Authorized Version (Mark 1:21 - 28)

     When last we saw our heroes, they’d done the most impulsive thing of their lives: they’d give up a sure thing, a steady—if dangerous and uncertain—job and take up with this itinerant preacher. James and John had even left their father with their nets beside the Sea of Galilee. And I think we could forgive the boys if they’d gotten cold feet in the meantime, if they’d started to wonder just what they’d gotten themselves into, following this Jesus guy like they’d done. I mean, “I will make you fishers of people” was cute and all—Andrew thought it’d make a great song one day—but cute doesn’t pay the bills, doesn’t bring in any money, honey, get ‘em any bread, Fred, or any other cliché you can think of . . .

     They are, in short, beginning to wonder how they were going to get by, grumbling to one another while shuffling along after Jesus, when he makes a bee-line to the nearest synagogue—it was the Sabbath, no less—and begins to teach, and Simon—who one day would be called Peter—Simon, for one, thought “uh oh, here we go . . . We’re gonna get thrown out of the first place we enter” And sure enough, there’s the Rabbi over there, in his Sabbath best, not a hair out of place, looking like he’d a had a bath recently, even, and he’s staring daggers at them.

     But then Jesus begins to talk, and it’s like every eye in the place becomes riveted to him, like thy can’t tear them away, they’re so fascinated. Even the Rabbi feels it, his eyes going from little, angry slits to big, round saucers . . . Have you ever seen that happen? I did, one time, back when I was in seminary. Walter Breuggemann, Old Testament professor at Columbia while I was there, had done kinda the same thing, actually, he’d accepted a gig teaching the book of Joshua at First Baptist Church of Decatur, Georgia. And you gotta know that at the time, Walter was the number one Old Testament scholar in the Christian world, and he wasn’t known for his . . . orthodox views, and First Baptist, though not conservative by Southern Baptist standards, was nevertheless where all the monied people went, and the night Pam and I were there Walter was in full Walter mode, pacing around—no pulpit to tie him down—growling about a topic was just as radical as what Jesus must’ve taught in that long-ago synagogue, and have any of you ever seen Breuggemann in action? He lives here in Cincinnati now, so you could . . . but when he gets going, he puts his hands on either side of his head and stalks around, and that night he was likening the bad guys in Joshua to the money-men of the time, the bankers and lawyers—it was vintage Walter—and I swear the well-appointed ladies in the audience were shaking in their Manolo’s and clutching their leather-clad bibles, and even though they should’ve been offended—he was kinda talking about them—they were like mongooses—or is it mongeese?—with a cobra, they couldn’t take their eyes off him, because he was the number one Old Testament scholar in the world, and he spoke as one with authority.

      And Jesus isn’t known for his orthodox views either, as our heroes are about to discover, but nobody can take their eyes off him, because he too speaks as one with authority, and they’re all astonished to see this grubby wanderer speaking this way, speaking with even more authority, much more panache than the local scribes, the local religious authorities, who after all could put a caffeined-up barista to sleep, Jesus just oozed confidence and authority and all that jazz. After all, the disciples had to see something in him to cause them to up and abandon their livelihoods . . .

     Well. If the disciples could see that something, so could the forces of evil, personified in our story by some demons. Now, they were going about their business, doing their demon-y thing, possessing some poor slob right there in the synagogue . . . and how sacred a place could that be, letting some demons in like that? Anyway, the demons spoke through the mouth of the possessed guy and said “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?” Now, I don’t know if the possessed guy’s head was spinning around or he was throwing up pea soup or anything, but I bet those synagogue goers were plenty scared nevertheless. Those unclean spirits might have been hiding in plain sight, in a guy they knew well . . .

     And maybe this is a good place to give the standard, modernist disclaimer, that 1st century Christians believed in demons, believed that mental illness was caused by minions of the devil flapping around, and many Christians still do. But be that as it may, the author of Mark was a first-century kind of guy, and he interpreted it that way, and really it’s beside the point: it’s all about authority, even the forces of darkness can’t resist him, he has so much of it. And here’s the thing: just like the four disciples with Jesus, about whose call we read last week, who must have seen something in hm, the demons see something in him too; more than that, they recognize him. ”I know who you are, the Holy One of God,” they say, and Jesus shuts them up, commanding them to come out, and they do, giving the poor guy one last shaking on the way out, and at least they don’t have to go into a herd of pigs. This time, anyway.

     Well, everyone is amazed, just amazed, it’s like they can’t get over it. They keep saying “What’s this? A new teaching? With authority? He commands even the unclean, and they obey him.” And notice that they don’t say a new teacher but a new teaching . . . What he’s said they’ve never heard before, and he’s got so much authority even the demons can’t resist: they have to do what he says.

     And the point Mark makes is is that Jesus has authority, whatever that means means. It’s really the point of the whole episode, the first one Mark records concerning his ministry. Mat least the way Mark tells it. And in eight scant verses, he shows it by two actions. First, he says Jesus “taught as one having authority,” but though we’re told he teaches that way—and the scribes don’t—we’re not told what it is he says, so we don’t know exactly what it is that see what makes the congregation of the synagogue think it’s authoritative.

In the second action, Jesus drives the demons out of the possessed guy, and although there’s a translational difficulty here—the Greek’s not clear about whether it’s the teaching that’s authoritative or the action itself—what is clear is that the Jesus has authority over the minions of darkness. He tells him what to do and they do it, they leave the poor schmuck alone.

     So this authority in interpreting scripture is manifested in his power over the demons . . . And in fact, the Greek word we translate here as authority can also mean power (John’s gospel uses it more in that way, for example). And points to the relationship between authority and power, which we usually view as kind of separate . . . Jesus has authority over scripture, which he demonstrates by how he teaches it, and the way he uses that authority is to boot out the demons. Sayonara demons.

     And I think Mark is saying something deceptively subtle about authority and the right way to exercise it. Jesus shows both authority and power

Authority when he interprets scripture as an expert, as one who knows what he is doing, and power when he exercises that authority, by driving the demons out. Thus, knowledge is linked to action . . . his authoritative teaching was expressed in his action.

     And this establishes a pattern we see in all of the gospels . . . Teaching coupled with action. Jesus and his posse roll into town and head for the synagogue to where Jesus teaches, and then he demonstrates that teaching by his actions: healing folks, feeding folks, and driving off evil spirits. Or, as he puts it over in Luke, bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and letting the oppressed go free. And his action here, in this the first episode from his ministry, of booting out the demons is right in the middle of that wheelhouse: he releases the possessed man from his captivity to evil.

     Teaching and action, teaching and action . . . The two poles of his ministry. And of course, as our model in life, we use the pattern he demonstrates in our own ministry as a congregation. We establish a place of teaching—scripture interpretation through preaching and teaching—and then go out demonstrating that teaching in our actions. Teaching and action. Teaching and action . . .

     Well. There’s one more thing about authority, besides what you do with it, that is, and that’s where it comes from. Authority doesn’t just materialize, it doesn’t just appear out of thin air, it is conferred upon someone. A president’s authority—in a democracy, at least—is conferred by the people. A dictator’s authority by the army, a teacher’s by the academy, and etc. and the demons in our story know where Jesus’ authority comes from, don’t they? They say we know who you are: the Holy One of God. God has conferred authority on Jesus, he does what he does—teaching and action, teaching and action—with the authority of God.

     And our authority is from God as well, isn’t it, both our authority as individuals and as a church. We don’t get it from the electorate, we don’t get it from an army, we don’t get it from an institution conferring a degree. We get it from God . . . And I ask you: if folks were to hear what we teach, if they were to witness what we do, would they be able to tell? Amen.

Fisher Folk (Mark 1:14 - 20)

      "I will make you fishers of men, fishers of men, fishers of men.  I will make you fishers of men, if you’ll follow me."  This song – one that a lot of us sang when we were kids – this song is of course based on the King James translation, which says "fishers of men," but our more modern translation recognizes that when Jesus said "men" – anthropon, in Greek – he meant of course both men and women, and so it has translated it as such, and I think that it is a change of which Jesus would have heartily approved . . . after all, Jesus comes to folks where they are, as they are  . . . he could have said "follow me and I will cause you to proclaim the gospel to all you meet," or "follow me and I will make you preachers of the Good News of God’s inbreaking kingdom on earth," but he didn’t . . . they’re fishermen he’s talking to here, undoubtedly simple men and he uses an analogy that they would understand . . . and so I don’t think he minds one bit our spelling out his inclusiveness of all human beings in his charge to the newly-minted disciples: "Follow me and I will make you fish for people."

      A lot of us grew up fishing, whether on lakes or oceans or streams or farm ponds.  At my first church, on the Oregon Pacific Rim, they had a special affinity for the image of fishing, especially commercial fishing, like the disciples were doing.  Of course, by the time I got there it was almost a fond memory, because it was all but fished out thereabouts, with only sports fishing left.  Except the crabbers, that is.  In the Gulf of Alaska, crabbing is known as the most dangerous occupation in the world, worse even than fireman or policeman . . . that’s in Alaska, but there on the Oregon coast it’s plenty dangerous enough . . . At night, we’d see bright lights on the water, shining like so many carbon-arc stars, and they were attached to remarkably small boats . . . rarely a season goes by but what they don’t loose a crab boat or two, with all hands on board . . . Some of Pam’s clients were crabbers, and it could get so rough that they had to be lashed to the boat for the duration of the trip . . . and crabbing is subject to the vagaries of any natural resource  . . . One year, many of the crabbers knew that the crabs weren’t mature, but they had to go out anyway to keep the big corporate boats from staking out all the good spots . . . finally, they’re subject to the market, they’re on the first rung of the production ladder and every year must negotiate the best deal from the processors they can . . . and when we lived there, they were getting the same price they did fifteen years before, and do you know anything that doesn’t risen in cost over fifteen years?  If inflation were only 2% over fifteen years, that’s a 30% loss in real income . . .  

      And so I think this image of spreading the gospel as "fishing" isn’t quite as innocuous, isn’t quite as bland as we sometimes assume.  If it’s analogous to fishing for fish – or crabs or whales or whatever – then fishing for humans might be dangerous and uncertain and ultimately deleterious to your health.  Which is what the Apostle Paul discovered . . . he wrote to the Corinthians: that he had endured countless floggings, and was often near death.  "Five times," he said "I have received  . . . forty lashes minus one.  Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked."  Doesn’t sound like the most dangerous job back then was crabbing . . .

      And you say "Thank God we don’t live in those times," but  I say "not so fast" . . . Christians might not be being persecuted so much in the United States, but they are around the world . . . Not so long ago, citizens of Indonesia attacked and killed Christians in the Moluccas Islands . . . house churches in China and Java have been raided or shut down . . . in Vietnam, Montagnard Christians have been jailed and "disappeared" as they come back from their Cambodian exile.  But even though Christians aren’t being openly harmed in our country, fishing for people can be a lot like fishing for fish in other ways . . . take uncertainty, for instance.  Folks who work in Christian social services – proclaiming the gospel not just in words, but in action – commonly feel discouraged, they get depressed, because they see so little progress . . . some of my more evangelical sisters and brothers, who concentrate more on proclaiming it in word, positively agonize when their efforts to bring others to Christ don’t bear obvious and abundant fruit . . . the catch, both in terms of converts to the faith and lives changed for the better, can at best be sparse and spotty.

      And even in this country – especially out in the great unchurched west coast – Christians can labor under disadvantages.  Friends in Eugene, Oregon area have reported subtle – and not so subtle – pressure in an area that prides itself on its "diversity," and another congregation I know of finally concluded a protracted, nasty, costly battle with their so-called neighbors over the building of their new sanctuary.  And on a smaller scale, many of us have experienced the growing discomfort some neighbors feel about Christians, and the growing disregard of Sunday morning as a sacrosanct time – it’s getting to be as bad as the Sabbath – that’s Saturday – has been for a long time for our Jewish and Seventh-Day Adventist friends . . .

      And you can point to any number of reasons for this—my favorite is the arrogance and sense of entitlement many Christians have had in the past—but I think it’s safe to say that being a fisher of people does not always entail smooth sailing . . . But what’s that, you say?  You’ve never experienced any of these kinds of things?  You’ve never been harassed or made fun of or taken to court, and you’ve certainly never been physically threatened . . . and I’m glad, but I think we have to ask ourselves why not?  If we’re preaching the gospel that is as counter-cultural today as it was 2000 years ago, why aren’t we more at odds with our society and culture?

      Well.  Be that as it may, fishing is an occupation that’s fraught with danger, and if proclaiming the gospel’s really anything like it, why in heaven’s name would anybody ever choose to do it?  Well, for one, if we go to our passage  we can see that Jesus says "Follow me and I will make you fishers of people."  I will make you.  There doesn’t seem to be a lot of choice here, does there?  I will make you fishers for human beings if you’ll only follow me . . . but that just shoves it back a notch, doesn’t it?  It just puts it back onto the "following" part . . .why in the world would anybody follow Christ if proclaiming the Gospel were as hard or dangerous as fishing on the open ocean – or even on the Sea of Galilee, notorious for it’s sudden, boat-capsizing storms?

      I want you to do a thought-experiment.  Imagine you’re a crabber, or maybe a halibut fisherman, and you just came in from a back-breaking day on the ocean, you’re tired and beaten up a little bit, and you’re underwhelmed by the catch, which certainly was not what you’d hoped for, and there, on the dock, is this guy in clean dungarees, with a well-trimmed beard and meticulously quaffed hair, and he says: "follow me, and I will make you fishers for people," what would you think?  What would you do?  I must confess, it would be my tendency to say "fish for people?  It’s hard enough to fish for fish, who after all aren’t that bright, and you want me to fish for people?"  And I confess that the idea of fishing for anything at that moment wouldn’t seem all that appetizing, because I’d know full-well – as a battered, buffeted, half-drowned off-shore fisherman – just what all is implied by the image.

      But even though we’re not told what they say, the actions of our four fishermen speak louder than words . . . they immediately leave their nets – James and John leave their father – and they follow Jesus.  And my question is:  why?  What is it about this stranger that makes grown men give up their livelihoods to follow him?  Is it some sort of look about him?  Maybe he had kind eyes, or a commanding presence?  We all know folks who we’re just simply drawn to . . . the film actor Sean Connery – the original Bond, James Bond – was like that . . . he’s got this undefinable aura about him, this assurance . . . I think he’d make reading the phone book interesting and compelling and real . . . this quality is sometimes called charisma – interestingly, from the same Greek word as "grace" – and Jesus was no doubt charismatic, but that couldn’t have been the only thing . . . the most charismatic person in the world can still be a mis-guided fool . . . see the charismatic Jim Jones, he of the cyanide-laced kool-aid, if you don’t believe it.

      Perhaps it was what he was preaching . . . After John the Baptist was arrested, Mark tells us, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God . . . and what was this good news?  That the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near . . . That is indeed good news, but it was hardly unique at the time . . . John himself preached repentance and the fulfillment of God’s kingdom . . . what was it about Jesus that was different?  Well, we can’t know for sure, but whatever quality he had John the Baptist recognized it . . . over in Matthew and Luke he immediately recognizes him for who he is – the big show, the one for whom they’d all been waiting . . . Jesus said that the kingdom of God has come near, and John the Baptist – and Simon and Andrew and James and John the fishermen – recognized it in Jesus.  They recognized, instinctively perhaps, that the kingdom that had come near was all rolled up into this one man, standing right in front of them.

      The kingdom of God, when God’s righteous rule breaks in upon the land . . . the kingdom of God, where the lion lies with the lamb . . . the kingdom of God, where we shall practice war no more, and all will be fed, and the love of neighbor as yourself is the organizing principle of life as we know it . . . Why would anybody follow a stranger who promised back-breaking labor, scorn from everyone you meet, lousy pay and long hours?  Because they recognize him for who he is . . . the pure-D, unalloyed, walking, talking, loving kingdom of God.

            Brothers and sisters, that’s who we serve, that’s who we follow . . . the embodiment of God’s kingdom, and all that goes with it . . . we follow the one who fulfills the time, who brings the peace who – as Isaiah put it – brings news to the poor, release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind.  We follow the one who comforts, the one who calms, the one who will be with us in the coming time of transition.  We follow Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and we are fishers for human beings.  Amen.

That Vision Thing (1 Samuel 3:1 - 20)

      Today’s passage is very artfully, very skillfully written. It’s almost cinematic in its structure, proceeding in four acts. The first introduces the boy Samuel, and establishes that he’s ministering to God under the tutelage of the high priest Eli. Good, solid exposition, introducing the two characters and their relationship. Then, in one fell sentence: we’re told the predicament Israel is in: “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.” And what a depressing line that is, what a dreary description of the state of the nation of Israel. The word of the Lord was rare, as in hard to find, not available: the same word that blew across the waters at creation . . . Does that mean that God’s ongoing creation had come to a halt? Does it mean God will no longer do new things?

     And what’s more, visions—which are, after all, the primary way God communicates that word—visions just aren’t happening much any more, folks aren’t dreaming much, and when they do, they dream about silly things like kittens or who won the National Falafel-eating Contest, stuff like that. (For the record, it was some guy from Edom—those Edomites love their falafel).

     And the situation is especially dire for a people like the Israelites whose entire life, entire identity revolves around being the people of a particular God, and it’s felt especially keenly at the Temple, ground-central of their religion, and that’s where scene two opens, in the Temple, with both Eli and Samuel lying down, Eli in his own quarters and Samuel in the Temple itself, where the Lamp of God has not in fact gone out . . . And is it a coincidence that Samuel is in there where God’s light still shines, however dim, and Eli, head perceiver-of-light, is snug in his darkened bedroom? And is it another coincidence that the Hebrew word for lamp—nehr—is similar to nahr, the word for boy?

     Anyway, Eli is nearly bald and with an old man’s creak in his bones, and not only are all his joints hurting, but he can barely see anymore, which again is ironic, because he is the chief priest and prophet, the highest civil and religious authority, and thus seer of visions, in the land. And a deep voice calls out to Samuel—not Eli, but Samuel, and we know it’s the Lord right off the bat, but Samuel—who’s never met him—doesn’t. And maybe that’s why Samuel isn’t scared half out of his wits, like I’d be, or maybe he’s just used to Eli calling out in the night, because that’s who he thinks it is . . . And he runs to his bedroom, wakes him up, and says “Here I am, for you called me.” And even though Eli’s brain is muddled with sleep, you’d think the discerner-in-chief would immediately figure out who it is that’s calling, but he doesn’t, not at first anyway, and shoos the boy back to bed. “I didn’t call,” he says, “Go lie down”

     And the thing about Biblical Hebrew, in which the Old Testament is written, is that it’s a language of verbs—not like in New Testament Greek, where nouns, are more prominent—but Biblical Hebrews’ a language of verbs, and there are two verbs controlling the action. One is “to lie down”—sh’cav in Hebrew—and the other is “to call,” or k’rah. And these two verbs control this part of the narrative, it’s almost like they’re battling, back and forth. The Lord calls, Samuel’s told to lie down, call, lay down, call, lay down. We get the impression that there’s too much laying-down been going on in the Temple lately, and that maybe Eli’s had something to do with it. But finally the old man gets it, he understands who’s been calling the boy, and once again he instructs Samuel to lay down, but this time to answer the Lord, and maybe even kiss up a little: speak, for your servant is listening.

And thus endeth Act 2: Eli’s finally figured it out, and we know something’s gonna happen now, And sure enough, Act Three opens with the Lord calling again, only this time it’s personal, because there he is, standing there in the flesh, at the foot of the bed. Seems God’s come to make sure that he’s listened to this time, and Samuel does as his mentor has told him, and invites God to speak.

     And I know we’re supposed to understand that Eli’s the problem here—after all, his sons have dissed the Lord, they’ve run amuck, and Eli hasn’t done anything about it—I realize were supposed to understand that it’s Eli’s fault and all, but you know what? I kind of sympathize with him. I can understand getting tired and cranky, and just wanting to hold up in bed. Happens to me more and more lately. And kids—you can’t control them, can you? Especially adult ones like Eli’s. They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do, and it’s better if you let them do it, let them make their own mistakes.

     But I also know that I’m overlaying a very modern set of concerns, a modern kind of psychology, over this ancient story, which is almost three thousand years old. Back in that time, fathers controlled sons, at least theoretically—see the prodigal son for a different opinion—and Eli was his sons’ spiritual boss, as head priest he represented God to his subordinate priests. And in fact, one of the things that’s in the subtext of this passage is that Eli’s family’s hereditary post as the Temple priesthood was in jeopardy. And there probably wasn’t much “live and let live, they’re gonna do what they’re gonna do” sentiment going around either. One did what duty required in the service of your Lord, whether that Lord was the head of the household or creator of the universe.

     So God tells Samuel what’s going to happen to Eli’s house—i.e., his family—from that day forward: “I am about to punish them forever . . . “ Punish his house, all his servants and cousins and children and grandchildren. Forever. And today we have a hard time with this, with God’s Old Testament propensity to punish folks for what their parents did. God is always punishing children and their children’s children for something their ancestors did. And not just within families, either: the prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel—were always announcing God’s judgment upon whole societies for what their ancestors or current-day leaders did.

     Again, we know this is a combination of (a) a belief that God is behind everything that happens, good or bad and (b) the inescapable fact that what people and cultures do have lasting, generations-long consequences. See slavery and genocide in this country, for example, the consequences of which continue to bedevil us two centuries after the fact.

But what I want you to notice is the first thing that God says, here in Act Three, after he calls Samuel, that is: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle.” Tingle! And not just one ear, either: it’s a two-ear situation. What God is about to do is gonna make everybody sit up and notice, it’s gonna shake everything up. God’s word is gonna come once again upon the Land of Israel, and don’t you forget it.

As you might have noticed, this is a passage about God’s call, about one person answering it and another ignoring it. And it wouldn’t be a call sermon without everybody’s favorite call quote, the one from Frederick Buechner that he claims he can’t remember ever saying. “The place God calls you to,” he says “is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” And it seems to me to be especially relevant here: Israel hadn’t heard God’s word, it hadn’t experienced that deep gladness, and they were hurting for it. Maybe it was Eli’s fault, maybe the lawlessness of his family was causing it, as the author of First Samuel suggests, or maybe the nation had just stopped listening. Whatever it was, the word of God was scarce, revelation had dried up, and visions were rare in the land.

     But one guy listened, in spite of the all the impediments against it, in spite of his own teacher not understanding for the longest time. And when he did, he opened himself and all of Israel up to God’s doing,to the possibility of excitement and revelation in the land.

And I wonder: how long has it been since something God has done has made you tingle with excitement? How long has it been since the hairs have stood on your arm, since you knew you were in the presence of the ineffable, since you shivered with excitement at the glory of the divine? Has it been a while? Have the dull pressures of the everyday gotten to you? Has the daily grind ground out all the wonder in you? I know it does me if I don’t take time, every day, to listen for God’s word, to look for it in all its myriad places.

     This time of year, when the frost is hard on the ground, when we huddle indoors like so many burrowing ants . . . in a time in our country when it seems as if things are falling apart, I challenge us all to go out into God’s world keeping our eyes and ears open, keeping alert for the word of God in the world. And if we do, maybe our eyes will be dazzled, and our ears—both of them!—will tingle at the wonder of the divine. Amen.

Baptized in Water (Mark 1:4 - 11)

      Most of us in this room have been baptized, haven’t we?  It’s a very simple operation: the pastor cups a little water in her hand and pours it over the person’s head—three times:  “I baptize you in the name of the Father (splash) and the Son (splash) and the Holy Spirit (splash)” and then it’s done, and you can go out to lunch with all the friends and family who are in town for the occasion.  Not that a lot of us remember our baptisms . . .  a lot of the folks in this room were baptized as infants, I’m sure . . .  And though I’ve heard a few people claim to remember their infant baptisms, I don’t think it happens often.

That’s why it’s good, from time to time, to remind ourselves that we have been baptized . . . After all, baptism, is one of the central metaphors of our faith, and no less a figure than Martin Luther was said to remind himself of his baptism every morning when he got up; he said “to be baptized in the name of God is to be baptized not by men, but by God Himself. Therefore although it is performed by human hands, it is nevertheless truly God's own work.”  And that is a general Reformed, a general Presbyterian belief as well.  Baptism is an act of God performed by the church.  And in fact, this is what defines it as a sacrament, rather than a remembrance.  Many churches—most notably the Southern Baptist churches some of us grew up in—view Baptism purely as an ordinance, that is something that we do solely because we are commanded to do it.  Luther didn’t think much of this view, he felt that it trivialized an action of God.  Like the Roman Catholics from whence he came, he defined it as a sacrament, visible means of an invisible grace, and like Roman Catholics, he taught that it is salvific as well: “it is most solemnly and strictly commanded,” he wrote “that we must be baptized or we cannot be saved.”

Leaders of the Swiss Reformation—from whence our Reformed theology came—began at the opposite extreme from Luther.  Huldrych Zwingli, the first great Swiss reformer, believed that Baptism (and The Lord’s Supper) were “bare signs”, that is, just stuff we do.  Thus, Baptism, to Zwingli, is the actions performed—the dunking or the washing of the forehead—and nothing more.  God does nothing during the rite, we do it all, and we do it because we have been commanded to do so.

John Calvin—a second-generation reformer—begged to differ.  For him, a sacrament consists of two parts: the action done by us and the action done by God.  The action done by us points to or is a signifier of what God is doing in the sacrament.  Thus, what we do is a visible sign of an invisible grace.  Note that in linguistic terms, the dunking or sprinkling is the signifier and the action of God is the signified.

But what is being signified?  What is the action of God, what is the grace that God confers upon us?  As I said before, for Luther it is salvation itself—Baptism is an integral part of the mechanics of salvation.  But Calvin did not view Baptism that way, as necessary for salvation, but as a way of God’s sealing God’s promises to us, as a kind of a badge, or a token of those promises.  “Baptism,” he wrote in his Institutes, “does not procure salvation but it accepts and confirms the promises of God.”  For Calvin, it baptism inducts us into the club, it engrafts us onto the vine, it incorporates us into the family of God as children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ.

Disagreement over the nature of baptism and what it means dominated a lot of the debate in the early Protestant movement, and sometimes it got quite heated: the two sides would call each other names like heretic and false teachers.  Even today, though we tend to be a tad more decorous, there are sharp divisions between denominations over the nature and meaning of Baptism.  In general Baptists and other evangelicals believe that it’s just an action on our part, that we do it because we’re told to and nothing more, that it is in essence Zwingli’s bare sign. Catholic and mainline protestants, on the other hand, believe that it is indeed a sacrament, with God bestowing grace upon us at our baptism.

We believe that like so many other things in Jesus’ life and mission, that his baptism is a model for our own, that in some way our baptisms are like his own.  And so reading a scripture passage like the one Frank read can tell us something about our own.  And I think the first thing to notice is that Mark places it right at the beginning of his Gospel.  There is no birth narrative, no little town of Bethlehem, no wise men or shepherds or flight to Egypt.  For Mark, none of that matters, because the Good News of Jesus Christ begins at his baptism, not at his birth.  Look at the very first words of his Gospel:  “The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  And then he goes right into the baptism story.  The good news of Jesus Christ, which we call the gospel, begins for Mark with his baptism.

And the good news of our participation in God’s Kingdom, of our own personal life with God, as well as our own association with like believers . . . that all begins at our own baptisms as well.  Our part in the mission of God, as carried out by us personally and in conjunction with the church, began at our baptism.  At our baptism we were engrafted onto the vine, made members of the body of Christ on earth.

Not long after I came to this church, we celebrated our 75^th year, and this year, if my counting is correct, the church will be 80. And one question always comes to my mind: how come we only commemorate the church every ten years or so? Ours is a congregation in which many of us have participated for years, others not so long, but all of us, I think, have been enriched by its presence in our lives. Our church family has been with us through thick and thin, from top to bottom, and for better or worse.  We’ve forgiven each other our sins as indeed God has forgiven us as well.  This church has not always been hearts and flowers, a bed of roses—insert your favorite cliché—but it’s always been here.  We are not a perfect people, but we are a good people, a loving people, a caring people.  So as we re-member our baptisms, let us also re-member and re-new our commitment to this congregation and this church, and to its continuing as a vital part of our lives and our community.

But there is another way in which we believe Jesus’ baptism models our own.  When he came up out of the water, the heavens opened up, and the spirit of God descended on him looking for all the world like a dove, and there was a voice that affirmed him as God’s Son, the Beloved, in whom God was well pleased.  And though we might not have heard it at the time of our own baptisms, though we may not hear it as we live into it every day, you can be certain that it is true:  We are God’s children, God’s beloved, in whom he is well pleased.  And I say these things in the name of God the creator, and God the redeemer, and God the sustainer of us all, Amen.

Metonymy (Luke 2:22 - 40)

     Mary’s life hadn’t been ... right ... since the night the angel had appeared—out of the starry blue—and scared her half to death, telling her that in spite of her virginity, she was going to bear a child. And if that wasn’t weird enough, her child would be the long-promised heir to the house of David, with all that entailed. Finally, the angel told her what to name this promised child, she was to call him Jesus, and in her native Aramaic, she knew what that meant.

     And in the ensuing months, just when she’d decided that her dream had been just that—a dream, perhaps caused by something she’d eaten, more gravy than the babe—something else strange, if not downright spooky, would happen. First of all, despite her expectations, Joseph had married her anyway, instead of dismissing her as had been his right; it seemed he’d had a nocturnal visit himself. Second, there was all that stuff at Elizabeth’s house, when her child had leapt in the womb in joy and celebration just at the nearness of her own. Finally, at the birth itself, a whole bunch of shepherds, of all people, had shown up at the manger-side claiming they were sent there by their own batch angels.

     And now, on Joseph’s and her obligatory, post-partum trip to Jerusalem, two—count ‘em two—old ones had started up out of their prophetic dreams to recognize her infant. She’d heard about them before: both of them were well-respected devotees of Judaism, well known around the Temple grounds. Simeon was a dreamer of dreams, a man upon whom the Holy Spirit had come to rest, and Anna ... well, what could you say about Anna? She was older than the hills, older than anyone around there could even remember, she’d outlived her husband by decades, and spent all her days around the Temple, praying, worshiping God and getting in the way of the Temple functionaries.

     They were archetypes of the Jewish mystical experience: a pious old man, to whom the Spirit had appeared, and a prophetic old woman in the tradition of the Delphi Oracle and all the female seers who had come before. Although both spent a lot of time at the Temple, they rarely saw one another: Simeon was always in the men’s courtyard while Anna was restricted to the women’s. And both of them, as was the way with such folk, were slightly mad.

     These were the people who confronted the young couple as they came to the Temple to present their child, as required by the Law. And as Simeon approached, for a moment Mary saw the Angel Gabriel, towering over her, just for a moment, and then it was just the old man again, rheumy eyes alight with a fanatic glow, a faintly musty odor preceding his approach. What she didn’t know was that Simeon had been told by the Spirit in a dream that he‘d see the Messiah before he died, and that’s what he sang about: “now you’re dismissing your servant according to your word. My eyes have seen your salvation, prepared in the presence of all your people, a light to reveal to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

     And she was astonished at this outburst, and a little embarrassed—there were people around, after all—but mot of all she was awed: wasn’t this just what the others had said? And now he pinned her with his eyes, and spoke directly to her, saying that her little boy would be the cause of the rise and fall of many in the land of Israel, and of many a revealed heart, and of a sword through her own very soul. And she shivered at that last—well, who wouldn’t have?—and it was as if a goose had trampled all over her grave.

     After that, Anna was petty anticlimactic, to tell you the truth, she came and praised God, throwing up her bony old arms and reaching for the sky, and she began to tell their story to anyone who’d stand still enough to listen. But Mary’s mind lingered on the old man—she didn’t see him, where had he gone? She wanted to question him, to ask him what he had meant when he’d said he’d seen the salvation of the Lord? Had he meant Jesus? He looked like just a little baby to her ... and what kind of salvation had he meant? Physical salvation, salvation from the oppressive Roman rule? Or something more subtle, something more internal, more esoteric? Throughout her stay in Jerusalem, through the presentation of her son to the powers that be and their hard trip back to Nazareth, she turned these things over and over in her mind. If you were of a poetic bent, you might even say that she pondered them in her heart.

     What did Simeon mean when he said that his eyes had seen the salvation that God had sent? Did he mean mystically, as in a waking dream, metaphorically, as if this bringing of the Christ-child to the Temple, into the heart of the Jewish religion, symbolized bringing salvation to Gods people? Or did he mean, very particularly, the physical child Jesus of Nazareth? Likely, a little of all of the above.

     There’s a figure of speech that is beloved of college English teachers everywhere called metonymy. According to Wikipedia, which has as good a definition as any, it’s “a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept.” For example, crown—a thing a monarch wears—is often used to speak of the monarch her-or-himself, as in the crown did this, or the crown decided that. Giving somebody a hand refers to helping someone, not literally giving somebody your hand, which is really bloody and besides: it’s illegal in many jurisdictions.

     And that’s what’s going on here: salvation is a metonym for the Christ child. Through some spirit-given, mystical intuition, Simeon realizes that salvation is what the babe represents, at least to him . . . Of course, he’s not the only one who uses metonymy to refer to Christ ... in Galatians, Paul writes to Christ as faith: “now that faith has come,” he writes, meaning Christ, “we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian,” and in his first letter to the Corinthians, he calls Christ “the power and wisdom of God.”

     The thing is, metonyms are often overloaded: the word crown can refer to the queen herself, or to the royal apparatus, or the office of the monarch as a whole. Giving somebody a hand can mean helping her or applauding her performance. And I think Christ is the ultimate overloaded metonym, the ultimate closely-packed symbol. If he’d thought of it, Simeon might well have sung about that too: my eyes have seen your faith, which you have prepared for all the people ... my eyes have seen your justice, which you have prepared for all the people ... my eyes have seen your love, which you have prepared for all the people.

     You see, that’s the thing about the incarnation, which we celebrate at this time of year. We often think of it simply as Jesus being God made flesh, who dwelt among us, of God walking, for a little while, in human form, but along with that, along with incarnating—somehow—the divine person, he incarnated God’s qualities as well. He was the embodiment, the in-matter-ment, the enfleshment of God’s grace, God’s peace, God’s compassion, God’s hope.

     So as we stand and sing Simeon’s song, in these days of miracles and wonderment, of violence and virtue , of uncertainty and division, let’s remember our own overloaded symbolism ... what God has incarnated in God’s son, but equally important, what God has incarnated in us.. Amen.

Expectation (Luke 1:26 - 38)

So.  Right there in the first couple of lines, Luke says a word that embarrasses some Christians today, and he says it twice.  It says “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary.”  Virgin.  Virgin!  Twice he says it, but he doesn’t emphasize it like Matthew does, who uses it as a kind of living proof-text, where we’re told that it all took place to fulfill a prediction by Isaiah, who said—referring to something that was going to happen in his own time—“Look, a young woman shall conceive and bear a child, and he will be called Emmanuel.”  And Matthew, following the Septuagint, mistranslates the Hebrew word for “young woman” as “virgin;” he adds helpfully that the Hebrew means God with us.

But even though Luke doesn’t use the virgin comment as a lynch-pin of his argument like Matthew, he does say it twice, which is a subtle way of emphasis—he could have just said “her name was Mary” after all—and so he wants us to know it, he wants us to get that she was a virgin, and so almost two-thousand years ago began the near-deification of Mary, her use as a theological sound bite, a interpretive lens through which we view the Christ. Today, she’s used almost as a punching bag, sometimes; liberal Protest theologians say “Bam!  Take that!  There was no virgin birth, it’s ridiculous to say such a thing, and those primitive beliefs are holding us back, keeping us from entering into the twenty-first century and attracting shiny, new, modern Christians.”

And conservative evangelical theologians say “Pow!  Take that!  She’s a litmus test for true Christianity, a slippery slope down which we must not slide.  If you don’t believe in the Virgin Birth”—and they always capitalize it, Virgin Birth—“Then you’re not a real Christian, or not a real good Christian, anyway . . .”  And don’t even get me started on the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which holds that Mary was always a virgin, never did anything untoward or . . . nasty . . . and thereby warped the brains of generations of Christians, who leapt to the understandable conclusion if the World’s Greatest Woman got that way because she didn’t have sex, and sex must ergo be bad . . .

Man!  We Christians have really messed up what is essentially a sweet story of God doing something new, something untoward . . . and I wonder how Mary feels?  I wonder what she thinks of being an icon in the ongoing wars between the right and the left, what would she have felt, little slip of a girl that she was . . . she was probably thirteen or so, they got married early in those days, and she was betrothed to one Joseph, a tradesman, a working-class, blue-collar kind of guy who probably went down to Fountain Square and did the Chicken Dance every Fall. And he was of the house of David, a pretty famous house in those parts, because the prophecies foretold it, you understand, they foretold that the house of David was going to be restored, and Messianic expectations had been running high for several generations or so.  The Messiah, the anointed one—in Greek “Christ”—would be of the house of David, a king come, or so the tale went, to restore the house of David and its glorious, earthly reign.

And Gabriel comes to Mary in the sixth month, and it’s important that we realize what it is that it’s the sixth month of—it’s the sixth month of her cousin Elizabeth’s pregnancy, a pregnancy that in itself was miraculous, a pregnancy that recalled the coming of the Lord to Sarah in her old age.  Elizabeth was barren, and past her child-bearing years, and God—like God did to Sarah—opened up her womb.  And so it’s in the context of one miracle that another is done, as listeners and receivers of this good news, we must keep that in mind: the miracle of Jesus’ birth is in the context of John’s.  But it’s a greater miracle still, for if John the messenger is born to a barren woman, Jesus the Christ, the subject of John’s message, is born to a virgin.  And virgin trumps barren any day of the week.

Anyway.  The angel Gabriel comes to Mary, and we should stop just a moment and see how significant that is.  A messenger from God, a mouthpiece of God comes to a woman, just like Jesus himself would come to the woman at the well, the angel has come to a person that wasn’t even allowed to sit at the feet of the teachers, who wasn’t even allowed, really, into the temple, only into the women’s gallery around the edges . . . it was kind of like where the black folks were allowed to sit at Clemson University football games in the bad old days, on a hill overlooking the stadium, the women were allowed in a place kind of around the outside, on the margins, but here Mary was center stage.  The angel—and it wasn’t just any old angel, it was Gabriel, one of the senior management—the angel comes to Mary.  And here again, it’s greater than the case of John, or at least a lot more wondrous: because the good news of John had come to Elizabeth’s husband, as the patriarchy demanded, but the Good News of Jesus, the gospel of the Christ, had come first to a woman.

And so right at the outset, this is marked as something that is unprecedented, at least in terms of inclusiveness: the angel comes to the marginalized one, the one that, if not last, is certainly not first, to announce the birth of the savior of the world.  Could this be kind of a foretaste of one of Jesus’ primary preaching points?  Could it be a herald of what he would repeat over and over again, that the last shall be first and the first shall be last?  Staid old traditional Matthew didn’t mention this apparition.  No.  In Matthew, the announcement comes to Joseph, and then only when he was about to put Mary away for infidelity, but Luke starts off with it, and it shows why Luke is a favorite of progressive preachers everywhere, he seems to have the most inclusive view, seems to take most seriously the universal appeal of the gospel to everyone, Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female . . . and so you can imagine what Mary was thinking when an angel came to her, or maybe you can’t . . . Luke says she was much perplexed, and I suspect this is an understatement, but as was her way, she pondered what sort of greeting it was going to be, but not for long, because the angel told her not to be afraid for, contrary to what it looked like—angels weren’t always the bearer of glad tidings—contrary to what she might’ve thought, she’d actually found favor with God.

Throughout it all, Mary maintains an almost preternatural calm, especially for one so young . . . here an angel, a messenger of God, tells her she’s favored by God, and further that she’s going to give birth to the Son of the Most High, to whom the Lord God will give the throne of David, who’ll reign over the hose of the Jacob—that’s Israel—forever and ever, amen.  And right here something strange happens: she says “how can this be, since I am a virgin? And it’s strange because, as novelist Ron Hansen has pointed out, why would she assume something miraculous was going to happen?  After all, she was betrothed to a perfectly fine man, for all she knew her first born from that union would be the Messiah . . . how did she know Gabriel was talking about her becoming pregnant without the benefit of human aid?

Did she intuit it?  Did she sense something of the moment?  Did she somehow know that the child within her would not be conceived of natural means?  Whatever the case, the angel confirms her suspicion:  The holy spirit will come upon you, he says, and the power of the most high will overshadow you; the child to be born will be holy, called Son of God.  And the angel reveals something else, as well: her relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.

And then the angels says something that put it all together, something that reminded them of God’s good graces, God’s good providence: For nothing, Gabriel says, will be impossible with God.  And I don’t know about you, but for me it evokes another time, another place, where God opened up another womb . . . there in the tent at the oaks of Mamre, when three celestial visitors—one of whom just happened to be God—when three celestial visitors predict that Sarah will bear a child, after years of barrenness, after she had long passed the time of child-bearing, the Lord said “Why did Sarah laugh, and say: ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’  Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”

And here, centuries later, comes the answer: nothing will be impossible with God.  Nothing will be impossible with God!  And it comes in the form not of a mighty king riding on a great horse, not in the guise of a Pharaoh, riding rank after rank of chariots, the answer comes to a slip of a woman, just a girl really, in the back-water town of Nazareth.  Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?  And the answer is embodied, incarnate in the child that will be born in just a few days.  The answer is Jesus Christ, born to a young woman, born in a stable.  See?  A barren womb is opened.  See?  A childless woman is made whole.  See?  A babe is born of a virgin. Nothing will be impossible with God.

And it’s true: nothing is impossible with God.  Neither miracles, nor healings, nor ends to wars . . . neither feeding the hungry, freeing the captives, or comforting the brokenhearted . . . nothing is impossible with God.  And if it’s possible that a babe is born in a manger to rule the world, if it’s possible that a fourteen-year-old child from Nazareth, betrothed to a carpenter, would be the mother of the Son of God, why then it’s certainly possible that God will renew our hearts in the coming years.  If God can bring about the redemption of the world, whether on a cold winter’s night or a hot June day, as some new calculations point to, if God can bring about the redemption of the world on that first Christmas 2000 years ago, God can surely redeem our hearts.

Christmas is a season to contemplate new beginnings, to look toward the future, to renew our hope and expect God to do God’s part.  As we celebrate God’s incarnation this year, as we travel and entertain our families and guests, as we open our presents underneath the tree, let us remember that the answer to all our questions has already come, and will come again. Is anything too wonderful for God?  No.  Nothing will be impossible with God.  Amen.

Power Play (Mark 1:1 -8; Advent 2B)

      Imagine you’re a denizen of Galilee in around 70 CE, some 40 years after the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. It’s wartime: some Jewish radicals have revolted against Rome and Jerusalem is under siege. You’ve got family trapped in the city, and you’ve heard things are pretty bad ... food and water are scarce; children and the elderly are in grave danger. Everybody feels caught between edgy Roman soldiers and extremist guerrillas, and opinions about what to do are sharply divided as well. Some feel that God has raised up strong leaders for their salvation, while others favor the safety and known quantity of Roman rule. Rome itself is in chaos—it's had four emperors and four assassination—bam,bam, bam, bam!—and the latest is Vespasian, former general of the besieging army.

     In the midst of all this, you sneak into the home of your friend Jacob where a house church meets. Despite the scorching weather, the shutters are closed against prying eyes; after all, your faith is still illegal, and its just a year after the death of the great persecutor Nero. And there in the sweltering candlelight, the writer we’ve come to know as Mark starts to read his gospel. And he begins by poking sharp sticks into the eyes of not one but two political establishments.

      Here’s what you hear: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The first stick is calling Jesus Christ—Greek for Messiah—and the corresponding eye is that of Mark’s own religious establishment. Messiah means “anointed one,” and laying it on Jesus confers enormous theological and political meaning. Theological because of the unspoken acknowledgement that the one doing the anointing is the God of Israel and Jacob and Moses, and political because Jewish expectations hold that the Messiah will kick the Romans out on their collective keisters, reestablish the House of David and reign over a restored Israel.

      The second stick is poked firmly into the eye of the Roman establishment, and consists of calling Jesus the “Son of God, a title claimed by whatever Emperor is sitting on the throne, in your case Vespasian. So, in the very first sentence of his gospel, Mark succeeds in signaling to anyone who is paying attention that what follows is one dangerous document, seditious to both sides of the power equation.

      And you can’t help but wonder which side will catch up to you first—the Romans or the Jewish religious establishment. They both have tremendous power over you . . . the Romans the power of the sword, the power to take your life and the lives of everyone you love. The religious authorities—the San Hedron and the like—had the the power of God, the power to isolate you from your religious faith, the core of your being. And in many ways, that would be worse.

     All of that is packed into Mark’s opening statement: references to (and provocations of) two power centers, two establishments with control over everyday lives. In one case exerted by threats of physical violence and the other by violence of another sort—religious dogma held too tightly, a power structure embedded in the throws of self-preservation, more interested in external compliance than internal transformation.

      But wait . . . There’s more! There’s something else in that first, concise statement, and it’s called “good news!” And you wonder: how on God’s green earth do you justify calling this story of an itinerant preacher—born literally in a barn and executed ignominiously by the two powers —“good news?” Doesn’t sound like any good news you’ve ever heard of . . .

And so you settle in to hear what the evangelist has to say, he probably won’t read the whole thing tonight, but you’re curious enough to stay tonight. And it can be argued that all of what follows in Mark’s gospel—the first one out of the four written—it can be said that all of what follows is an explanation of that first sentence: what does it mean to call Jesus the Christ and at the same time Son of God, and especially, how can we say that anyof it’s Good News?

      Well, the first thing Mark does is to put it in  context, and the context he puts it in is that of the prophets. Now, prophets were a diverse lot, from shepherds like Amos and Moses in his later life, to priests like Isaiah and Jeremiah, but the thing that they all had in common, the thing that made them prophets were that they were mouthpieces for God. They relayed the word of God to the people of God. This may or may not involve predicting the future, but it more often involved judgement. Which was why prophets weren’t always beloved of the people to whom they prophesied: they were noted for saying things their employers didn’t want to hear.

     Prophets were characteristic of the Semitic peoples; there’d been twelve or so of them in the Hebrew religion, depending on who you count as one, and there would be a passel more of them in Islam, including their central figure, Muhammad. And so quoting prophets puts this “good news” squarely in line with the past, as well as the future, of middle eastern culture.          

     And note how Mark does it—he compares the situation to what was spoken by God through the prophets: “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”. And it’s one of the most famous passages in the prophets, spoken by God through second Isaiah, the one in Babylon exile, and one—not coincidentally—that I we just read.

     And you stand there, listening to Mark read in the lowering dark, when your world seems to be splitting asunder, fracturing apart, and you know the passage he is quoting, and you realize that not only does it in compare John to the original one crying in the wilderness of Babylonian exile, it conveys the central message of that Isaiah passage as well: comfort. Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, where people are starving . . . People you know, people you love, people who are competing with dogs for scraps in the streets, who are going hungry so that their children will have what meager food there is . . . speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty at last is paid, that she will be delivered from the the horror of the Roman siege.

      And you begin to get an idea of what this “good news” is all about: it’s about hope. Hope for your people, hope for Jerusalem, but not unalloyed hope, because Mark slips in a mickey: he begins his quote from Isaiah with one from Malachi: “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me,” and you know that passage as well, and it’s about repentance, the turning away of Israel from her bad behavior, and sure enough, when he introduces John the forerunner, the one he’s just compared to that long ago wilderness guy, he says he’s proclaiming a baptism of (a) repentance and (b) forgiveness of sins. Israel, in the throws of God-sent punishment for its sins, isn’t going to get off scott free. It’s going to have to turn away, to repent from those sins.

     And John’s a prophet all right, you can tell by what he wore—he’s was dressed in camel hair, held together with a leather belt, standard prophetic garb, and although Mark tells you what he ate—honey and bugs, for Pete’s sake—he politely refrains from mentioning the smell. And although John was baptizing on his own, without benefit of being a member of the Jewish religious establishment, what he was doing wasn’t all that different from business as usual: it was akin to the ritual baths prescribed for Jews so that they would be forgiven their sins, language that was code for being welcomed back into Temple fellowship.

     But you know that John was just a forerunner, and in addition to baptizing, he’s proclaiming the mission of the one before whom he was running. Somebody more powerful than he was coming after him, he said, one whom he himself was “not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals.” And that in itself impresses you, ‘cause prophets aren’t noted for their humility. After all, it’s hard to be humble when you’re a mouthpiece of God. But it’s what the difference between John’s mission and this new person’s was that makes you sit up in your seat: John baptizes in water, he says, but the new guy will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

     Suddenly, goosebumps prickle your arms, and a breeze springs from nowhere in the shuttered darkness, guttering candles and causing the hair to spring up on the back of your head. And you can take what John says as either being baptized with the Holy Spirit or in it, but however you take it, it makes you shiver. Because although you don’t know exactly what the Baptist means, you do know that it’s radically different from what’s come before. You know that this is a game-changer, a disruptor of the status quo, a radical redesign of the way things are. Water is one thing, it does the liturgical trick, perhaps, it gets you wet and restores you to God’s good graces, but it it doesn’t last. It’s external, it dries up , and you’re susceptible once again.

     But Spirit is in-spir-ation, inspiring, empowering, it is the very breath, the very motive force of the Divine. It is God’s Spirit that swept over the face of the deep, that filled the heroes of old, that powered, and continues to power, all of creation. And if God’s Spirit can power all that, it can certainly power you. The Spirit is God’s agent on earth, God’s motive power, and this new guy, the one John foretold, is baptizing in it. Maybe there is hope after all. Amen.