Somethin' Else Goin' On

When I was in elementary school I was never so amazed as when we had a fire drill. You might think that after 6 years of elementary school and a total of probably 25 or so of those fire drills..that the amazement would go away -- but it never ever did. We sat in school all day. Yes we walked home for lunch and yes we played in the playground for recess, but there was something different about a fire drill. After we stood up and lined up, quietly filed down the stairs - we walked outside and stood on the side walk across the street from the school. Now it may be that I have told you this story already, but I will tell it again. Standing on that sidewalk I felt like I had been transported into another world. Because you see at 9:30 or 11:15 or 1:45 - I was supposed to be sitting in that school. And when I wasn’t - the world seemed very strange to me - and surprising to realize that there was another world going on outside of my school room. The man trimming the bushes in the front of his house; the older woman sweeping her porch steps; the smell of bacon in the air, or bread baking; the cars driving by. When I stood on that sidewalk the greens of the trees seemed greener, the blue sky bluer - I was more keenly aware of sights and sounds and smells - like everything was somehow more intense, and somehow it felt like I was a stranger in a world that I thought I knew. It was hard for me to realize that every day for 9 months while I was sitting in my wooden desk - there was something else goin’ on. Today we read about Jesus’ baptism in the waters of the Jordan River. We have read it any number of times - each gospel version a bit different from the other - still and all the basics of the story are always the same. An odd man named John at the river, and Jesus showing up, explaining to John how he must be baptized, then the dunk, his rising back up and a voice from heaven, which in Matthew’s gospel is heard only by Jesus. And every time we baptize the basics are pretty much the same. I say a few words, you say a few words, the parents or the child says a few words. We sprinkle, and smile, and say a prayer. But like me standing in amazement on the sidewalk across from the school....we need to remember that in this thing we call baptism there’s something else -- something more goin’ on. It’s more than ritual - it’s a remembrance and a look into the future. It’s not something we just do - it’s something Christians have been doing for 2000 years. It’s not just a dunk or a sprinkle - it connects us with every other Christian living or dead for all of those 2000 years and the years to come. It’s not just some tap water in a bowl - it’s the symbol of the waters being parted for Moses, the waters of Noah’s flood, the river crossed over into the promised land, it’s the waters of creation. It’s adoption into a family, it’s being engrafted into Christ, it’s being in the presence of the Holy Spirit, it’s dying and living again. This thing we do around the font is an outward sign of an inward grace. Bestowed upon us by the Word made flesh, who came here to dwell among us. When Matthew recorded this account of Jesus at the Jordan River, he did not use the Greek word for baptism. He used another word which means turning or having a change of mind. And since Jewish thought tells us that the way we think reflects our heart, and our character, and our gut... tells us that mind, emotions, actions, words, ethics and morals are all connected...it means that with what we now call baptism - comes a change of a person’s whole inner nature - a transformation - a new person. There was definitely something else going on that day at the Jordan River -- more than is conveyed by the words we read in Scripture. That day Jesus’ life took a turn - a turn that marked the beginning of his earthly ministry. As the church has been looking inward for a while now, trying to determine how to go forward...I wonder if over the years, we have adopted an attitude that all that stuff back at the Jordan has little to do with us. You know - cuz after all Jesus was the one who heard the words from heaven - he was the one sent to do all the work - called to sacrifice and heal, to nurture and comfort...and it was Isaiah who told us that the one who received God’s spirit was to be a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, and bring forth justice in the world. Have we forgotten that the same spirit that descended upon Christ has descended upon each of us? Have we forgotten that the same empowering spirit that lived in Jesus now lives in us? Have we forgotten that we have been chosen, equipped and commissioned to carry on Christ’s earthly ministry? And if we have, let us take a moment to remember that - as it was with Christ, so it is with us. Being baptized in the spirit means that we have been transformed and marked for our earthly ministry.