First Sunday after Epiphany B
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11
In Genesis this morning, we see God shining forth into the darkness---saving, creating,
giving life. God’s spirit is the divine life force that sweeps overs the face of the water. This
verb translated as “sweeps” is the Hebrew verb px;r\ (rahef). It means to hover, move
gently, to cherish, to brood—in fact, it can mean to brood and fertilize. It is the same verb
used in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy to describe a mother eagle who hovers over her
young, protecting them and granting them life.
For the Hebrew people, the Waters represent chaos—a dark abyss. The Universe at the
beginning of this Creation story is in a deep darkness, a great chaotic miasma of dark,
formless void. Into this darkness, God calls forth light. The darkness is not gone; it is still
there, but God has dominion and authority over the dark chaos, and from this chaos, God is
able to create and speak new life.
A great darkness, an abyss, chaos: I think we can relate to this concept all too well. So
many dead and wounded in the terrorist attacks in and around Paris; it seems that resorting
to gun violence in order to solve our conflicts and tensions has become a way of life. What
we, as disciples and believers in Jesus, are called to believe and trust is: even in our current
and personal state of chaos and darkness, whether it be the escalating gun violence in our
world, poverty, disease, grief, depression, physical diminishment----God is able to create,
breathe and speak new life into each of us, and into all of us.
The Creation stories highlight the rushing forth of God’s spirit into the formless, dark void,
creating new life where once there was only chaos. God takes hold of the wet, dirty stuff
from the darkness and fashions it, simply and radically, by speaking a new reality: “Let
there be light.”
In the Gospel today, the chaos of the waters of Creation is replaced with the salvation
found in the waters of Baptism. For in Baptism, we are buried with Christ and raised to new
life. Christ goes down into the watery abyss and breaks forth into new life through the
waters of baptism and the power of the Holy Spirit. Mark tells us the heavens are torn
open---just as the curtain separating God from man in the Holy temple is torn at the death
of Jesus---same verb. We are to clearly understand that the opening of divine and human
connection and interaction are proclaimed through Jesus and through our understanding
that God’s words to Jesus are God’s words to us: You are my beloved child. I will not be
separated from you.
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Due to this glorious opening between God and humanity that is created by Jesus’ life,
ministry and death, God’s life-changing, renewing spirit is poured out among all of God’s
people. Jesus enters the transformational waters of Baptism, not because he needs it, but
because we need it. Jesus completes his identity with broken humanity---providing us with
the first steps we need to take in order to turn our lives around---the steps of baptism,
repentance, and reconciliation. The step of claiming God’s claim on us and living that claim
in order to bring light into the darkness, in order that our actions and choices proclaim to
the world: Let there be light.
Just as God takes hold of the wet, dirty stuff and fashions a radically new creation in
Genesis, so too at our baptisms---so too when we make ourselves vulnerable and live into
God’s claim on our lives. God takes hold of us---wet, dirty, broken humanity---and with the
Holy Spirit hovering over the entire action---we are fashioned into a new being,
incorporated as living members of the Body of Christ. God declares to us: You are my
beloved child. I desire to pull you out of the darkness and into the light.
Today, the Word tells us that it is God’s voice that can transform the chaos and darkness in
this world, the chaos and darkness within our selves.
How will we hear God’s life-changing voice? How do we hear it? Are we willing to make
ourselves available to hear it? And in order to recognize and know it is God’s voice, we
must first come to know God, God’s character, God’s way of being, God’s mission—so that
we not be fooled by the cacophony of competing voices, noises, and sounds that long to
pull us away from God’s light and suck us into the miasma of darkness. We must be willing
to make ourselves vulnerable to God, to put ourselves in the presence of God, in order to
hear God.
My friends, we live in the midst of chaos---we have seen the dark voids that suck up all
manner of living matter in our world. Are we willing to release our hold on it and put this
wet, dark stuff into the hands of God? Will we allow our lives, our selves, our world to be
reshaped and refashioned by God’s radically transforming spirit?
Just this week I conversed with two men, one not even yet 20 and the other closer to 70,
whose stories witness to the power that the dark has to lead us into lonely and devastating
places.
At times like these, when we sit with someone in their darkness, we always want to say just
the right thing. We struggle to find just the perfect word that will help pull him from the
muck. I don’t know about you, but I rarely find that I have those words right on the tip of
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my tongue. When I talked to the younger man, I said the only thing I think makes a
difference. It went something like this:
I told him that I would be there to listen; that I would walk with him, but more importantly, I
told him the best thing I have to offer is Jesus. Jesus in the form of a community who would
like to get to know him and who will walk with him even when he makes poor choices.
Jesus in the form of people I know will help him---if he is interested---in figuring out how to
get his life on a track that will lead to fulfillment and wholeness rather than to bleakness
and hopelessness. I told him it wouldn’t be easy work, and it wouldn’t be without pitfalls,
but it would be worth it.
I can’t prove this to you, I said. I can only tell you I know this to be true. Because this is the
truth of my life, my living, my dealing with darkness. Because this is how I know Jesus.
Through people. Through prayer. Through our life of community together. And because I
know Jesus, there is always a light shining for me---even in the midst of the sorrow and
tragedy---there is always a hope and a belief that light and joy will return because God, the
bearer of light and producer of joy, God yearns to know us and for us to know God.
Because God so loves us.
I am just like you. I too can get lost in the shadows. But when I turn to Jesus, this Jesus in
our Intercession family, this Jesus I know in Word, in action, in study, in sacrament, in my
neighbor, then I am buoyed up above the drowning waters. Jesus cannot simply be my port
in the storm. He is that, but Jesus is my safety because he is also my friend, my confidant,
my guide, my disciplinarian. I have a relationship with Jesus that takes just as much effort
as my relationship with my husband---just as much effort, just as much time, just as much
trust, and just as much commitment.
Oh, beloved, I know it may sound sappy or cliché to some. I know it may sound too good to
be true or too idealistic to be realistic. But it is my truth; it is what I believe to be the Truth.
I cannot prove it. I can only live it and invite others to live it with me. I can only live it and
be bold enough to share it so others can arise and shine as the glory of the Lord rests upon
them.
So, I invite you. If this is your truth too, then let us be bold together. If it is not your truth
yet, then I invite you to come and see. Come and see and know. For this is how Jesus’
ministry, this is one way God, changes the world. A Baptism at a time. Counting on each of
us who is Spirit possessed and claimed as God’s beloved to live out the promises made in
our Baptism and to boldly proclaim Jesus Christ as our Lord. Yes, even using those very
words aloud—not to be afraid or ashamed to say: “I believe in God Almighty; I believe God
works in many ways and through many means, but for me: Jesus is my Lord. Jesus is how I
know God.” We are to tell our truth to the world. And perhaps, beloved, we are to sit and
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listen to other’s stories as to how God is made known to them—even in ways that are
foreign and unknown to us.
This is how we live Christmas---how we proclaim the Epiphany—by claiming our true
identity. By letting our lives, our identity, our trajectory in this world to be changed and
reshaped because we accept the jaw-dropping truth that the Creator of all things loves
each one of us so very deeply. Beloved, let us be so infused with the light that it shoots
forth from our voices, our eyes, our fingers, our actions---so filled and overflowing with
God’s Spirit that it cannot be contained. You are God’s beloved child. The Holy Spirit rests
upon you. Marinate in that. Let this Truth sink into your bones.
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