalem after worshiping in the Temple. A passage from Isaiah captures his attention: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he did not open mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.” (Isaiah 53.7-8) Something about this speaks to him, but he can’t put his finger on it without knowing whom the prophet talks about.

Perhaps the eunuch sees himself in the passage. As a foreigner and eunuch, his Temple worship is confined to the outer court, far from where the action is. He very well may be smarting from humiliation of being told he’s unworthy to access space reserved for Jews. (In his native land, the velvet rope drops for someone of his stature.) Then there’s the part about the sacrificial lamb having no heirs—a loss the eunuch surely understands. Who is this figure? The mystery overtakes the eunuch. He pulls over to study the text more closely. At that moment, Philip happens by. The Spirit tells him, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” (v29) He asks if the eunuch understands what he’s reading. The eunuch replies, “How can I unless someone explains it to me?” (v31) Philip is the perfect person to unlock the text. “Philip began with that very passage of Scripture,” verse 35 says, “and told him the good news about Jesus.” As they trundle down the road, they happen by some water. The eunuch asks if there’s any reason why he can’t be baptized. Of course not. After Philip welcomes the eunuch into the faith through baptism, the Spirit whisks him off, and the new believer goes his way, rejoicing.

Character and Confidence

Luke crams a lot of information into his 14-verse account, none of which we should mistake for descriptive prose. Every detail is carefully placed to enlighten us that something profound transpires when Philip meets the eunuch. It sets the Church’s course forever after and defines its calling to embrace people of all ethnicities, genders, classes, and cultures. Since he already touched on inclusion with Philip’s Samaritan ministry, Luke uses the episode to highlight the character and confidence required to enter and perpetuate an inclusive faith community.

It just so happens Philip and the eunuch share one trait eclipsing all their differences: they’re unintimidated by differences. Neither views the other’s status, color, identity, religion, and culture as threats. To be sure, they instantly surmise their differences on sight. And each comes from an environment encouraging him to look down on the other. A person weaker than Philip would scoff at a non-Jew—a eunuch from a pagan land, no less—presuming Isaiah had anything to offer him. Someone less grounded than the eunuch would never admit not understanding the prophet to an average nobody like Philip. Yet every cultural inhibition and intimidating dynamic falls aside when the eunuch genuinely desires to find meaning in Scripture and Philip arrives to open his mind to Christ’s truth.

“It just so happens” happens to us day after day, as the same Holy Spirit present, guiding, and moving the people of Acts remains present to guide and move in our lives. Sometimes we’re like Philip—inexplicably sent to souls who’ve pulled aside, seeking answers we can provide. Sometimes we’re like the eunuch—puzzled and sensing God wants to speak to us, yet not exactly sure what God is saying. Either way, “it just so happens” cannot happen if barriers, prejudices, and stereotypes intimidate us. Responding to the Spirit’s guidance calls for character and confidence to ignore everything we see so we can achieve all God asks of us and receive all God has for us.

The story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch is a study in character and confidence.

Consent

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?” Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented. (Matthew 3.13-15)

The Human Moment

The transition back to Ordinary Time finds us gathering Advent’s lessons and reminders, neatly organizing and storing them away like treasured keepsakes. There they will be, all together, ready to take out for future reflection when time permits or urges us to do so. In the process, we happen on a few items whose beauty got lost in the season’s festivities and fatigue. We linger with them, wondering how we missed their significance at first, as they are truly beautiful and significant. They deserve a closer look so we can internalize their value before putting them away. For me, the season’s final lesson was one I nearly overlooked. Our pastor set it forth splendidly in last Sunday’s sermon on Jesus’s baptism. I had no problem getting the message. The problem was I didn’t slow down, take time, and create room for the message to get to me. It’s tugged my sleeve ever since, popping up here and there in one form or another—an echo, a wink, a knowing nod, and even an arched eyebrow or two.

The sermon focused on the human moment preceding Jesus’s baptism and the subsequent divine declaration He is God’s Son. John the Baptist has amassed a following with the incendiary proclamation his Successor will purify the people like a farmer who threshes his wheat and sets fire to the chaff. (John's obsessed with pyrotechnics. Earlier, he attacks a curious group of religious leaders, comparing them to barren trees that will be chopped down and burned.) When Jesus steps into John’s riverside inferno, He’s nothing like the flame-throwing Avenger John advertised. He simply—quietly—asks John to baptize Him. Thoroughly confused, John balks. “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?” he asks. (v14) I’ll let my pastor take it from here:

It’s such a delicious line. John the Baptist, star-struck, mystified, aghast at the thought. “Wait,” you can hear under the surface. “This isn’t the way I thought this was going to unfold. I thought justice was going to come to come with fire! Wild. Fire!!” Jesus says: “Come on. Let’s do this thing. Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented.

Active Cooperation

John consents. The humanity of the encounter douses John's fantasy of fiery wrath sparked by divine fury. He’s suddenly aware Jesus has come to fulfill all righteousness, not to enforce it. To do that, He needs John’s cooperation. “Let it be so now,” Jesus says. It’s incumbent on John to let go his notion of what Jesus should do and get with His program. Change John seeks will come by example rather than coercion. Jesus will draw people through love—an altogether different method than John’s concept of change driven by fear. Consenting to baptize Jesus humbles John. It takes him out of himself, freeing him to forget everything he’s ranted about and wished for so he can participate in Christ’s mission in keeping with Christ’s nature. “Now,” Jesus stresses. It’s a pivotal moment for both of them. Both will leave the water transformed. Jesus will no longer be a carpenter’s Son. A supernatural manifestation will confirm His divine authority in no uncertain terms. John will no longer be Christ’s forerunner. His role will shift to Christ’s partner in launching God’s redemptive plan. The implications here are huge. And all of them hinge on John’s consent.

Asking the Unthinkable

It’s easy to grow so enraged with wrongs we suffer and witness that we formulate outlandish scenarios of divine retribution levied on the offenders. Particularly if we’ve been buffeted and bruised by familial, social, political, or religious wrongdoing (or all of the above), we envision eventualities no less spectacular and definitive than John’s fire fantasies. If we don’t explicitly say it, we silently project hope that those who abuse and oppress us will one day pay a great price for what they’ve done. Like John, we set the stage for it, don’t we? “Wait till Christ shows up,” we declare. “Boy, are they gonna be sorry! I’d be afraid, very afraid.” Then, when Jesus does step into our conflict, He’s nothing like we anticipated. We learn He’s come to forgive debts, not penalize non-payment—to fulfill righteousness, not enforce it. His entire program is built on love’s power over fear. Instead of opposing our adversaries, He imposes on us, asking the unthinkable: help Him. Our reaction mirrors John’s: “I need to be helped by You, and do You come to me?” It’s a tenderly human moment, this negotiation between Christ and us. It’s humbling to hear Christ’s appeal for our cooperation. Yet Christ’s request for our help reorients our awareness that change, not judgment, is what we really seek. Change that cannot occur without our consent.

Consent changes everything—our perceptions of Christ, our adversaries, and us. We’re no longer potential beneficiaries of divine intervention or passive witnesses to divine justice. We’re engaged participants in Christ’s mission. We abandon fear-infected fantasies fed by self-righteousness to partner with Christ in fulfilling true righteousness and launching God’s redemptive plan. The decision turns our thoughts from satisfying debts to saving debtors, from losses to gains. Our initial confusion at Christ’s request yields to consensual clarity, opening our eyes to love’s liberating power over fear. The moment we agree to help Christ is the moment our fears dissipate and our chains fall. We can balk at the request or we can accommodate it. “Let it be so now,” Jesus says. What happens after that hinges on our consent.

The moment John consents to Jesus’s request is the moment everything changes for both of them.

What's in the Water?

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3.26-28)

Dunkers

I was reared in Pentecostalism, the schismatic offspring of Fundamentalist groups like the Nazarenes and Baptists, which means I come from a tradition of “dunkers.” Baptism for us was/is less a sacrament (though it is that) than a rite of passage, much like First Communion and Confirmation are milestones for Catholics, Anglicans, and Lutherans. Unlike those practices, however, our baptism isn’t generally associated with a certain age or juncture in faith formation. Individuals who come to Christ and confess His Lordship are urged to take “the next step,” i.e., meet the minister in waist-high water—usually in the church baptistery, but sometimes at an outdoor location—to be bodily submerged beneath its surface. (We refer to this as “total immersion.”) Since confession of sin presumes moral conscience and precedes baptism, the ritual is reserved for believers who’ve reached the “age of accountability.” Ergo only those mature enough to recognize their errors, repent of them, and commit their lives to Christ qualify as baptismal candidates. Each believer holds the right to determine when he/she gets “dunked.”

This tradition fixes its adherents to a perspective that strenuously opposes two practices in other Christian communities: infant baptism and the sprinkling or pouring of water on the believer. In the first case, it holds young children are incapable of true repentance and thus ineligible for baptism. And die-hard dunkers, for whom total immersion becomes a cause célèbre, jump to point out Peter’s first instruction to the Church is “repent and be baptized.” (Acts 2.38) The insistence on total immersion isn’t as cut-and-dried, however, as New Testament accounts don’t explicitly report head-to-toe dunking. For example, at Christ’s baptism, Matthew 3.16 says, “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water.” Does this mean He was under the water or returned to Jordan’s riverbank? In Acts 8, after hearing the Gospel, the Ethiopian eunuch asks Philip to baptize him. Verse 38 says they “went down into the water,” but doesn’t spell out the mechanics. And I’m not sure what we do with Acts 10, where Peter visits Cornelius, a Roman centurion, sees his and his family’s faith, and baptizes them on the spot. Are we to imagine Cornelius lives in a villa equipped with a spacious pool? Those are mighty fancy digs for a soldier stationed abroad.

Too Much Like Right

With no irrefutable example, total immersion advocates fall back on a literal reading of Paul’s turn of phrase in Romans 6.4 and Colossians 2.12: “buried with him in baptism.” Meaning and metaphor conflate into a method that inflates into a mandate: no submersion, no “burial;” no “burial,” no baptism. And now we come to the rich irony buried in this baptism business. While the dunkers’ rationale for their approach could use more solid scriptural backing, their neighbors across the fence—the sprinklers and dousers, many of whom recoil at the idea of getting soaked to the bone in a public display of faith—don’t fare any better. Nothing in Scripture indicates their technique is any more or less valid. The long and short of it: all we know is baptism exists as a holy ordinance, a symbolic demonstration of faith typified in death and rebirth. Everyone agrees on this and that it must be done. But no one can say with absolute certainty how to do it. So it makes sense to concede the issue on all sides and celebrate the meaningfulness of the act, rather than quibble over the material aspects of the activity. There should be no contention whatsoever about baptism. Yet it remains one of the most divisive topics among us.

Why can’t we come clean and admit we’re all solid on the principle, but shaky on the procedure? To borrow my grandmother’s pet phrase about people who insist on bickering over phantom differences, “Agreeing sounds too much like right.” If everyone’s right about baptism and nobody’s wrong, then I can’t question your Christian experience, nor you mine. That’s a beehive we’re terrified of splitting open, because once we do, we have to respect each other’s beliefs—and our individual rights to believe as we believe—entirely, without exception. In short, we have to trust one another’s word and mean what we say, neither of which comes readily, or reasonably, to us. It’s so much easier to speak for God despite His needing no spokesperson. And we’re very clever about how we do this.

We’re too smart to attack fellow believers on the grounds we’re forgiven and they aren’t. There are just too many “whoever’s” and “anyone’s” and “everyone’s” on the loose. We dare not tamper with that. But baptism—ah, baptism!—now there’s something we can rally around to riot over. If I don’t have to take your word about that, I don’t have to accept it about anything else I’m not comfortable believing. What’s more, since baptism is the physical testimony of repentance, disqualifying your baptism disqualifies your faith. We’ve turned this sacred institution into a trap door we use to pull the floor from beneath one another—or, in some cases, disappear through like it’s a rabbit hole to an alternative universe where we’re right and everyone else is wrong. God have mercy on us.

All of You

Baptism’s mystery and meaning aren’t in fingers that sprinkle, hands that pour, or arms anchoring candidates as they go under. (Or, for that matter, are they found in arms cradling an infant whose parents present the child in baptism to signify their vow to raise it in the faith and knowledge of Christ.) Baptism’s power and majesty reside in the water, whatever its quantity or however it’s administered. Thus, we must ask, “What’s in the water?” Opening Galatians 3.26-28, we find our answer. “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Confession of faith brings us to baptism, whose primary purpose is removal of differences. It is not the equivalent of salvation, nor is it simply a reenactment of death and resurrection.

It is total immersion, if not literally, then in the far more profound sense of submersion in a Force so powerful it destroys all divisions, be they cultural, religious, social, or sexual. Baptism clothes us in Christ, Paul teaches. It creates uniformity of purpose by cloaking our pride of self and doubt of others. It enables us to see each other as one and the same. (“Your are all one in Christ.”) By way of baptism, everyone belongs—babies and grown-ups; Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox believers; rich people and poor people; brown, black, white, yellow, red, and mixed-race people; women and men, gay, straight, and everything in between; dunkers and sprinklers and dousers—everyone touched by the water belongs. And doesn’t it just figure? The very sacrament ordained to free us of differences is the one we won't quit fighting about. Agreeing on baptism doesn’t merely sound too much like right. It is too much like right. Once we get this corrected, we’ll be able to correct the “too much like wrong” that plagues and defames the Body of Christ we’re baptized into.

It’s not in the method; it’s in the water. Baptism submerges us in a Force so powerful it destroys our differences and clothes us in uniformity.

Washing Wounds

At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. (Acts 16.33)

Humanity

Inasmuch as the ancient world trafficked in stardom, Paul qualified as a minor celebrity. He won early notoriety as an anti-Christian activist prominently involved in the prosecutions and persecutions of first-century believers. Then he reversed his position to become the Early Church’s most outspoken, fearless, and widest-traveled figure. Whether or not he was a recognized name to the general public we don’t know. But he was clearly a person of note to the religious and political establishment. If he were alive today, in our age of 24/7 gossip and scandal, his every exploit would be grist for the mill. One imagines catching items in the CNN news ribbon: Paul outrages Greeks with sermon… Paul survives shipwreck… Paul and associate, Silas, arrested for disturbing peace in Philippi…. That last item would generate several updates. Promoters bring public suit against Paul and Silas for exorcising Philippi’s top psychic… Paul and Silas flogged and imprisoned in Philippi… Local jail destroyed when earthquake strikes Philippi; all prisoners accounted for… Paul and Silas save Philippi jailer from suicide attempt… Jailer and family convert to Christianity; late-night baptism held at jailer’s home… Charges dropped against Paul and Silas in quake aftermath….

Like so many stories told in headlines, sensationalism bruises the humanity in this tale. When Acts 16 surfaced in lectionary readings a couple weeks back, a number of astute and unique perspectives restored the humanity for me—most notably in From Captivity to Freedom, a superb rendering of the story by our associate pastor, Larissa Kwong Abazia, and Claire’s compelling take on the jailer, Signs. The two dovetail perfectly, as Larissa challenges us to recognize how unusual experiences alter our perceptions of the mundane, while Claire leads us through the narrative inside out, placing Paul and Silas in service of the jailer’s story. I’ve reread the story numerous times since then. Every time, I’m shaken by verse 33: “At that hour of the night the jailer took them [Paul and Silas] and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized.” For me, at least, that’s where the real earthquake happens.

Prisoner of Fear

As Larissa points out, Paul and Silas’s imprisonment is largely due to the Apostle’s annoyance with the psychic. She’s been trailing them all over town, declaring them “servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” (v17) Paul’s concern about being made a spectacle of rouses him to disable the psychic’s gifts and inadvertently puts him and Silas center stage—the very thing he wants to avoid. He’s not overly mindful about what will happen to the psychic—a slave to several hucksters—now that she’s stripped of her gifts. She’s a problem and he just wants her to go away. That's why his self-interest backfires. He and Silas become slaves to the same corrupt regime that exploited the psychic. Curiously, they don’t seem to get this. There’s no record of any remorse on their part. Instead, they persist in their impetuosity. When the earthquake hits around midnight, they’re entertaining the other prisoners by “praying and singing hymns to God.” (v25) Such bravado!

The jailer is the story’s true prisoner of fear. He’s an order-taker whose job depends on loyalty to the bosses, with no confidence it will be repaid. He’s an easy target if things go wrong and the blame-game starts. Despite their indifference to the psychic’s fate, Paul and Silas shouldn’t be jailed in the first place. The psychic’s owners are guilty here, first for exploiting a gifted woman and second for fomenting controversy to humiliate and silence Paul and Silas. Since they, not the disciples, are in bed with powers that be, they’re whom the jailer fears most. In the aftershock, he sees the jail doors flung open and starts to commit suicide. Better to die than suffer the same fate as those he keeps. Now we see Paul’s compassion. In the shaking, he’s come to his senses. “We’re all here,” he shouts. The jailer asks, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (v31) He’s looking for pragmatic advice—what to do to keep his job. But Paul and Silas offer him something greater: freedom from fear. “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” (v31) What we see next is simply amazing.

The jailer and his family believe and are saved. In Early Church times, baptism immediately followed a convert’s confession of faith. In Acts 2.38, Peter tells the onlookers at Pentecost: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Baptism “sealed the deal” and inducted new believers into the Christian household of faith. But the jailer won’t wait for proper induction. His faith secures his inclusion before it’s officially acknowledged. Instinctively, he honors Christ’s command to do for others what he would have them do for him. Before a basin of water is drawn for his baptism, he draws water to wash Paul and Silas’s wounds. He ministers to them first.

We Can’t Wait

Once we remove the headlines to discover its humanity, what does this story say to us? A number of things, actually, all of them loosely connected to a random geological event, a shaking that alters perceptions and topples traditions. First, we shouldn’t revere church leaders as ideals. They're human, every bit as vulnerable to impatience, impetuosity, and shortsightedness as we are. They will make mistakes that perplex us and get them in trouble. Second, we need not live in fear of powers that be. A Higher Power capable of shaking the very foundations of power, loosing shackles, and opening doors, exists. But third—and most important, I think—we can’t wait for proof of inclusion to obey Christ. Instinctively, we must make washing wounds our first priority.

The jailer could have balked at Paul and Silas’s message of faith. “Fix this mess first,” he might have said. “Then I’ll believe.” He could have looked at their wounds and said, “Once you accept me, I’ll take care of you.” But he didn’t. We can’t, either. In the rubble of allegedly secure structures, we can find faith to believe. Before we’re fully accepted or acknowledged, we can heal. When the jailer washes Paul and Silas’s wounds, he baptizes them. The water he pours into their injuries witnesses the Spirit that flows through him prior to formal acceptance. May that same Spirit flow through us. May washing wounds be a ministry we share.

We can’t rely on leaders to live up to our ideals or structures to remain sound. We can’t wait for acceptance to wash wounds. We can’t—we won’t—be afraid.

At Just the Right Time

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.

                        Romans 5.6

Look, the Lamb of God!

When Jesus leaves home to commence His ministry, He goes to be baptized by His cousin, John, who baptizes followers as an induction rite into his Messianic sect. From all appearances, it seems Jesus intends to be baptized as John’s disciple as well. But the Baptist sees Him approaching and announces, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1.29) He tells his followers, “This is Who I’ve been telling you about, the One I promised would come.” The moment John's waited for his entire adult life arrives at last.

The day following Christ’s baptism—during which God the Father and Holy Spirit confirm His divinity—John meets Jesus while walking with two disciples. Again, he says, “Look, the Lamb of God!” John’s followers change their course without hesitation to follow the Lord. They invite themselves to spend the day with Him. Late in the afternoon, one of them, Andrew, interrupts the visit to find his brother, Simon Peter. “We have found the Messiah,” he tells Peter and brings him to Jesus. Things fall into place rapidly; in a matter of days, Jesus assembles a core group of disciples who instantly abandon their livelihoods and homes to go with Him. There’s no planned itinerary. No religious organization or charity subsidizes Jesus’s work. The disciples sign on without completely knowing what His mission's about, what it will demand, and where it will lead. They have no idea in three years they’ll stand beneath a cross, helpless, horrified, and grief-stricken, as their Master, the Lamb of God, dies to take away the sin of the world.

Hard to Conceive

Living in civilization’s most free, advanced, and prosperous period (to date), it's hard to conceive how readily the disciples—with Mary Magdalene as well as perhaps another two to three dozen unnamed men and women—abruptly leave families, quit jobs, and forget personal ambitions to follow Jesus in blind faith. On the other hand, in this era of pervasive evil, gross inhumanity, and global communication, it’s equally hard to conceive why God chose first-century Palestine as the optimal time and place to enter, and forever alter, our story. Yet placing both of these impressions in perspective gets us to the answer.

Jesus appears when, for the first time in history, one empire occupies and rules the entire Western world. Caesar’s legions have conquered every nation on the map, and no group feels more impotent and oppressed by Rome than the Jews. Hardscrabble life under pagan dictatorship holds little promise. Hope for the promised Deliverer runs high. Leaving everything to follow Christ asks an enormous price but takes minimal thought. It also invites great risk. In this smaller, slower world, a band of devotees rousing public interest in a new King draws ongoing attention on a scale unimaginable in our culture of information overload and short attention spans. In 1 A.D. Palestine, however, everything He does and threats He poses to the Roman and religious regimes are major news.

Powerless

These factors are part of what Paul means when writing, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” Jesus’s entrance couldn’t have been more timely, nor His death more perfectly planned to reach an angst-ridden generation and irrevocably shake the world's foundations. From first to last, He described His purpose by linking its profound implications for each believer with its global impact. “I came,” He basically tells Nicodemus in John 3.16, “to redeem the world one-by-one.” In John 16.33, He explains we all will experience personal problems. “But take heart,” He says, “I have overcome the world.” And just prior to His ascension, He tells the disciples, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you” to be witnesses “to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1.8) But Calvary's inheritance, its personal relevance and worldwide reach, transcend fixed dates and sites. In Paul's view, "the right time" is also the moment each individual recognizes his/her powerlessness and claims Christ's gift of grace. In 2 Corinthians 6.2, after citing a Messianic prophecy of acceptance in Isaiah, he's very insistent about this: "I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation." It's always just the right time.

Today, as we reflect on The Passion in all its brutality and majesty, let’s move the cross from its ancient setting to our personal past. Whether decades ago or yesterday, each of us has gone to Calvary. Like the disciples, we stood helpless, horrified, and grief-stricken, as we beheld the Lamb of God surrendering His life for our salvation. We came to the cross because we were powerless, oppressed by unwelcome influences in a world without hope. We bowed in shameful sorrow, trusting in Christ’s forgiveness and acceptance. We believed His promise in John 6.37 with our entire beings: “Whoever comes to me I will never drive away.” 

Roman and religious conspirators executed the historical Jesus nearly 2000 years ago. But Christ the Redeemer defies time and space. Calvary exists for the ages, calling any and everyone away from weakness and despair. The cross stands, will always stand, as love's pinnacle, where the powerless receive life-changing strength and the oppressed find world-changing hope. Day after day, minute after minute, souls in need come to Calvary and discover neither its power nor beauty even slightly diminished by centuries of human history. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for us.

The cross stands, will always stand, as love's pinnacle for the powerless and oppressed.

(Tomorrow: Surely)

What Shall We Say?

What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?

                        Romans 6.1 

Abusing Grace

Acceptance is not indulgence, and forgiveness is not permission. We’ve mentioned this before in terms of accepting and forgiving people who wrong us. Because we accept those who sin against us doesn’t mean we’re obliged to endure rampant abuse. We accept them and yet reject what they do. The same holds for forgiveness. It doesn’t include blanket approval for future harms. Sadly, many will repeatedly exploit our acceptance and forgiveness, leaving us no choice but continuing to accept and forgive. We do this because our Father accepts and forgives us no matter how often we sin and take advantage of His unconditional love. Knowing how it feels when others ride roughshod over our love, we should be very cautious about doing the same with God’s love for us.

That’s the key take-away from Romans 6.1. In the previous chapter, Paul eloquently lays out God’s strategy to reconcile us to Him. He explains Christ’s primary objective was replacing arcane Mosaic mandates with a New Order based on grace. Out went our failure and in came His forgiveness. While God’s standards didn’t change, Christ radically reversed the emphasis from means (earning God’s mercy) to ends (receiving it). Here’s Romans 5.20: “The law was added so that the trespass might increase.” In other words, the more it asked of us, the more we failed. “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” After Calvary, there’s more than enough grace to go around; no sinner at his/her worse can max out God’s love and forgiveness.

This raises an interesting question, though, which Paul addresses head-on at the top of chapter 6. Does unlimited grace license us to sin repeatedly? If more sin means more grace, might continuing to sin arguably be a good thing? When does relying on grace end and abusing grace begin? By the time Paul gets to the bottom of this, we see how we treat God’s grace works exactly as how others treat ours. God’s acceptance doesn’t imply indulging behaviors that displease Him, nor does His forgiveness grant permission to persist in wrongdoing.

Spiritual Psychos

“What shall we say?” Paul asks. “Keep sinning so grace keeps increasing?” Absolutely not, he immediately answers. “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Romans 6.2) There’s something slightly creepy about this that reminds me of Hitchcock’s Psycho. Hitch leads us to believe Norman Bates is the Mama’s Boy of a homicidal maniac. When things go awry at the Bates Motel, Norman blames his mother and begs his customers’ forgiveness. And then comes the stunning twist (spoiler alert): Mama’s been dead for years, but Norman’s kept her alive in his head, acting on delusional compulsions to destroy anyone challenging his devotion to her. Psycho ends with one of the most chilling moments in film history. Norman has completely surrendered his personality to his mother’s. He’s beyond help because it’s he, not Mama, who no longer exists.

When we die to sin, sin’s lure and power are dead to us. Yet if we keep sinning—because we don’t think we can live without it or we love it too much to let it go—we risk becoming spiritual psychos. Sin captivates our imaginations, urging us to act on delusional fear, insecurity, and protectiveness. Over and over, we mess up and beg God’s pardon, weakly blaming what we’ve done on unavoidable circumstances. Yes, God forgives us. He’ll forgive us every time we ask. But what’s the point if we submit to sin’s domination of us again and again? How long will the cycle continue until it spins out of control and, like Norman, we cease to exist so sin can survive? These are grim prospects, yet they can’t be ignored. Habitual sin places us in the only position known to man where God’s grace yields diminishing returns—not because there’s less of it, but because continual sin reduces our desire for it.

Dying to Live

We come to Jesus because we’re dying to live. Our existence so far has yielded little. Purpose and fulfillment elude us. All we know of life is not enough to sustain us. We can’t shake the sense there’s a better way and, once we hear God’s voice, we recognize it leads where our hearts long to go. Dying to live becomes more than an expression—it’s our new reality. Christ’s offer supersedes life improvement. He specializes in life replacement. Paul uses baptism to describe this: “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6.4) He makes a similar point in Galatians 2.20: “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” We’ve been given a choice between two options whose contrast is so stark to make the right decision a no-brainer. Would we rather die to sin to gain new life, or do we abuse God’s grace to keep sin alive? What shall we say?

Do we die to sin to gain new life? Or do we keep sinning until it captivates our minds and we become spiritual equivalents of Norman Bates--controlled by a dead, and deadly, force?

(Tomorrow: A Thousand Generations)

Use the Force

The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it. 

Luke 16.16

A New Order 

Jesus’s ministry officially started when His cousin, John, baptized Him. Coming out of the water, a voice from heaven declared, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3.17) Before this, the Old Testament was in effect. Christ's baptism, however, ushered in new rules and regulations. God Himself identified Jesus as His Son, the physical embodiment of the Law and the Prophets. Divine favor no longer depended on birthright and tradition. It was available to all, there for the taking.

In John 3.16, Jesus explained this New Order to Nicodemus, a religious leader:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

That "whoever” revoked all prior and future qualifications aside from faith in Christ.  “Whoever” means you.  “Whoever” means me.  Our place in the kingdom of God is assured, plain and simple.

Old Habits Die Hard…

Yet two thousand years later, we still find Christians clinging to the Law and the Prophets. As self-appointed Bouncers for God, they work hard to bar anyone not on their list from God’s grace and acceptance. Jesus knew this would be a problem.  This is why He told His followers that the New Order required believers to force their way into the kingdom of God. 

Don’t Wait

For those of us outside Christianity’s cultural norms, there’s no sense in hanging around like Cinderella, waiting for a miracle to sweep us through the kingdom’s gates. It’s not going to happen. We don’t need a miracle, a fairy godmother, an engraved invitation, or a sea change to access God’s acceptance. All we need are the desire and will to force our way into His kingdom.  As the old spiritual says, “There’s plenty good room in my Father’s kingdom. Choose your seat and sit down.” Use the force.

 

If all "Bouncers for God" looked like this, maybe more of us would be eager to force our way into the kingdom!