The Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, Yr B (2024), The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Baptism of our Lord, Yr B (2024) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Genesis 1:1-5 St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
Mark 1:4-11
In the name of the one, holy, and living God:
in whom we live, and move, and have our being. Amen.
This past Tuesday Ray sent me a text with a photo of a scene out of a hospital window.
In the foreground were the rooftops of buildings
with their requisite large vents and other hunks of metal.
In the background were the curves of the beautiful Western North Carolina mountains.
In the mid-ground was a unique evergreen tree,
with unusual and fascinating whirls of needles in a configuration I’ve never seen!
Layers of branches, in two different sections…one atop the other,
were reaching for the heavens.
Ray’s text read:
“I’m heading to the ICU to see intubated people
and passed by the usual window
but saw this tree for the first time.”
To which I responded:
“In the midst of misery and chaos,
there is creative goodness.”
This came to mind because I had just been reading today’s Scripture passages.
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,
the earth was a formless void
and darkness covered the face of the deep.”
“John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness,
proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
In the midst of misery and chaos,
there is creative goodness.
This seems to be a theme in today’s readings.
Theologian and writer, Brian McLaren,
writes more eloquently than I about such patterns of the universe:
“It becomes more obvious the longer you live that all life is full of patterns.
“Reality is trying to tell us something.
Life is speaking to us.
“There’s lots of mystery out there, to be sure,
and no shortage of chaos and unpredictability.
“But there’s also lots of meaning . . .
messages trying to find expression,
music inviting us to listen and sing,
patterns attracting our attention and interpretation.
“The chaos becomes a backdrop for the patterns,
and the mysteries seem to beckon us to try to understand. . . .
“But above and behind and beyond the sometimes confusing randomness of life,
something is going on here.
“From a single molecule to a strand of DNA,
from a bird in flight
to an ocean current
to a dancing galaxy,
there’s a logic, a meaning, an unfolding pattern to it all.
“Like wood, reality has a grain.
“Like a river, it has a current.
“Like a story, it has characters and setting and conflict and resolution. . . .
“Creation reveals wisdom through its patterns.
“It reveals wisdom about its source and purpose and about our quest to be alive . . .
if we are paying attention.
“Of course, we often struggle to know how to interpret those patterns.
“For example, if a tornado destroys our house,
an enemy army drops bombs on [a] village,
a disease takes away someone we love,
we lose our job,
someone we love breaks our heart,
or our best friends betray us,
what does that mean?
“Is the logic of the universe chaos or cruelty?
Does might make right?
Do violence and chaos rule?
Is the Creator capricious, heartless, and evil?
“If we had only our worst experiences in life to guide us,
that might be our conclusion.”
However, “[Genesis…] dares us to believe that the universe runs by the logic of creativity, goodness, and love.
“The universe is God’s creative project,
filled with beauty, opportunity, challenge, and meaning.
“It runs on the meaning or pattern we see embodied in the life of Jesus.
“In this story, pregnancy abounds.
Newness multiplies.
Freedom grows.
Meaning expands.
Wisdom flows.
Healing happens.
Goodness runs wild.”
Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation (Jericho: 2015), 11, 12, 14.
Goodness runs wild!
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,
the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep,
while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
“Then God said, ‘Let there be light;’
and there was light.
“And God saw that the light was good.”
In the book of Genesis, we hear that God created all that is
and declared each thing “good.”
Our God is a God of creation and new life!
This is the pattern from the beginning.
Our beginning point is one of creation and goodness and love…
We read in Scripture that that is God’s original intent,
and that is what continues to undergird life itself.
In times when violence erupts,
or natural disasters occur,
or we hear of the ravages of disease,
or we face anything out of our control…
it seems easy to get caught in the horror and begin to operate from there.
I admit that is all too often true for me.
But, today’s scriptures remind us to return to the beginning of our creation:
in our mother's womb …
and in our baptism.
John the baptizer appears in the wilderness… the wilderness…
a place of misery and chaos!
And hordes of people flock to him.
Have you ever wondered why?
Why would people from the whole Judean countryside and all of Jerusalem
spend their time and energy to go see this odd-looking man out in the wilderness?
Not only does he look strange but he’s telling folks they need to repent:
they need to change their hearts,
and minds,
and actions.
They flock to see him, I believe,
because he is offering them new life!
He is offering them freedom…
the opportunity to become a new creation…
or perhaps to remember their original creation.
Even Jesus comes out to John!
Why?
If he is God-become-human, why does he need to be baptized?
Perhaps it is because he has become one of us:
a human in need of reminding of our divine creation…our divine blessing…
a re-collecting as part of God’s creation of goodness and love and wholeness.
As Jesus emerges from the waters of baptism,
he hears God say to him:
“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
And then Mark tells us without even taking a breath:
“And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.”
And here we are in the wilderness again.
Do you see the pattern?
In the midst of misery and chaos,
there is creative goodness.
As Jesus enters the wilderness to be tempted by Satan,
he enters the wilderness with the full and deep knowledge that he is loved by God.
And so do we.
We were created in Love,
by Love,
and for Love.
This is our beginning and our middle and our ending.
We are created by God,
claimed by God,
and sustained by God.
This is our Good News in which we may find rest and hope in the midst of life’s uncertainties.
As we move into the days ahead,
let us each hear God’s words to us…
You are my child, my beloved;
with you I am well pleased.
Amen.
