The Baptism of Jesus – Br. Curtis Almquist

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Mark 1:4-11

Delivered by Br. David Vryhof.

We hear that John and Jesus meet up with one another along the Jordan river.  This must have been shocking for both of them.  John and Jesus are cousins, and both of them are now about 30 years old, which is well advanced in years for that time – and they have known each other since their infancies.  Both of them of borne the blessing and burden of their destinies, talked about since before they were even born:

John, the miracle son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, who were old enough to be his great grandparents.  Jesus, the miracle son of Mary and conceived through an angel and not with her husband, Joseph.  Both their lives were predicted to be great.  John was predicted to be the Messiah’s forerunner or announcer; Jesus was himself predicted to be the Messiah.  How could this be?  Long before any else was asking the question, “How can this be?” I’m sure both John and Jesus were asking themselves the same question.

The stories of these two cousins’ miraculous conceptions, announced (so they said) by angels (!), are the kinds of things you can read about in supermarket check-out lines.  And I would guess there must have been a fair amount of gossip and derisive humor about about these angel stories and these two first-century bionic boys.  What would it have been like for these two cousins to grow up in each other’s shadows, most likely to live side-by-side for almost 30 years, their lives shrouded with such mystery and expectation and speculation about their iden­tities and their destinies.  Neither of them married.  Neither of them was all-that-special, really, at least for boys who were supposed to become so great.  What did they know about each other?  What did they think about each other?  How did they talk to one another?  We don’t know.

All we do know is that one day John left home and, it seems, left Jesus, at least left Jesus on his own.  John began living out own his destiny, preaching repentance, baptizing those who came to confess their sins, preparing the way for the Messiah.  And then this day comes that Jesus appears on the horizon, asking John to be baptized with all the other sinners.  I can imagine this was something of a crisis for John.  “What is Jesus doing here?” John silently screams with his eyes.  Either Jesus, his cousin, was the Messiah, or Jesus was not the Messiah after all.  In my mind’s eye I can see John lunging after Jesus, seizing Jesus by the arm and marching him out into the sea, far enough so they could be alone, where John demands, almost in desperation, “What in the world are you doing here!?”  I suspect that Jesus is not, himself, completely clear why he has come.i

But Jesus soon has something of an answer.  There’s the sight of a dove and the sound of a voice from heaven saying, “This is my well-beloved son.”  John, it seems, never completely hears this answer, not in this life.  John does baptize Jesus, on Jesus’ insistence, and Jesus leaves for the wilderness and beyond.  John labors on, baptizing, and, I bet, wondering, too.  The only thing he’s sure of is that something greater is to come.  “Prepare the way for it,” John preached.  Would this happen through Jesus or not?  John knew from where Jesus had come – his clan and his culture – which probably left John wondering, “What good could come out of that?”  You may even remember the early reports in the Gospels about Jesus’ coming to his home town to teach the people.  People were astounded, not because they had never met and seen someone like Jesus.  Quite to the contrary, they did know him and had heard him because he grew up there.  And so we hear that the people were astounded: “Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power?   Is not this the carpenter’s son?  Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?   And are not all his sisters with us?  Where then did this man get all this?”  I don’t think they were impressed or taken with Jesus.  Quite to the contrary.  The Gospel account says that they took offence at him.  And Jesus says (maybe under his breath), “Prophets are not without honor… except in their own country and in their own house.”ii John the Baptist was from the same country, same house, same clan.

According to the Gospel accounts in Matthew and Luke, even at the end of his life (when he was in prison), John might not have been altogether sure that Jesus actually was the Messiah.  At the end of his life, John, now facing execution, summons two of his own disciples, speaks with them, then sends them to Jesus with a question.  They are to say to Jesus that John the Baptist had sent them.  And they were to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” And Jesus answers them,  “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me” (which maybe even needs to apply to John).iii

I actually take enormous comfort in what I read to be John’s uncertainty, maybe confusion about Jesus’ identity and his own.  I take comfort in this for several reasons, and this may speak to you.

For one, Jesus had his own issues growing into his own identity as the Messiah.  It took the church nearly three centuries following Jesus’ death and resurrection to arrive at the theological formula that Jesus was truly God and truly human (the very thing we will attest in the Nicene Creed, momentarily).  I wonder how that was with Jesus, in his own lifetime?   As we hear in the Gospel record, people asking, “What good can come out of someone from somewhere like Jesus?”  I’m sure Jesus was asking those questions of himself long before anyone else was.  We even know of Jesus struggle, up to the last moment of his crucifixion, when he felt abandoned by the God whom he called “Father”: “Why, O why have you forsaken me,” Jesus cries out.  I find enormous comfort in their struggle to know and claim their own identity and their certainty.  Some mornings I wake up and I’m not completely sure about a lot of things – either about my own identity and destiny, or about Jesus’.  What I am sure about I draw from memory: of God having been with me, miraculously, in so many ways in life.  (Maybe this is so for you, also?)  I draw on my past memory and I draw on my present need… which brings me to an altar such as this with my hands cupped, almost begging to know God’s presence and God’s provision.

I also find enormous comfort in the incompleteness of John’s life experience – he was beheaded, you will recall – and Jesus’ life experience – he was baptized, then followed and listened to, then abandoned, then crucified.  Neither John’s nor Jesus’ life on earth end in perfect completeness.  You may know that Shaker hymn –  “Tis is a Gift to be Simple” – which ends with the line about “everything coming round right.”  I believe that to be true, with all my heart.  But I don’t believe that to be true about life on this earth.  For some people, many things do come round right in their own lifetimes: issues with their families and friends, with their health, with their finances, with their reputation and legacy.  However most of the time people come to the end of their lives incomplete, often times quite broken.  In the vocabulary of the church, there is this wonderful phrase, “the hope of heaven.”  What I look for and pray for – for myself and for people whom I know and love and for people whom I simply read about in the newspapers – my hope and prayer for heaven isn’t about pearly gates and gold-paved streets, but about reconciliation and restoration.  When Jesus says he’s come “to make all things new,” I think he’s speaking heavenward.  I’m not suggesting we live our lives in a kind of masochistic state, nor that we give up enjoying all the good gifts of life on this earth, nor that we cease to struggle and advocate for justice and peace on this earth.  To the contrary, we are the major builders of what Jesus calls his “kingdom,” his coming kingdom.  That’s our job.  It’s our job to be preparing the highway to God, especially for those who have fallen off the path or never discovered the path to God.  We’re on a mission from God in this life, up to the last second of our lifetime.

In the meantime – and sometimes in life it’s a very mean time – we also embrace the reality that life on this earth is incomplete.  It’s a foretaste of what is to come, for ourselves and for others.  If you know someone who died where things did not “come round right” in their own lifetime, pray for them.  Pray for the kind of healing and reconciliation that can come, and may only come, in death.  I think we’ve got enormous power here to pray for what Jesus calls the “unbinding of people” on earth and in heaven.

One last word of comfort and encouragement from the life and witness of these cousins, John the Baptist and Jesus.  The earliest followers of Jesus were not called “Christians.”  They were called “followers of the way.”  Jesus even takes this name himself when he says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”  “I am the way.”  Where did this notion of the “the way” come from?  Jesus certainly would have heard this phrase in readings from the prophets.   His cousin John uses this language in his own preaching.  He proclaims, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” What is this way?

The way is lost on us.  Jesus’ message is that all of humankind have lost their way and need to be found and rescued, saved, brushed off, patched up, cuddled, fed, and lead home.  Which is to say, we need to be rescued; we need to be saved.  The way is lost on us, and Jesus finds his way to us.  That’s Jesus’ way.  Out of so much love for the world, God sends his only Son to seek us out and save us.  In English the verbs to save, to salvage, to salve come from the same etymological root.  And it’s true also in the Greek.  Jesus has come to save us, to salvage our lives, to salve our wounds.  Because that’s the way God is.  We hear the prophet Isaiah’s call, “Prepare the way.”  Jesus makes it happen by coming to us and living with us and dying for us and rising from the dead.  God provides for what God commands.  God becomes the way to God through Jesus.iv I would call this good news, very good news.  Jesus has come to save us, salve us, salvage us.  Jesus finds his way to us.  We don’t find Jesus; he finds us, we who are prone to get lost in life.  That’s the way it is with Jesus.

If this is a season of your life where you are full of clarity and confidence, where all seems right in heaven and on earth, how wonderful.  Enjoy it.  Share it.  Share it generously.  If, however, this is season of your life where you are lost – something about your past or your present or your future – and you’re lost, then take enormous comfort.  Jesus will find his way to you, presuming you need to be rescued.  Jesus bridges the way between us and the God whom he calls Father.  Jesus is God Emmanuel, God with us, God with you, even today.  Even if your only experience just now is longing for God and a feeling of emptiness, God is in the emptiness.  God is with you.

© 2009

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