some thoughts on a wet head

 

SERMONETTE at St PAUL’S, ARROWTOWN 
and St PETER’S, QUEENSTOWN
BAPTISM OF CHRIST (and of Elizabeth McDonald)
(January 7^th) 2024

 

READINGS        

Genesis 1: 1-5
Psalm 29
Gal 4: 4-7

Mark 1: 4-11

 

What is this unusual event that is celebrated several days after Christmas? Early in the adult life of Jesus, and at the very beginning of his public life, he makes his way out to the wilderness to receive a baptism for the forgiveness of sins at the hands of his kinsman John.

We should immediately hesitate if we are reasonably immersed in the traditions surrounding Jesus of Nazareth, for we have come to know him not only as the Christ-Messiah, but in Christian teaching as the one who is sinless. It is no wonder that the Baptiser is recorded as having hesitated before submitting his cousin to a rite of forgiveness. The gospel writers were hardly unaware of the enigma that this scenario presented.

As it happens, at least at St. Peter’s, we have the privilege of hosting the baptism of a small and reasonably highly energised human person on this day. I remember one of my theological lecturers assuring me that as my children reached the age of two I would have no difficulty in believing in the doctrine of original sin. His tongue was at least partly firmly in his cheek, but it’s not rocket science to realise the human beings are not particularly perfect even, if not especially, at the age of two. And as some of you will know I have a reasonable experience in the bringing up of children.

So something unusual is going on here, but what is it? Interestingly it is immediately following this event that we engage the remarkable and highly symbolic story of Jesus in the wilderness undergoing bitter temptation. It is as though both stories were emphasising the extent to which the one who early Christians came to know as Lord was indeed utterly human, and not some sort of AI robot set loose upon the blue planet.

And for now that’s almost all I need to say because as Mark’s hasty, energised telling of the gospel story unfolds we will see again and again the deep compassion and humanity of the Man of Nazareth. Hopefully again and again we will have cause to wonder, in a phrase I often use, what a nice God is doing in a place like this.

For what we have in this enigmatic moment is the strange truth, held dear by followers of Jesus, that God is prepared in Christ to enter into the deepest experiences of human sin, or to use the word I prefer, fallibility, and transform them into a place of hope against all odds.

But what that all means is something that we will explore together, many of us, as this year continues. In the meantime let me just hint that I believe we have here what I might call a pre-enactment of the events of Holy Week and Easter, as the one who is the absolute revelation of God enters into all human darkness and ignites there an inextinguishable light.

We might remember that each time we light a candle not only in liturgy but in all the wonderful celebratory moments of life in the year ahead.