PAST SERMON 2010 #2
by Reverend Judith Alltree, delivered on Sunday January 10, 2010,
at the Church of the Holy Spirit.
The Baptism of the Lord
“The prophet reminds us that our core identity lies not in our roles as individuals, or in our relative size and wealth as congregations, but in God’s identification of us as “precious in my sight, and honoured”… Therefore, when we fail and fall, as we inevitably will as both individuals and congregations, we can take comfort in the realization that our failures do not prompt God to quit loving us or laying claim to us.” (p. 222)
“I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you… you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you… Do not be afraid, for I am with you. (Is. 43:2,4a,5) These could be words from a parent to a child, or between two people who love one another. These are words of comfort and strength and love to a suffering people, but they follow on the heels of other words, which we didn’t read this morning: “Who handed Jacob over to become loot, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned? For they would not follow his ways; they did not obey his law.” (Is. 42:24)
For hundreds of years, God sent prophets to warn Israel about the possibility of problems to come, if they continued to refuse to obey God, problems such as the increasing strength of the armies of neighbouring Babylon, so that the Israelites would be in no position to protect themselves if the Babylonians decided to swarm over their borders. And for exactly as many years as God’s prophets kept up their warnings, the people ignored them.
“God loves us! We are special! We worship God!” they responded to the prophets. “God will protect us!” they said with complete confidence. “Which God?” asked the prophets. “Hmmm… we’ll get back to you on that one,” said the people, “We’re very busy now worshipping our money.” And try as they might, the prophet’s warnings went unheeded, and the people continued to live as they had, worshipping wooden and golden idols, worshipping their wealth and status, worshipping everything in sight except the God of their forefathers, the Creator God. And one day, finally, the unthinkable happened.
The people of Israel were completely unprepared when the Babylonian army swept across their land, destroyed their families, crops, buildings, including their great Temple, and confiscated all their wealth. Those people the Babylonians let survive, who were primarily the rich, mighty and noble, they tied together and dragged several hundred miles across the desert to Babylon to suffer as slaves.
All the warnings in the world, direct from God, did not prevent this from happening. And yet, now that it had happened, what is the message from God? “I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze… you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you...Do not be afraid, for I am with you.” (Is. 43:2,4a,5)
So my question is: did God allow the people of Israel to suffer, the key word being ‘allow’? This was also a question I was asked earlier this week in an email from a parishioner. Does God allow people to suffer?
The answer is: no, God did not allow the people of Israel to suffer. They managed to accomplish that all by themselves, through their continued disobedience of God and by ignoring their covenantal relationship with the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, by worshipping idols.
The answer to the second question is also: no. God does not ‘allow’ people to suffer. Bad things happen to good people to paraphrase the title of Rabbi Kushner’s book. Who means to be in a car accident? Who sets out on purpose to lose their job, or to make investments that fail? Who wakes up in the morning and decides to contract a fatal illness? No one. We live our lives by living our lives: built on our Christian principles, and surrounded by our secular laws, we do the best we can. If someone we love is injured, or ill, or suffers from a problem, it is in our hearts to do all we can to assist and aid that person, as a demonstration of our own love.
If, on the other hand, someone we know has a propensity to live a life of disobedience, to laws of faith as well as the laws of the land, ignoring the warnings that come with this kind of living brings consequences. The Israelites ignored the prophetic warnings from God, and they suffered the consequences of their disobedience. God’s response may be viewed in the realm of ‘tough love’, but did that tough love prevent God from loving the Israelites? No it did not.
Long after the Israelites lived out their time in Babylon and returned home, as God and the prophets said they would, after they had rebuilt their Temple, their houses and their families, they slipped back into the habit of disobedience again. Only this time, instead of an foreign invading army, God sent in the really heavy artillery: God sent Jesus, the one John described himself as being “unworthy to tie his sandals”.
Which brings me to another question: why did Jesus need to be baptized? Or, to put it another way: did Jesus need to be baptized? The answer is: no, Jesus did not need to be baptized. Jesus is the Son of God, who has no need of repentance. Having committed no sins means no sins to repent of, therefore in the normal course of events, Jesus might have seen his cousin John in the river Jordan, given him a quick wave, and carried on. Instead, Jesus chose to be baptized, which is the answer to why he was baptized.
And I believe there were two reasons for his choice. The second was to provide an example to us. Jesus was merely one of the people in line, waiting for John to baptize him. In Luke’s account John makes no declaration about who he is, and Jesus nearly makes it away from the river without anyone noticing.
However, immediately after he was baptized, while he was praying “the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon 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 3:21b-22) Which brings us to the first and most important reason I believe Jesus chose to be baptized: he did it to reflect his love for and obedience to God. And then, a few years later, this beloved Son gave us the example of his death on the cross as the ultimate sign of his obedience. But that death ended death, and changed the consequences for all humanity forever.
Does God want us to suffer? No, but God does want us to be obedient to Him, not to our own whims. God sent us Jesus, who demonstrated his love for God, and humanity, through his baptism, a baptism we share. Jesus’ suffering on the cross strengthens us in our own suffering. Our obedience to God has life-giving consequences, no matter what our circumstances. So always remember: God has called us each by name, and we belong to God. God will always be with us; nothing will overwhelm us or destroy us, nothing. We are precious in God’s sight, honoured and loved. Do not be afraid, for God is always with us.
AMEN.