blip : Basic Living Instruction Protocol :

Yesterday I mentioned my sermon from last week (see post on baptism). Well, I finally figured out how to include an image in the post, so now I can post it. The image is important because I basically preached on an Eastern Orthodox icon. I’m not sure if I pulled it off. I handed out photocopies of the icon to the congregation and told them to look at stuff as I preached. I am interested in what anyone else thinks if you happen to give my sermon a read.

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Title: Exploring the Depths
Author: Isaac
Texts: Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11
Date: Jan. 8, 2005
Place: Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship

Let’s say Tom and MaryJo invite us over to watch that latest hot DVD—some new release. Ok, so it’s evening and we are watching the movie. Now, if you are like me, and you watch a movie after… let’s say 9 at night, you will most likely fall asleep pretty early in the movie. And then, and here’s the problem, you need to finish the movie because it already sucked you in, but you don’t quite remember at what point you fell asleep. So, you rent the DVD, sit down, then press that little arrow button and scan through the movie waiting until the scenes speeding by grow unfamiliar. Then you know where you have to start watching again.

Well, reading Mark’s Gospel is kinda like watching Matthew or Luke in that scanning mode. It’s a jolting rush through the life of Jesus. Mark’s dramatic rendering of the Jesus-story is, as Rowan Williams puts it, “a story which moves you on relentlessly, breathlessly.” It’s “a text full of urgency.” In Mark, the “hurried images flash past” like those movie scenes when you scan through the DVD (Christ on Trial, 1-3). Jesus is always on the move… One of Mark’s favorite words is “immediately,” or “as soon as.” But the rapid-fire episodes slow down when Mark finally gets to Jerusalem in chapter 11. Then it feels like he gives us Jesus’ last days in slow-motion, where days feel more like weeks.

And our lectionary passage is an important scene at the very beginning of Jesus’ rush to Jerusalem where, as everyone here already knows, he is killed. It’s important, I think, to take this first scene slow because Jesus frames his death with the passage we just heard. Right before he enters Jerusalem, James and John ask Jesus if they can sit at his right and left when Jesus enters his glory. Then Jesus replies, “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” (10:39).

Jesus recalls the baptism scene at the beginning, our scene for this evening, and deepens our vision of that framing episode. Mark’s story of Jesus starts with a baptism that points us to death and resurrection. It’s all there… in the baptism… in those dark Jordan waters. The gospel is right there, in that scene, as Jesus enters those foreboding depths.

That’s what this image is all about.

Think of this Eastern Orthodox icon as a still-frame shot of that fleeting scene in Mark’s drama. It’s like we hit the pause button while watching the DVD on scanning mode. Listen to these two verses from our passage from Mark and look at the picture: “At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’” (1:9-11).

So, there’s Jesus, in the middle of the image, against the dark, turbulent waters of the Jordan. Straight white lines shoot down from the heavens, encircle a dove, then fall on Jesus. The white, divine lights center our gaze on Jesus—and that’s the Spirit of God who calls Jesus the Son. There’s also the angels, a heavenly entourage, on the right bank of the river watching the whole thing—one directs our eyes to the dove, and the other three bend over the jagged edge of the river toward Jesus, their lines of sight covering different parts of Jesus’ body. These three huddle close to the edge, two with outstretches arms, almost on tip-toes—they look almost anxious, tense, studying every move, every flinch of Jesus’ flesh as he enters those cold, dark depths. Are they worried? Are they afraid of the turbulent Jordan waters? Should we be afraid of them?

And then there’s John on the rough terrain of the left bank, baptizing Jesus. His right arm points us to Jesus’ head, while his eyes look toward the dove, and then there’s that left hand. What’s it doing? Do you see it? Is it a question? Or maybe it’s the hand of a servant who opens up to receive?

A question: something like, “Why God?” or “How God?” “Am I worthy to do this, God?” or “What in the world is going on here?” Maybe it’s that natural sort of question that comes when you’re shocked by the unexpected, surprised by the disorienting. It’s that shock that Alex preached about last week when Simeon snatches baby Jesus from Mary’s arms and starts talking about how in this fragile little body of Mary’s child has come the salvation of Israel and the nations. Maybe that’s the same sort of thing that’s going on here with John—he opens his hand as if to say “This is crazy!!”

And I think that’s an important part of the gospel message from our passage: God just happens; it’s shocking; the Spirit comes unexpectedly…and moves us, re-directs our gaze, and we open our eyes wider trying to see the light of grace shoot down from heaven and make us do a double-take at the darkness—because, like the icon shows us, Jesus might be there, surrounded by dark swirls of overwhelming chaos. We just need better eyes.

But, like I said earlier, John’s left hand could also be something like an open hand of receptivity: something like, “Come, Holy Spirit” or “Where you lead me God, I will follow”… It’s like Mary’s receptivity that Tom preached about a few weeks back. You know the line: “I am the Lord’s servant…May it be to me as you have said” (Lk.1:38). Maybe John’s open hand toward the Spirit of God coming like a dove, shows him to have that same receptivity as Mary, who, as Rowan Williams put it, “put herself utterly at God’s disposal” (Ray of Darkness, 19). So now here’s John, who just said how he’s not even “worthy to stoop down and untie” this holy one’s sandals (Mk.1:7)… but he’s doing the work God desires for him. It’s surprising; it’s unexpected; it’s all so disorienting; but he’s open to this new work of God.

And here, I think, we find another important part of the gospel from our passage: our God uses crazy people like John without even flinching—remember… John eats locusts, wears funny cloths, wanders in the desert, says inflammatory things that get him in big trouble with the powerful people. And this guy is the harbinger, the one who “prepares the way for the Lord.”

That’s why we need to develop skills of attentiveness, ways of being receptive to the present, to the unqualified people who we’re usually not used to looking at. Because they too could be harbingers, their funny ways may also direct us to the Son of God, to God’s kingdom in our midst.

There’s always so much more to learn from icons and the stories they display, and I’m sure ya’ll can see much more in the image that helps us see the story of Jesus baptism than I’ve said. But before I finish, there’s one last thing… probably the most important—and this goes back to what I said at the beginning, about how this passage from Mark frames the rest of the story, a story that makes Jesus’ death central—Central… like that darkness in the middle of this image.

Look at it. Those rushing currents, swirling around Jesus, grating up against the jagged banks on either side, threatening more erosion, more consumption of the land. Look at the stark contrast between the light edge of the land and the deep darkness of the edge of the river. Light and Dark. There’s almost a jostling, a battling for position: land defiantly reaching into the water, and darkness mustering up waves that may snuff out more of that enlightened earth.

Oceans and seas are scary for Israel and her neighbors. They embody anarchy, chaos, disruption. For the people of Israel, there’s always the painful memory of the Flood that consumed all the earth. And then there’s the memory of the dark nothingness, the empty and formless depths that we heard from the beginning of Genesis: “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Gen.1:2). And out of this dark nothingness, God begins a new thing, the creation of God’s good world—the reality all around us.

Can you see the ways the icon brings together both the Genesis passage and the Mark passage? The Spirit hovering over the dark waters… and—now here’s the gospel—God’s new creation in the midst of those nightmarish depths.

There’s Jesus, “a light shining in the darkness” (Jn.1:4), the one through whom and in whom are all things—and he’s there, in the darkness, and he is not overwhelmed. No, this is the new creation, the salvation of God entering into all our fears, present in the chaos. “Emmanuel, God with us.”

And look what is happening to the currents, at the bottom, at the very depths where Jesus stands. The darkness is running away, it flees upward… the currents push the fish upwards. Jesus stands there, in the depths. He is not afraid. The waters will not consume God’s new creation. I can hear Luther’s hymn: “A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing; our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing” (Martin Luther).

That body, Jesus’ body, in the middle of the Jordan river, is our salvation. That’s what Alex taught us last week: salvation is created; salvation comes into this world as Mary’s child; salvation is Jesus’ flesh. And now Jesus is in the river Jordan. And that’s where we see our salvation. And we are like John: our worship here, our shared lives, our prayers, our meals, our service, our words, all that stuff and more—that’s how we reach out our right hand to Jesus. Those things point to Jesus. They focus our gaze and those outside our midst, if they are watching. That’s what it means to proclaim the good news.

And when we do all these things with our body, with the body, it includes that left hand too. Look again at John’s left hand, that hand of receptivity. We learn to see the Spirit, and receive the fresh winds of grace, through those same activities of the Christian life. In those activities we dig deeper into the present, into each other, and open up our hands ready to receive whatever crazy gifts God pours out through another.

And here’s the catch, here’s the mystery of the gospel, the wonder of our salvation. We’re like John, the harbinger, preparing the way for the Lord, proclaiming the gospel until our Lord Jesus returns. So our eyes are on the dove, looking for the guidance of the Spirit. And as we do the sorts of things that show the world the hope of salvation, we point to Jesus with our right hand; and we also open ourselves up with our left hand… We learn to receive God’s grace flowing into us through the gifts of others.

But look at John’s feet—they’re not like those planted feet of the angels on the other side of the river. No. With John’s feet there’s movement… he’s walking, and he’s not looking where he’s going. With one more step he’s in the water. And that’s us. Through all those things we do together, as this humble fellowship, we might just find that we have entered into those waters, those dark depths of baptism where Jesus is, where our salvation is found.

So, here we are, wandering into salvation, stumbling into those dark baptismal waters, and learning to see the light shinning in the darkness. And here’s Jesus, the new creation, in our midst, revealed by the hovering Spirit. And here’s the call of the gospel: to look into the swirling darkness around us and in us, and find the feet of Christ way at the bottom, hidden in the depths, those places we are usually too afraid to look, let alone tell someone else.

But we have to learn to see Jesus there, to see his feet in the darkness. And that takes faith. Hope in something not yet seen, but we know it’s there… you can feel it growling in your depths. Jesus, the mystery of our salvation, is there in the midst of the chaos because we confess with Paul that “in him all things live, move, and have their existence.”

As we look closely at the baptism of our Lord Jesus, a baptism that unfolds in death—that’s where we learn to see this new world. Because when we follow Christ into his baptism, as we live into the depths of our baptism—that’s how we come to discover evidence of Christ’s habitation in and through us, his body, his presence even in the most unexpected corners, the unexplored depth of this world in us and all around us. And this wandering discovery demands friends, people who see us better than we can see ourselves, and lead us into places we’d never think of going. And maybe in those undiscovered and undesirable places we might find the joy of God’s kingdom, and taste and see the movements of the Spirit, fresh winds drawing us into God’s life.