Mark
1:4-11 Baptism of the Lord Sunday
Elizabeth M.
Deibert 11 January 2015
Lose weight.
Get Organized. Spend less and save more. More quality
time with family and friends. Learn something new. Quit Smoking or
Drinking. Help others more. Five out of ten of us make
New Year’s resolutions like these, and of those five who make them, usually
only one of us is successful in actually making change. Every year as one
rolls into another, we renew our hope that this year we might have the sheer
determination to make changes, despite our previous failures. We
have all heard that real change requires at least twenty-one days of consistent
re-patterning our lives. Real change is possible for most people if
it is modest change – not major adjustments or multiple adjustments at the same
time. But I’d like to say that real and lasting change is only
possible for those who move to a deeper level of understanding how much God
loves them by attention to the immersion of Holy Spirit in their
lives.
Most of us live with
overly critical messages in our minds most of the time. We either
think we are not good enough, filling our heads with lots of “should’ves”
and “if only” I should have been a better this or better
that. I should have lost weight. I should have been a better
parent. I should have done better on that test. I
should have handled that problem better. Some of us have externalized the
should’ves such that it is somebody else’s problem. We are the
victim. If only you would do this for me, then I would be
okay. If only he, if only she, if only they, because I have no
control over my own circumstances. Whatever is wrong with me is somebody
else’s fault.
Some of us live with
overly proud, self-assured messages in our heads. We reassure
ourselves by remembering when people were proud of us. We are
hooked on being the best or doing the best or achieving the most, and our
identity is wrapped up in that. We are scared to be anything other
than diligent, hard-working, and practically perfect in every way as Mary
Poppins put it, because if we are not, our whole world comes crashing
in. That’s a heavy burden to bear. As we read the Baptism of
Jesus story, notice that God says, “You are my beloved. With you I
am well pleased” before Jesus has engaged his ministry.
What has he done? God is pleased with who he is, more than what he
has done.
But once Jesus
internalizes the message of Baptism, in every way, he operates from that
identity. He heals, he loves, he teaches, he handles temptation and
conflict without losing himself. He gives and gives and gives until
he has blessed every one of us. John baptized with water, but
Jesus with Holy Spirit.
Mark
1:4-11
John the baptizer
appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the
forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the
people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the
river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel's hair,
with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed,
"The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy
to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with
water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." 9 In those days
Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10
And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart
and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven,
"You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
Do you fully understand
that because of Jesus Christ, you also are God’s son, God’s
daughter? That’s what we celebrate in baptism – that you are united
with Christ and thereby, God is well pleased with you. It’s not
because of anything you have done. No, God is well pleased with
you, because God first imagined you, before you were in your mother’s womb, God
thought of you and made you. You are the precious handiwork of
God. When I was setting up the bread machines for Justin’s service yesterday
morning, the Peaceful Potters were in the kitchen molding clay and smiling at
their work. God smiled in forming you – just like you
are. Psalm 139 says we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and that
there is no where we can go to distance ourselves from God’s love.
If we make our bed in Sheol or the farthest place on the earth, God is there.
Our problems arise when
we get hooked by our own or other’s criticism of us. When we get
hooked, they can pull us around sometimes so fast we cannot even
breathe. I have watched some of you get unhooked.
You’ve liberated yourself.
You have a mother or a
brother or an ex-husband or child who hooked you with guilt and
shame. Or you hooked yourself by telling yourself you are not good
enough, don’t work hard enough, do not measure up. Somebody wounded
you and if that wound is still pulling you around, I want you to let go of it
today.
Take the hook out and get
free. That person cannot tell you who you are. Only
your Maker can say who you are, and God says, “Beloved child of mine, I love
you.” God is not like all those people who have unrealistic
expectations of you. God is not giving you love with
conditions. God is not just proud of you when you accomplish
something. God delights in who you are! God thinks that
your innermost being is wonderful! And when you start seeing
yourself as God sees you, then you will become the wonderful person God made
you to be.
When you understand
deeply that your worthiness does not come from working hard to please other
people, does not come from accomplishing great things, does not come from
anything other than God who made you and God makes no junk. God
loves you, and your human condition (a sinsick soul) is healed by a total immersion
in the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ. Because of his life, death, and
resurrection, we are not distanced from God but one with God.
This is the good news we
celebrate in Baptism. This is the reason we baptize infants, children,
teens, adults – any time some person or some parent of a child is ready to give
their life or their child over to the Spirit, we are ready for baptism because
it marks what is already true – that God’s everlasting blessing of love is upon
you. We joke about earning stars for our crown, but really, there is
nothing you can do to make God love you any more or any less than God already
does. That’s the nature of God’s unconditional love – it is perfect and
complete.
The challenge is to live
fully into that truth. So that’s why we say, “Come to
worship. Get involved in the church. Pray and study
scripture. Learn and grow and serve.” Because it’s not
about earning God’s favor but basking in it, soaking it up.
Discovering it anew in deeper and deeper ways – that’s the purpose of the church’s
nurture. “Sin happens whenever we refuse to keep
growing.” (Richard Rohr)
My brother did something
very hurtful over Christmas, but I am trying not to be hooked by
it. I am dwelling in the security of God’s love. This hurtful
behavior on his part does not need to shape or inform who I am. And
it takes some effort on my part, some intentionality about how I will think to
stay connected to the Holy Spirit. While it is difficult, I am
working with my heart, soul, and mind to forgive him, because deep down, I know
that he has done this because sadly he does not see clearly the amazing grace
of God. His painful actions are done in the name of God. But
when we truly see who God is, we cannot hurt people – not intentionally.
We can tell them we are
hurt or disturbed by their actions. We can say where we disagree
with them but we do this in love, as Christ would do, not in anger or in
cold-hearted judgment. God gives us freedom to choose to obey or to
go our own way. When we go our own way, God does not always rescue
us from the negative consequences of our destructive behavior, but God saves us
in the end. We simply have to stop resisting God’s
love. When we see it, we will know it to be the most beautiful,
glorious things we’ve ever known. We get glimpses of that even
now. The glory of God’s love could be seen yesterday in the way this
church surrounded Jim and Martha, and embraced their tears and shed some tears
on their behalf. I looked out yesterday on your faces and saw love.
We said good-bye to a Justin, a twenty-nine year old man, whose circumstances
and choices led to a shortened life. We know that God embraces us, even
while we sin, even while we are straying like lost sheep, even while we are
making rash deadly decisions, God is seeing us as the wounded, beloved children
that we are. Richard
Rohr says, in his book Falling Upward, “Every
time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules do not matter as much
as the relationship that God wants to create with us.”
For we belong to God, and
God sees us as we really are. God doesn’t pay any attention to the
facades we wear for other people and sometimes for ourselves. We
put on our fake selves, pretending to be strong, acting like know-it-alls,
thinking we are invincible. Resisting feeling hurt,we simply get angry,
repeating in some adult version the old “sticks and stones may break my bones
but words can never hurt me.” But the fact is, words do hurt, and
sometimes the words that hurt most are the ones we say to ourselves with
that voice in our head.
Here’s an example, one
that I’m willing to share: I have a challenge with being forgetful.
I work very hard not to forget dates and details. I try to write
them down every time I get an email. It is a little difficult when you
tell me things five minutes before or after worship but I try to remember to
write them down later and the Congregational Care Team helps me when they
can. But truth is, I am quite distractable.
I can be thinking about
hundred different things and walk out of my house or my office, forgetting my
cell phone or my purse or my computer. But I decided this year, at
almost 52, it was time to stop berating myself about this. This year I
have written a song to help me remember, and I try to pat myself on the back
every time I do remember. Because you know, as kind as my mother
is, she used to get very frustrated with me. You see, she started
teaching school, when I went to school. So she needed me to remember
my stuff, and I didn’t. So she would get very frustrated, when I’d
leave my coat or my books or my lunch money. And I developed an
identity as the forgetful one. Instead of getting mad when I have
forgotten something, I now thank God when I remember something – like when I remembered
in January that I had missed a meeting in mid-December, I said “Thank you God
for letting me know, so I can apologize.”
I don’t know what kind of
negative identity you developed as a child, a teen or an adult, but it is time
to lay aside that negative identity. Put it down. Down
be defined by it. Stop all the negative – why did I eat that! Why
am I so lazy? Why can I not manage my money better? Why am I so
stupid, so impatient, so ____! You fill in the blank. Stop
all that negative feedback. Get on with seeing yourself in the
light of your baptism into Christ, your immersion with the Holy Spirit.
When you get in the
shower, and the water runs over your face and your body, remember your baptism
and call yourself who you are. Say in the shower, “I am your
beloved child. Thank you God for loving me. Thank you
for being well-pleased with me.” As you wrap yourself in the towel,
tell yourself, “I am God’s holy and beloved. I am clothed with Christ.
I am wearing compassion,
kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. I can be
tolerant. I can forgive. I am ruled by peace. I am
blessed and grateful.”
As you do this with
regularity, recognizing your belovedness in Christ, you will find that your
anger diminishes, your patience increases, and your love for others grows. You
cannot hate others if you remember they too are God’s beloved. And
they cannot hook you and drag you around emotionally or spiritually, because
you know you belong to God who loves you. So just take the hook
out, and remember that in God’s love you are secure. You do not
need others to secure you. You do not need success to
secure. You do not need creature comforts to secure you, for the
love of God gives you security.
If you seek security in
the love of another human being, you will be disappointed, but not with
God. With God is perfect love. So why do we not spend
more time thinking about that, developing our understanding of God’s
love? Recognizing it, appreciating it, giving thanks for it, and
operating our lives from the massive reservoir of that love.
You are completely
enveloped by the Holy Spirit. Imagine yourself completely wrapped up in a
warm comforter, not too tightly. You are still free. God’s
love is not controlling; it is liberating. We are free, free to
love back, free to become all we were meant to be. In her book, Return
to Love, Marianne Williamson says,
Our deepest fear is not
that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond
measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask
ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually,
who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve
the world….We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make
manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's
in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other
people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our
presence automatically liberates others.
Children
of God, be fearless, confident followers of the One who is your Light, Jesus
Christ. Thanks to Christ’s Spirit at work in us, we know ourselves to be
God’s beloved, precious, perfectly delightful children.
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