Lent is framed by Baptism. On Ash Wednesday, we retraced the
cross that marked us as Christ’s own forever at baptism, and we remembered who
and whose we are. And today, we continue with this story of Jesus' baptism.
Lent ends with our recommitment to our own baptismal promises at the Easter
Vigil. In between, we have quite a journey with Jesus. With this story Mark
shows us the true identity of Jesus. Jesus is the beloved son of God. During
this journey of Lent, we also get a glimpse of our own true identity. We are
beloved children of God. Jesus is who God says he is, so also we are who God
says we are. In Christ we are beloved sons and daughters of God. All the rest
of the gospel of Mark shows what that means and what that looks like.
You all know that I love to get you all wet when we reaffirm
our baptismal promises. Encountering water has always been a very powerful
experience. I have lived my life in and around water. When I was a little girl
I would spend my summer days at the neighborhood pool, we swam and sunned and
played. That’s where learned to swim, and eventually I taught others to swim
there. I lifeguarded there and I coached swimming there. I swam on the
synchronized swimming team in high school. Eventually I moved on to lifeguard
at a Minneapolis lake, and I was waterfront director at a YMCA camp, where Rick
and I met.
During our early married years, my dad had built a place on
a beautiful lake in north central Minnesota. We would spend weekends there. By
then my favorite water activity was to go out into the deep water and float,
the quiet and calm of the water did much to renew my spirit. Tom and Willie
learned to swim before they could walk. They would be by my side when I coached
the swim team at the Y.
Water is powerful, it is intoxicating, and it can kill as
well as thrill. Did you know that the human body is 60% water, and that too
much water can kill you? The power of water can take away life as easily as it
can give life. When we live here on this piece of land and we give thanks for every
drop of water that falls from the sky, even if it is as snow. Did you know that
water is a closed system. The rain drops that do fall on us are the very same
rain drops that fell on Noah and his wife and children. The Power of Water is
amazing. We spend the first nine months of our lives afloat, and the rest of our
lives trying not to drown.
Water is this powerful symbol of baptism, the powerful
symbol of life in Christ. This powerful symbol is capable of containing the
meaning associated with life, death, and resurrection. That is why stories are
told about water and it’s intoxicating influence.
In the story of Noah, water took away life, and in the story
of Jesus’ baptism water gives life. It is quite appropriate that we begin our
journey through Lent with Jesus in the water. The water washes us clean, and in
the water we teeter on the brink of death, and in the water we hear with Jesus
“with you I am well pleased.” At the beginning of our Lenten journey, we have
an opportunity to look squarely at the power that is life and death, and choose
to walk this road, equipped by our identity as baptized people, as people who
have died with Christ and risen with Christ.
In the gospel of Mark, there is no time between Jesus'
baptism and the time in the wilderness being tempted by Satan. No time to
reflect on who he was or what he was doing. He didn't have time to figure out
what a good person, a good teacher, a good friend, a good leader would say or
do then try to say or do that. Maybe in the wilderness Jesus sought the living
God and claimed his identity as the son of God. And then let his life, his
words, his relationships and his love, even to giving of himself on the cross,
flow from that identity as God’s beloved. Perhaps that’s what God is calling us
to do this Lent; in this wilderness, to follow Jesus out of the water and into
the desert to listen deeply for what God has to say to us through
Baptism.
As we begin this Lent together, in the waters that are of
Jesus’ baptism, and as we complete this Lent renewing our own baptismal
promises, we remember who we are. We are God’s beloved. We are people who are
beautifully and wonderfully created by God. We are people who are blessed by
God. We are people who have a tendency to turn away from God to worship idols,
we tend to hurt ourselves and each other, we tend to build up our own wealth
instead of working for peace and justice for all. We tend to build up our walls
so that we don't have to be honest with one another. But we are people who God
calls back into relationship, God loves us so much that God is willing to be
one of us to show us the way.
On Ash Wednesday I asked you to be intentional this Lent. I
asked you what is it you must lay down, or let go of, so that you may take this
journey with Jesus? Do you want to fast from something? Do you want to unattach
yourself from something that holds your attention too strongly? And today I ask
you, what gets in the way of living fully the creation that God has made you to
be. What causes you to forget who you are? What must you put aside, so that you
may be fully and completely who you are created to be? What must you die to, so
that you can be free to live?
I think claiming our identity as God’s beloved and taking
seriously our baptismal promises is what Lent is all about, it is about walking
in the way of Jesus. If you haven't already taken a rock with a cross on it from
the basket, or haven’t found your rock in the bottom of your purse or in your
pocket, make sure you take one today, and keep it with you all during Lent, so
that you may be reminded, “you are my beloved, with you I am well
pleased.” We begin this journey with Jesus, the journey that shows us who
we are, the journey with Jesus that goes through pain and suffering, the
journey that puts us at the foot of the cross. The journey that eventually
shows us new life, but we can’t get there from here, without going through the
wilderness. Thankfully, we do that together with Jesus.
So as I stand here today, with my heart saddened at the
violence that is pervasive in our culture, saddened at the ease by which lives
are ended and families torn apart, I come back to these baptismal promises and
this journey we take with Jesus. Because if our baptism and our relationship
with Jesus doesn’t cause us to make change in the world, why even bother with
all of this? We cannot continue to let our children die. We must have courage,
be brave, and do hard things, do the hard work of the gospel. These questions I
ask you are serious questions. What ideas, perceptions, do we hold to so
strongly that they get in the way of striving for justice and peace and
dignity? What is the change we can be so that we can live in a more just world?
Amen.
I needed to take this out of what I said, but it is
valuable.
Listen to these words.
Holy Spirit, Holy One, Creator Spirit, God of all....I lay
aside my key ring, a sign of my car and house, of my main possession. I lay
aside my cell phone, my means of communication. I lay aside my credit card, my
source of finance and money. I lay aside my pen, my way of writing down my
thoughts and intentions. I lay aside my glasses, my perspectives, my frames for
seeing the world. I lay aside my watch, my timetables and timeframes. I lay
aside my comb, my way of looking at myself. I take off my shoes, my method of
transporting myself, the way I walk in the world. Then, stripped in this way of
most of my securities and techniques for coping and functioning in the world, I
try to simply acknowledge the presence of the One who made all things, in whom
we live and move and have our being. I am seeking to be alone with the only
true God, the one true reality behind and within everything, and making that
quiet space. Then I pick up my key ring, praying, “Use my car and house, my
main possessions, for your purposes”. I pick up my cell phone, praying, “Use my
means of communication, to share messages of your goodness and grace”. I pick
up my credit card, praying, “May I spend and be spent in the ways of
righteousness and justice”. I pick up my pen, praying, “Guide me to write your
thoughts". I pick up my glasses, praying, “Help me see the world through
your eyes”. I strap on my watch, praying, “May I live in your time.” I pocket
my comb, praying, “May I see your beauty around me”. I put on my shoes,
praying, “May I walk in your ways ”.
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