January 11, 2009
The Ven. Richard I Cluett
“Today the Lord comes to be baptized, so that humankind may be lifted up; today the one who never has to bow inclines himself be-fore his servant so that he may release our chains; Today we have acquired the kingdom of heaven: indeed, the kingdom of heaven that has no end.” (excerpt from the Orthodox Liturgy, Feast of the Theophany, with thanks to Suzanne Guthrie)
And so it came to pass long ago and not so far away…
One sunny, early summer morning on the bank of a lake in western Massachusetts where my parents lived, our family was gathered for the baptism of my brother’s firstborn son. My brother had asked me to baptize him in that place where we all had been together so many times as a family. We had some pre-baptism conversations that sufficed as instruction.
We had also spent time discussing the theological ramifications of blessing the water of baptism – that would be … the lake. From that time forth would all those who dipped themselves into those waters be… Well, you can carry on that conversa-tion yourselves.
I stepped into the lake water with the parents and Godparents and the child. The prayers were offered, the blessing of the waters invoked, and I took the child in my arms and immersed him in the cold, dark waters.
At which point my brother lunged forward with a look of abject terror on his face, as I raised the sputtering child. Three times he was plunged into the dark depths and lifted into the light in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
And my brother saw that his firstborn son was not sputtering, he was laughing, giggling, burbling with joy, with pure, utter joy! That day he acquired the kingdom of heaven that has no end. And, by the way, so did my brother.
But, there is a reason why the lectionary begins this day with the description of the very beginning and the dark chaos when the wa-ters covered the face of the earth, and then God brings forth -- Light!
Today we celebrate “God’s will to flood the entire world” with Light. We celebrate God’s will to bring each and every creature out of chaos, out of darkness, out of the depths, loosed from bind-ings into the light of life and love and freedom lived in God.
That is what we celebrate today and every time a person comes through the waters of baptism into the light of a life lived in God. [and that is what is going to happen with these 3 young children who will be baptized today.]
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James Weldon Johnson says that before God started creation, eve-rything was “Blacker than a hundred midnights/ down in the cypress swamp.”
Have you ever visited that dark place? I have. I have even inhabited it -- for quite some time. So did Jesus. In a time of wondering and confusion, his wandering brought him to the bank of the river where he was drawn into the dark, swirling waters, in the midst of the chaos of humanity drawn there for the same reasons. Down he went into the water, plunged by John under the waters, and lifted up into the light of God’s presence, now knowing that he was God’s Beloved Child.
Herbert O”Driscoll has told the story this way:
“And so he came to the place, a stranger as all Galileans were in this hot blazing valley leading to the Dead Sea. Their eyes met and the longing for certainty in Jesus eyes is mirrored by the ambiva¬lence in John's. … they move into the water...
“When he comes up from that transitory burial under the water, it seems as if his world ignites and shines with validation and certainty. He is right! The journey has brought him home! Wave upon wave of peace and wholeness descend on him, calming, resolving, dovelike. Thundering in his consciousness are the intimations of the truth about himself and his vocation. He feels the affirmation and the terror of being in the presence of him by whom he is called My Son, my Beloved.”
A short three years later, he again found himself in that dark place when he was in the Garden at Gethsemane. Darkness and chaos and the evil powers of the world surrounded him, and he ques-tioned, he agonized, over all that he had held so dear, for which he had labored so hard, given so much, travelled so far.
And again, from that darkness he was lifted up, high upon the cross, so that you and I and all who come to God in some sem-blance of faith, with some miniscule modicum of hope, but who come nevertheless – he was lifted up so that we can live in the light of God’s kingdom. Now He lives in the presence of God, He reigns in the kingdom of God, and He lives in the hearts of God’s people.
+ + +
Before God’s Incarnation, before God’s Epiphany, the world was sunk in deep darkness, and so it is again in our day and time. I will not afflict you with a litany of the darkness of the world today. You know it well. You live it, too. You contend against it, too. You want to rise from, as well. It is ever before us on CNN and the nightly news: local, national, and international. We know it in our neighborhoods, in our circle of friends, in our families, in our own selves. Darkness abounds. Darkness abides, Darkness would cling to us forever.
It seems to me that from the very beginning of beginnings, and from our own beginning coming through the waters of birth and the darkness of the birth canal into the light of life, from before time and forever, the journey toward light has begun in darkness.
But we don’t have to live there. It doesn’t have to end there.
What we read of Jesus’ baptism; what we observe in the baptism of an infant; what we dream of in those long night hours is true. God is in this life. God’s spirit is upon us. God’s love is constant. God’s power is ours. And God has given us a reason, a purpose, a life to be lived.
It is possible to live in this life, missing the light of God, missing the presence of God, missing the empowering, comforting Word of God's love, missing the light of God’s love. It was possible for Jesus to have stayed in Nazareth; he didn't have to go down to the Jordan.
We have those choices, too. We can decide to stay in our anxiety, to stay in our ambivalences, to remain trapped in uncertainties, to live in darkness. Or we can decide to leave our Nazareth, and make ourselves available to the word, the light, the love of God and to let God’s spirit work in us.
All of us are, each of us is, Beloved of God – the God in whose love and by whose power shown to us in Jesus – life can be lived, purpose can be discovered, hope can be found, and love can be known.
As the Orthodox liturgy affirms, “… we have acquired the king-dom of heaven: indeed, the kingdom of heaven that has no end.”
Amen. And amen. And amen.
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