RonB;log

Sunday 8th January, 2012 Baptism of our Lord
Sentence
God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; and He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. Acts10:38

Collect
Spirit of energy and change, in Whose power Jesus was anointed to be the hope of the nations; be poured out also upon us without reserve or distinction, that we may have the confidence and strength to implant Your justice on the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Old Testament Lesson Genesis 1: 1 – 5

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Psalm 29
Ascribe to the LORD, O mighty ones, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness.
The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD thunders over the mighty waters.
The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is majestic.
The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; the LORD breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, Sirion like a young wild ox.
The voice of the LORD strikes with flashes of lightning.
The voice of the LORD shakes the desert; the LORD shakes the Desert of Kadesh.
The voice of the LORD twists the oaks and strips the forests bare. And in his temple all cry, “Glory!”
The LORD sits enthroned over the flood; the LORD is enthroned as King forever.
The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with peace.

For the Epistle Acts 19: 1 – 7

While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples. He said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?" They replied, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." Then he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" They answered, "Into John's baptism." Paul said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus." On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied--altogether there were about twelve of them.

GOSPEL Mark 1: 4 – 11

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 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.
Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 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. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 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.
And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

© New Revised Standard Version of the Bible Copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and used by permission. All rights reserved

NOTES ON THE READINGS......

Old Testament
If you wonder why this passage has been chosen for today, about the only explanation I can offer is that here is the beginning. Beginning of everything, so to speak. And a baptism is a beginning, with all the possibilities and risks that lie ahead of the person baptized.
This Creation Story is beautiful and well-designed story, paralleling other old stories but having a mind, shape and direction all of its own. Sadly, those who treat this tale as literally true miss almost the total experience for it is far more interesting than that. Note the fascinating business that, in this portrayal ‘light’ was created days before sun, moon and stars. ‘Light’ is regarded as far more significant than its providores, sun and moon.

Psalm
Do not be put off by the repetitive nature of the verses of this psalm. Notice that, although the emphases appear to be on power and strength, what modern readers can draw from all this is that the real issue is not power but truth and reality. What the Hebrew Faith was ever pointing to is the absolute and unshakeable truth of the Faith and the direction to which it points. Oh, you can mutter about the carry-over baggage about lightning etc., and the fear it always seemed to produce in the ancients, but even then the point being made is that one mucks about with the ancient realities of truth love and justice at rather great risk really. If you do not follow what I am trying to convey, just spend a few moments in front of the TV News and see how often families, communities and even nations absolutely come apart when violence and hatreds overpower. Actually we are living though the tragic outcomes of parental abuse of children, not necessarily in sexual abuse, but in emotional and other forms. Any real community is powerfully aware of the need for nurture of the young; for heaven’s sake, even animals are so clearly and obviously aware of such needs, even to the extent ot risking their own lives for their young.

For the Epistle
This is a strange little cameo from the story of the Infant Church , where it seems that some unknown disciple of the Baptist had been busy long before the Crucifixion. It may come as some surprise to be told that members of this tiny denomination exist still: several years ago such folk were to be found amongst refugees at the Baxter Detention Centre at Port Augusta, where members of Churches from that city were involved in contact and service of them.
There is sadness at such a discovery – there are people for whom just a part of the Gospel is available, but if the truth is known, there are still people who have been given only part of the picture. (Sometimes they are given a fraction by those who are convinced they have ‘the full Gospel,’ but have nothing of the sort.)

GOSPEL
And now we come to the real issue for today – the Baptism of Jesus. Sadly, baptism is one of those things either disregarded or misunderstood somewhat totally in this day and age. Part of the reason for that is the rise of the rugged individual in our culture, led by Americans. Individuals were not part of the ancient scene, because the real issue was the community. (And where is community available these days?)

It has long been an issue for some, from the Baptist on, that Jesus was baptized, but please go back to that community thing. If our Lord was to be part of the whole, to be identified with the People of God, then He needed to express that being part in that sacramental manner. Baptism is not a matter of ‘I have accepted Christ,’ but very much a matter that ‘He has accepted me into the community of the People of God,’ a community without which I am far less able to survive as believer or as participant.

In other words, Jesus identified very much with us, thank heaven. He may be leader, but a good leader needs to be part of the people. And the remarkable outcome of this involvement was that statement from JHWH –here is My Son, My Beloved. JHWH identified Himself with Jesus – and no one can get a better endorsement than that, eh!

NOTES FOR A SERMON

Any baptism, even these days, contains the promise of a new beginning, a commencement, a fresh start – yet sadly that promise may take quite some time to reach fulfillment. I recall talking baptisms to a previous Rector of Clare (whom some of you may know) and his life beginning was rather hopeless if you looked at the then realities. Apparently his parents has little or no interest in the whole business, and said young man in his formative years had nothing to do with Church. But he would never decry even those circumstances, because not only did he become part of the faith community, but was later ordained, and really has had a quietly remarkable ministry, which continues to this day. Mind you, he has a few years on me, so he may well be even slower these days.

New beginnings. While it is true to say that there are quite a lot of times when the promise does not ever emerge, one also needs to recognize that such a promise can be an enormous challenge especially for those to whom the promise reaches fulfillment.

Here today we have an interesting rune of lessons for the Sunday – marking as it does the (adult) commencement of Jesus’ ministry, and going on to echo some of the difficulties His disciples encountered as they attempted to offer a firm lead to those whom they served. I do have to say that one of my huge difficulties in ministry was in attempting to encourage people to move past their comfort zones, as humans let alone as Christians. We so easily forget that this Faith is a pilgrimage, not a full stop. And if / when we stop moving forward, we actually head backwards. Pilgrimage. Never forget that. When ever Israel became settled, then they stopped growing; whenever they encountered enormous difficulty, they had either to explore and move forward, or revert to a comfortable if not comforting ‘religion.’ (And how I hate that word.)

As mentioned in the notes above, the ‘portion of Scripture appointed to be read as the Epistle’ as it used to be expressed, underlines one of the great and pivotal periods in the history of the Infant Church. With the wisdom of hindsight, we might feel the move to have been easy. But when one has grown up with all the pressure to regard any such response to Gentiles as really denying God, then you have troubles.

Israel, in spite of its written Scriptures, had always considered itself to be God’s Chosen, which is simply another way of saying that no one else was worthy of consideration either by the Almighty, and therefore unworthy from the point of view of the Israelite people. Even Samaritans were considered far beyond the pale, even though they had blood connection, at least in part, to the children of Abraham. Yet oddly enough, one of the unexpected outcomes of Roman occupation was the fact that there were those of Roman and therefore Gentile connection, who were attracted to the Jewish Faith. In one way, that was not surprising; Judaism – for all its faults – must have been head and shoulders above what we may call pagan religion in its concern for moral purity and issues of justice. (I find it rather odd, in this day and age, that people outside Christian Faith do not find similar points of connection and interest – but perhaps they will one day.

Now, on the one hand it is rather beaut to find that there will be people who think and care outside the square; on the other, one needs to realize that people of conviction will still find it very hard to cross boundaries held so firmly by their contemporaries. You may well have found it hard to step outside generally-accepted norms of belief of behaviour; and then go on to wonder who is right and who is wrong. Never imagine that Peter never had such compunctions. On top of that he was – from all the evidence of the New Testament – not the strongest of leaders and quite something of a prevaricator.

But just as the Magi from last week, and Jesus in His baptism from this, the need for the spread to wider fields and to the demolition of bigotry of however many centuries, burst on the hearts and minds of the Infant Church. It caused enormous tensions within the Church, as Acts 15 underlines – it required the collective wisdom of all of the People of the Way. And thank God those people voted the way they did. All the evidence pointed to the need for change even when all the tradition pointed unequivocally back towards narrow vision. Had they not decided so, you would not be sitting in Church or even reading this on the Web. The Faith we profess would have disappeared off the face of the earth something less than 2,000 years ago.

And all that before the Gospel account of Jesus’ baptism. May I underline yet again that when we draw conclusions from the Biblical evidence, we need to take all of it into account, careful not to limit our vision or anyone else’s to a narrow and unbending response to the Father.
The Biblical story traces from the call of Abraham right through to here, and all is connected and interdependent. So the Incarnation never was just some later ‘knee-jerk’ reaction on the part of God because ‘nothing seems to have worked so far.’ The whole story is part of one piece.