Coming to Water/The Baptism of Jesus

 

Blessed be God who animates our lives and assures us in baptism we are God's beloved and to God we belong. AMEN

Today we celebrate the Baptism of our Lord. It is one of the holiest of days. It is, I believe, not only important because it underlines the holy sacrament of baptism which Jesus models for us, but because it is the quintessential story of our belovedness. Jesus and we are God’s beloveds.  And that is the single most important sign of blessedness which we never ever lose or destroy. 

That which accompanies and energizes that belovedness is belonging. When we are so loved as God so loves the world, we also belong. This dynamic of beloving and belonging may be noted and renoted, remembered and restored, when we come to water. Water washes away the filmy stuff which hides or distorts God. Water reflects our identities in God. Water reflects our purpose within God’s mission in life. Water brings us renewed to the source of our love and desire, as well as to our true home. Water beckons us...

COMING TO WATER (Nicola Slee)

 COME TO water.  It may be lake, river or sea.

It does not matter, so long as the source is clean.

Each makes its own kind of poultice for sickness.

Here you will find healing,

though it may not be in the form you are seeking.

 

You must build a necessary hunger before you get there.

You must be needy. You must be hurting.

You must be lonely as the seabird’s cry

far out near the horizon.

 

After arriving, you must wait for a long while.

You will still be arriving.

Walk and walk and walk by the water’s edge.

Sit for long stretches at a time

gazing out at its many surfaces.

Think of nothing.

Let time and the passages of daylight and darkness

pass over and under you.

 

If it is dry and the sun beats golden on you,

close your eyes and bask in the miracle of warmth.

If it rains, whether sweetly or fiercely,

let your face be turned upwards to receive its blessing,

Your skin be covered in wetness.

If a storm should holler and range and shake the skies,

walk out in it, let your body be blasted

by an energy that knocks you sideways,

emptying your limbs of all resistance.

 

You must go to the water.

You must take what it offers.

You must yield what it asks of you.

You must submit to its tenderness.

You must leave when it is time, though it is never time for leaving.

You must walk away still thirsty,

with the sound of its pouring ringing in your ears.

 Being called to water actually or metaphorically is at the heart of our Christian faith. And the heart of our Christian faith has never...never...been more important than now. 

I realize I have said that before. I realize I may say that again. I realize that sometimes, these times, call for us to return to the center even as we journey to the margin.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ baptism  stands at the beginning of Mark’s narration, serves as the evangelist’s Christmas story. Mark gets right to the point...come to water.

That is not to say that the birth story is not critically important; it is a both/and. It is to say that it is also important to revolve the prism of the gospel and gaze into the good news of the baptism of our Lord and perceive some of the same essential values of incarnate love, grace and new birth which are illuminated differently in this story.

If on Christmas we might focus on Unto Us a Child Is Born who is Christ the Lord, at the baptism of our Lord the resounding refrain is You are My Beloved. Read be-loved.

A dramatic rending of the heavens and emergence of that heavenly dove, that sweet sweet spirit, are the signs to us that in coming to water, as in baptism, we too are to hear the voice of God’s messenger that we are the beloveds, just as we are to know in the sacred birth story that we too are incarnations of God’s love.

When we know our belovedness, when we feel the blessing to the world and to God which we are, we also know belonging. We belong to the beloved community. We are essential. 

Taken together then and inserted into the season of Epiphany’s illumination of divine glory, this belovedness and belonging is not only consoling and life giving, but is a call to be the love which God calls us to be in this world.

There is tremendous responsibility in this call: response-ability. It is a call to be who are meant to be: the important word here is “be”. We are called to be-love in the community in which we are be-longing.

I cannot think of a more important time in our lives and in the life of this country to pause and listen for God’s voice to call us to beloving and belonging. It is not only a summons to mutual care but to unity and oneness. It is urgent!

This week I envisioned coming to water many times, and did so especially on Wednesday as I searched for that dove...I envisioned the river Jordan where I had visited almost one year ago. I recalled the tears of healing and comfort and purpose which came over me like a messenger or dove. That sense of purpose is to belong to the One who loves me and you eternally and infinitely and to take that love into the world that we all might know the True North to which we belong. 

Come to water and let it wash over you until you know your belovedness and belonging so deeply that you also know how to be a peaceful loving presence in this world of sorrow and grief. Whoever comes to water, the living water, will never be thirsty.