baptism

Refreshed & Renewed through Baptismal Waters

St. Mark’s, Altadena banner at St. John’s Cathedral, Jan. 11, 2025.

A sermon for the First Sunday after the Epiphany: The Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ, January 12, 2025. The scriptures are Isaiah 43:1-7, Acts 8:14-17, Luke 3:15-17, 21-22, and Psalm 29.

Christians have a complicated relationship with water. At the beginning of the creation story in Genesis, the watery void is darkness and chaos, but God’s Word brings light and life. In our day, the precariousness of water is hard to deny. We pray for more water in California. Our hearts break for those affected by the fires in Los Angeles. We pray for those who have lost their lives, their loved ones, their homes and possessions, their businesses, and their life as they knew it. Would that God rain down a steady, calm, beautiful rain to put out all the fires, to begin to bring healing, and to restore a balance in creation.

But at the same time, just days ago, too much water caused havoc and disaster in North Carolina Tennessee, and Georgia; and caused huge calamity in Valencia, Spain. There, the waters came too fast and too strong, overpowering everything in their path.

In our first reading, Isaiah hears God tell the people
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
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.

But how are the people of St. Mark’s Church, Altadena, where the church burned to the ground, hearing these words today?  How are the people of All Souls, Asheville, who are worshipping in another church because theirs is ruined by water, hearing these scriptures? 

Well, we can pray that they would especially hear the first part of God’s promise, that no matter what, God is with them, and we can pray that those in need would also feel the strength of our prayers and support.

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” These words of God through Isaiah are similar to the words heard at the baptism of Jesus.

Water plays an equally precarious role in our spiritual lives. On one hand, it challenges. Saint Paul understands baptism as dying and rising again. He says, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6). This means that a life of faith will not always be easy. We don’t go from life to death and to new life without some effect, and at the very least, we will be getting wet. The challenges will come to us—whether they come through relationships, political changes, health crises, or disasters of nature, but the water of baptism strengthens us.

The water of baptism, once we receive it, replenishes itself within us, so that we can offer spiritual water, living water, to others. our baptism carries with it the command as well as the courtesy of offering water to others. At Holy Trinity we literally offer water at Saturday dinners. We offer water at receptions and coffee hours and whenever we welcome people. Especially in partnership with the wider Church, we offer water ever people thirst, in hospitals and soup kitchens; in prisons and parks; and in streets and schools.

But we also offer water spiritually, whenever and wherever we introduce others to Christ. We offer water when we simply help people learn that there IS a source of water, that there is a God of love, and that there is a God of forgiveness and compassion.

Jesus received water from John the Baptist. Jesus received water from the Samaritan woman. And he makes it clear that when we offer water to others in his name; it is as good as offering it to the Lord himself. As the heavens open in Luke’s Gospel, the Holy Spirit descends and the voice of God is heard, it must have seemed at first like a storm, like a great thunderstorm threatening rain and water. The heavens opened and water was given, but it came with a blessings.

Just as Jesus was baptized, we are baptized and we are sent into the world baptizing in the name of the Holy Trinity. Our baptism is where we are initially commissioned, and we live into that baptism, we live out that commission for the rest of our lives.

Yesterday, in Los Angeles, at St. John’s Cathedral, four people were ordained to the priesthood. A little like the ordinations in our diocese soon after 9/11, this service was a powerful gathering of God’s people—wounded and wondering, beaten down but unbroken—and it gave witness to the power of our faith.  Michael Mischler was one of those ordained, and he works at St. Mark’s Church, Altadena, which was completed burned by the fires last week. Some 40 parishioners from St. Marks attended the service to support Mark. Since the congregation’s processional banner perished in the fire, those processing to represent the church had nothing to carry.  And so, the children of the church made a colorful poster that they mounted to a processional pole. It said simply St. Mark’s Altadena, and included the symbol of St. Mark—the lion—strong, resourceful, and valiant.

This is the power of baptismal water—it renews. It enlivens. Even in the midst of death, it raises up. Even when they feel like they have no living water to offer, the Holy Spirit provides, and there’s water to share.

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” “You are my Child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

The Prayer Book reminds us that “Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children and makes us members of Christ’s Body, the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God.” (The Catechism, BCP page 858).

On this feast we give thank for the baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for his becoming like us that we might become more like him. And we give thanks for our own baptism, even as we look for more opportunities to live out our baptism and share the living water with others.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Baptism and Defying Gravity

A sermon for The Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ, January 7, 2024. The scriptures are Genesis 1:1-5, Psalm 29, Acts 19:1-7, and Mark 1:4-11.

You may have seen the news this week as Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams announced plans for a new swimming pool. This summer, a floating, self-filtering pool in the East River is going to be tested, and hopefully can be opened free to the public next year. New York City needs more swimming pools and we need more swimmers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has cited drowning as the leading cause of death among children 1 to 4 years old.  The Governor added, “If you don’t know how to swim, what you think is a refuge, that break, can become a death trap in an instant.” (NYTimes, “Floating East River Pool May Open to Public Next Year Under Hochul Plan,” January 6, 2024.)

Swimming might seem simple to those who learned early, but if you think about it, swimming is kind of amazing. Swimming gives us power and agency in the water. We’re not defenseless. We don’t have to be victims. We may have to struggle, but there’s a way forward. Swimming is a way that we have of dealing with the uncertainty and danger of water.

Throughout the biblical story of our salvation, water plays an important role, is often dangerous, scary, and threatening. In Genesis, “darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” But God creates form and matter and order out of the water. The disciples fish on the water, but the smallest storm leaves them terrified. Jesus walks on the water, not just doing a kind of magic trick to amaze, but more to show that the God of Creation always has, and always will have power over the unruliness and the deadliness of water. And so, swimming overcomes the chaos.

A little like swimming, Holy Baptism represents God’s movement through creation, and the sanctifying grace that not only saves us from sinking but gives us new life. Baptism not only enables us to swim in faith, it picks us up to surf!

When Jesus asked John the Baptist to baptize him, he was simply doing what some other faithful Jews might have done—immersion in naturally sourced water cleansed and purified. It could mark an important change or a conversion. It prepared one for presentation at the Temple. But for Jesus to be baptized, it meant even more.
It meant that the Son of God, the human expression of God in our world, was taking on himself the uncleanness and sin of others, falling into water, but raising out again. Baptism and the cleansing of sin foreshadows resurrection and the renewal of life.

Though baptism can seem like a sweet custom to do whenever there’s a new baby, the words and prayers we say remind us of the radical nature of baptism.

In baptism and in the renewal of baptismal vows, we say that we will resist evil and the ways of the devil, and that when we fall down, we’ll get up again and turn to God.

In baptism, we affirm that all people are made in the image of God, and so we refuse the hierarchies and pecking orders of the world, and work to seek and serve Christ in each other.

In baptism, we remind ourselves and the world that there is more to life that what we do for work, or where we went to school, or how much money we make.  We name the injustices and wrongs in the world, and we pledge to strive for justice and peace. We refuse to go along with stereotypes and prejudice and instead, aim to respect the dignity of every human being.

More than swimming, more than surfing, even, baptism, gives us power over the currents that shift and challenge. We could say that baptism helps us defy gravity.

“Defying gravity” is the title of the well-known and much-loved song from the musical Wicked. A recent podcast on BBC4 talks about how important that song has been for so many people. It has provided strength, encouragement, and hope. [Soul Music: “Defying Gravity” from Wicked.]

[You can listen to the song here.]

You may remember the story of Wicked. The so-called Wicked Witch of the West, whose name is Elphaba, was born with green skin.  Being green, looking different, she feels the pain of growing up different and she longs for acceptance. Since the musical premiered in 2003, Elphaba’s story has hit a chord with anyone who has ever felt marginalized, left out, or looked down upon because they were different. And so, Elphaba’s song at the end of Act I marks a change in her, a defining point where she decides no longer to be ruled by the expectations of others, the perceived laws of nature, the prejudices and fears of the people around her. The song, “Defying Gravity” becomes a victory song, a kind of ALLELUIA, as Elphaba claims her voice and begins to forge her own path.  

Though the song is not religious in a traditional sense, it touches the human spirit, and I think, has much of the spirit of God within it.

Elphaba experiences a kind of conversion, a coming to her true self, an acceptance of a Higher Power, as she sings,

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I’m through with playing by the rules
Of someone else’s game

Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It’s time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes and leap

And then, almost with wings of faith (I think) she sings

It’s time to try defying gravity
I think I’ll try defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye, I’m defying gravity
And you won’t bring me down.

As followers of Jesus Christ, as baptized people, something has changed within us. We’re done playing by the rules of culture or political expediency. We seek justice and life for all. It’s too late to go back to sleep. Time to trust our God-given, and Spirit-infused instincts, and with faith, close our eyes and leap.

Fear can’t bring us down. The news of the world can’t bring us down. Temporary setbacks, health challenges, and those with no faith or hope—won’t bring us down.

With Christ always at our side, we’re defying gravity.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.