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A sermon is a manner of oral communication and therefore words and sentence structure/order would be added, altered, or deleted at the moment of delivery. + In Nomine Jesu + The Rev. Evan Gaerther Since December 26, when an earthquake broke open the Indian Ocean floor and produced a Tsunami, water has been in the news quite a bit. There have been diagrams demonstrating how an early warning system would have worked. I have seen home video of the water tide rising. I have heard interviews from survivors that describe the sudden rising of the water so that it even covered 30 foot tall palm trees. I have seen pictures of whole islands that showed the effects of being under water. The devastation of water is remarkable. We have learned all to well that water can destroy in this past couple of weeks. But also the very thing that killed close to 200,000 people in South Asia is also the very thing that we need the most. Clean fresh life giving water. A person can fast from food for several days, he will be weak, but will not die. A person daily needs water. I saw somewhere that a person needs at minimum a pint of water a day. Clean, fresh, life giving water is one of the essential items that is being delivered through disaster relief efforts. I know that water is destructive which has been made very real for us in the last couple of weeks. But I also would like to think about the positive image of water first. Water cleans, refreshes, renews. Water brings a new beginning. Baptism in the Bible is described as a washing of the forgiveness of sins. Peter said to those gathered on the Day of 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.” (Acts 2:38). Paul recounted of arriving in the town of Damascus after meeting the Lord Jesus on the road. He was blind and something like scales fell from his eyes. Then Ananias, a devout man in the city of Damascus, said to Paul, “Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.” (Acts 22:16). Just as the ark blessed Noah during the time of the flood, baptism, the water’s of repentance, are our safety blessing in this time of sin. The positive image of water in baptism is that this water combined with God’s word works the forgiveness of sins, victory over sin, death, and the devil. The negative image of water in baptism is equally important for us to look at. We are under water every day. We may want to think that we can handle what comes our way. That you are strong enough to sort out all the emotions, troubles, and frustrations that comes with living. But eventually when we try to do it all we eventually do emotionally and spiritually drown under the weight of pressure. John the Baptist was calling people to repentance when he preached from the banks of the Jordan River. It was a call for sinners to come forward and turn away from their sin and trust in the power of God to work forgiveness in their lives. It was a baptism proclaimed to the people because they had sinned and needed the forgiveness of God’s mercy. The negative image of baptism was that we need it because we are under God’s judgment. So people went to John at the Jordan because they wanted relief. So often the story of Jesus seems to swing between the ordinary and the extraordinary. What appears to be an ordinary birth is accompanied with the extraordinary singing of angels from heaven, and a little later the visiting of wise men from the east bearing gifts. An ordinary Passover journey to Jerusalem ends in the extraordinary scene of a twelve year old Jesus teaching in the Temple. Now at the start of the public ministry is another ordinary moment, another routine day of John’s preaching repentance at the Jordan bank. But when Jesus approaches John the Baptist the day becomes extraordinary. Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one, the Christ, the son of God, pure, sinless, holy child of Mary. There is nothing ordinary about Jesus, but nevertheless he is there at the Jordan bank. Presumably all sorts of people came to John for his baptism of repentance. Then came Jesus. He stood there to be baptized by John, and that alone spoke volumes to John. How John realized that Jesus was the messiah we don’t know, but what follows proves John right. What follows shows me that the Lord’s anointed one has come not to stand over me, but to go under the water with me. Jesus wanted baptism like the others who had come under the threat of God’s wrath, John would have none of that. It would not be appropriate, John thought, for the Lord’s anointed one, to go under the same water as the sinful ones that deserved God’s punishment. The positive image of water as life giving and fresh and clean would be appropriate for Jesus, but this negative image of sin, judgment, drowning, and death to self, this were not appropriate for the Son of God. But this is happening on Jesus’ terms, on God’s terms. Jesus made a point. “I will be baptized with sinners here on the bank of the Jordan. Why? Because I have come for sinners, carrying their burden.” Jesus goes under the water. Jesus stands with sinners, you and me, because Jesus becomes for us the fullness of humanity. This going under the water is the start of the path that will lead him to going behind that closed tomb. When you think of all those people that suffered as the tidal waters rose and carried them out to see or crushed them under the weight of floating debris, I want you to remember the love of God that has gone under the water for them as well. For God so loved the world, for those that suffer in distress right now, so that all those that believe in him might not perish but have eternal life. God has gone under the water, because he wants us to know more than just the burden and weight of our sin, trouble, affliction, and pain. Paul wrote to the Romans saying, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life.” (Romans 6:4). Why did Jesus walk to the bank of the Jordan River on that ordinary day, because he wants the extraordinary of seeing a God that loves and cares for you so much that he goes under the water of sin and judgment, he wants that to become ordinary. Jesus desire is for John the Baptist and for the entire world to eventually know that daily you have a Lord that loves and cares for you. Jesus walked to the Jordan River, because he desires you and me to walk in the newness of life. The negative image of being under water without escape finds relief in the positive image that Jesus enters that same water with us. In Baptism our Lord declares unity with our lives, he begins the pathway that will lead him to the ultimate unity with our lives, death. “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:5) Soli Deo Gloria -->> Home |