Collect of the Day:
Eternal Father,
who at the baptism of Jesus
revealed him to be your Son,
anointing him with the Holy Spirit:
Grant to us, who are born of water and the Spirit,
that we may be faithful to our calling as your adopted children;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The first church I served as a priest was a church in Hawaii that each year would have a Beach Eucharist. We would hold the service under a shelter at the beach and then have a meal together, go swimming, and relax for the afternoon. One year some parents asked if they could have their baby baptized at this service — meaning in the ocean. I immediately said yes. The ocean or a river is a great place to have a baptism — for reasons I’ll mention in a moment.
When it came time for the baptism, we all trooped to the water’s edge. I faced the congregation standing on the beach as I led them in the first part of the baptism, and I then walked into the water and baptized the baby, all the while facing the congregation so they could hear what I was saying. I thought it all went pretty well. But when I came out of the water, an old Hawaiian man came up to me and said, “Never turn your back on the ocean.”
This piece of wisdom, which every Hawaiian knows, eventually became ingrained in me — so much so that I have a picture from our sabbatical here in Ireland almost 10 years ago of me on the strand of Malin Beg in Co. Donegal. Kirk took the picture as I was walking back to him after dabbling my fingers in the icy-cold water. When I first saw this picture (and now every time I look at it), what runs through my head is, “Don’t turn your back on the ocean!” The reason is, the ocean is powerful and unpredictable.
So is baptism. In baptism we are given the power of the Holy Spirit of God. And, we never know where baptism will lead us, as we commit ourselves and our life to Christ.
Today we heard the story of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist in the River Jordan. We always hear this story on the Sunday after Epiphany because it is the first time we see Jesus as an adult and it signifies the start of Jesus’ ministry. The way that Mark describes the scene, when Jesus comes up out of the water, the heavens are “torn apart” — not a little peek in the clouds, but torn apart — the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus, and the voice of God speaks.
This Spirit, the heavens being torn apart — it sounds like the first reading we heard, which was from the very beginning of creation, the first sentences of the Bible. There was a formless void and darkness, and then a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. This “wind” is meant to be the Holy Spirit, for in the Bible, the word for wind or breath is also the same as the word for Spirit. The Spirit of God breathed across the face of the waters, God created light, and suddenly instead of a dark, formless void, there was Day and Night.
That’s one powerful Spirit. But of course it is, for it is the Spirit of God Almighty. And the point is that it is the same Spirit that showed up when Jesus was baptized. But that’s not all. That’s not the end. It is the very same Spirit that shows up when we are baptized. That’s the point of our New Testament lesson today, from Acts, when the Apostle Paul is talking to the people of the city of Ephesus. They had received only the baptism of repentance, one of preparation for Jesus. But when they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, suddenly the Holy Spirit came upon them and all sorts of things started happening!
Now some of what happened might seem a little scary or off-putting to good, sane Christians — Anglicans — like you and me. Speaking in tongues. Prophesying. Kind of makes us squirm a bit, yes?
But the point is that in baptism, we are given the Holy Spirit of God, and this is not a nice, neat, tame thing to do. We treat baptism as though it’s a nice cultural rite, something we do as a matter of course, and we might talk about “getting the baby done.” We use baptismal fonts, where we can pour a bit of water over the child (or adult), and no one really gets too wet, and there’s not too much sense of danger or passion in it.
But there’s nothing tame about God, who created all things and calls them into being.
And there’s nothing tame about Jesus Christ, who trooped the roads and hills of the Holy Land and blessed people and healed people and forgave them their sins, and then went to death on a cross and then rose from the dead. That is not a tame sequence of events.
And there’s nothing tame about the Holy Spirit. After all, the Holy Spirit might be symbolized as a dove, which seems nice and sweet, but the Holy Spirit is also symbolized as a wind or a flame.
So the reason that rivers and oceans are good places for baptism is that there is power in them. There is life in them. But they aren’t tame and safe. When we commit ourselves to Christ in our baptism (for that is what we are doing), we are receiving the power of the Holy Spirit of God and we are committing ourselves (whether we know it or not) to a life of risk and adventure. For we are promising to follow Christ and to do wild things that the world doesn’t understand, like pray for our enemies, and see God present in all people, and forgive those who have wronged us, and care about things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control — what are known as the fruits of the Spirit.
It’s not a safe life we commit ourselves to, but it’s a good life. It’s the best life. The Holy Spirit is with us, and the Holy Spirit is also called the Comforter and the Sustainer. The Holy Spirit is the power of God guiding us through our life. It’s the same power present at the beginning of creation, moving across the face of the waters, now breathing life upon us and blessing us as we commit ourselves to this path.