Don Friesen
The first baptism I ever witnessed was a river baptism the baptism of my sister and brother in the North Saskatchewan River. The riverbanks were muddy, shoes and clothes quickly became dirty, and the river water, if I recollect, was not a pristine blue-green, like those fast-moving rivers in the Rockies.
It's been years since I've gathered with the saints for a river baptism. Most churches don't gather at the river anymore to baptize the young in faith. Some polluted rivers may necessitate a pre-baptism tetanus shot. We have taken baptism indoors, and removed most of the drama. In fact, I was once summoned by the matriarch of a family whose grandson was about to be baptized and told to use considerably more water! She was probably right!
I remember another river baptism, this one in Alberta. A grown man was immersed in a cool and swift-moving mountain stream. It was very moving to see a manly, proud and accomplished man humbly confess that he needed to die to sin and rise to a new life, a spiritual experience made visible in the submersion of that man in the river and then his lifting up.
The Bible: A River Runs through it
Rivers run throughout the Bible. Already in the Garden of Eden, Genesis tells us, "a river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches." (Genesis 2:10) Four rivers. Four rivers important enough that we are told their names. Important enough that John Milton (1608-1674) refers to them in Paradise Lost, and adds the intriguing element of Satan entering Eden by an underground channel of the Tigris which, says Milton, "rose up a fountain by the tree of life".
Rivers run all through the Bible, all the way to the book of Revelation, where at the "river ...of life" (Revelation 22:1) we meet, once again, the "tree of life". (22:2) Significant things happen at and in these biblical rivers. By the "rivers of Babylon" the children of Israel sat down and wept (Psalm 137:1), forlorn refugees longing for their homeland, their songs of joy stuck in their throats. At the river that runs through the city of Philippi the Apostle Paul met some women on a Sabbath morning. (Acts 16:13-15) They regularly gathered at the river to pray. And by that river Paul sat down, told the women about Jesus, and one of them Lydia opened her heart to God and asked to be baptized, and was baptized presumably in that very river.
The River Jordan
A very important river baptism took place at the Jordan. A scruffy prophet, the first one seen in centuries, was baptizing people who came to hear his message of renewal, however uncouthly uttered. John told those gathered at the river that after him another prophet would come, one whose sandals John was not worthy to hold! In fact, when Jesus came to the Jordan to be baptized by John, John hesitated. Jesus insisted, however, and John then immersed Jesus in the muddy Jordan. As he came up out of the river, the Gospel of Matthew tells us that "suddenly the heavens ...opened ...and (Jesus) saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.'" (Matthew 3:16-17)
Each year we mark the baptism of Jesus because it is important, and because several things about Jesus' baptism are instructive for us. In light of Jesus' instruction to the Church to baptize "all nations" (Matthew 28:19), early Christian interpreters quickly came to view Jesus' baptism as a model for Christian baptism.
What happened at the River Jordan? Many theories have been proposed through the centuries, and there is no small controversy about why Jesus was baptized by John, because John's baptism was "for the forgiveness of sins". (Mark 1:4) Matthew is not interested in the controversy; he simply reports that Jesus submitted himself to John's baptism, telling us that God required it. (Matthew 3:15) The colourful and vivid images used by Matthew to describe this river baptism, however, convey a lot, and I would like to focus on two of them this morning as a way of reflecting upon our own baptism. And, in fact, later this year, we are planning a service at which you will be invited to renew your own baptismal commitment. Today's service may also be an occasion for young people considering baptism to think about it.
At the Baptismal River we Discover God's Pleasure in us
The first thing that strikes me about Jesus' baptism is the voice from heaven. At the baptismal river Jesus discovered God's pleasure in him. He discovered and experienced God's pleasure in him. As Jesus rose up out of the water, "a voice from heaven said, This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.'" (Matthew 3:17) Other translations read:
I imagine that Jesus left his baptism with a strong and confirmed sense of identity and destiny, for to experience the love and favour of God would leave an indelible mark upon you. God was delighted with Jesus, and God expressed His pleasure and delight! Certainly doubts might surface later in life, as in the Garden of Gethsemane, but the approval Jesus felt as he began his ministry must have strengthened him throughout his life.
No doubt you've heard me tell the story of Walt Whitman (1819-1892), a nineteenth-century poet who had difficulty getting anyone to take his writing seriously. It was very discouraging. Then one day he received a note which read: "Dear Sir, I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of Leaves of Grass. I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom.... I greet you at the beginning of a great career." The note was signed by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Whitman took great encouragement from it, and from that day wrote with greater confidence.
I think of another writer, Mary Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964), who wrote a story about a baptism called "The River". Flannery O'Connor was born and raised in Georgia, and the story, "The River," is a little strange, but then Flannery O'Connor, when she was six, taught a chicken to walk backwards. A film of her trained chicken was shown across the country. She said of the film, "I was in it too with the chicken. I was just there to assist the chicken but it was the high point in my life. Everything since has been anticlimax." (Rosemary M. Magee, Conversations with Flannery O'Connor, 1987, page 38)
The chicken is a delightful digression, but back to the main point. In Flannery O'Connor's story, a boy named Harry, whose affluent and hung-over parents have little interest in him, is taken to a river baptism by his sitter. The preacher asks the boy, "Have you ever been baptized?"
"What's that?" asked the boy.
"If I baptize you," the preacher said, "you'll be able to go to the kingdom of Christ. You'll be washed in the river.... You'll go by the deep river of life. Do you want that?"
"Yes," said the boy, thinking that he wouldn't have to go back to his parents then.
"You won't be the same again," said the preacher, "You'll count."
And then, without warning he tightened his hold on the boy and swung him upside down, and plunged his head into the water. "He held him under while he said the words of baptism and then he jerked him up again and looked sternly at the gasping child."
"You count now," the preacher said. "You didn't ...count before." The boy was too shocked to cry, and too busy spitting out the muddy water and rubbing his wet sleeve over his face to answer. ("The River," Hearing the Call Across Traditions: Readings on Faith and Service, by Adam Davis, 2009, pages 65-82)
An unusual baptism. A little crude, perhaps, but the point is clear enough. You may have been of no account before, but now you count! "Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." (1 Peter 2:10) "In the past you had no experience of (God's) mercy, but now it is intimately yours." (2:10, PHL) At the baptismal river sinners become saints and no-account people count after all. Long before we are able to do anything that we think might earn or merit God's favour, God, in grace, says to us, "You are my dear child, and that pleases me".
At the Baptismal River we Receive our Mission
If at the baptismal river we discover God's pleasure in us, at the same river we receive our mission. The river is our starting point. Sometimes baptism carries the connotation of having arrived. Some of us may hesitate to be baptized because we first want to get our life in order, and then request baptism. Baptism cannot be earned, nor is it a sign that we have figured it all out, nor is it the be-all and end-all. In fact, Jesus, still wet from his baptism, left the baptismal river and started doing what he was called to do, ministering to the downcast, the brokenhearted, the hungry, the thirsty, those suffering from disease, and those suffering estrangement.
Jesus' baptism serves as a model for our baptism. It marks the beginning of a spiritual journey. At the River Jordan God laid claim on Jesus' life, blessed him, but then sent him on his way. So too baptism is a beginning for us. It marks our desire to see the world differently, to see each other differently, to see ourselves differently, and to relate to each and to the world differently.
The words used by Matthew to describe Jesus' baptism indicate that Jesus' destiny was patterned after that of the Suffering Servant. The first of four Suffering Servant songs is quoted from Isaiah 42. Jesus identified himself with the Suffering Servant's mission, which is to establish justice on the earth, to be a revelation to all nations, to open the eyes of the blind and to proclaim the liberty of captives. Jesus' baptism was, in effect, his commissioning for service, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus to inspire and empower him for his mission.
Our baptism is our commissioning for what is in many respects an impossible mission, and one for which only God's immense pleasure in us can empower us. Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shahib Nye (1952- ) wrote the intriguing lines:
("Famous," Words Under the Words: Selected Poems, 1994, page 80)
Few of us, however, want to be a button-hole in the kingdom of God. An accomplished leader of the church confessed that he was annoyed by an observation he heard, that you can do a lot of good in the world if you don't mind who gets the credit for it. You have to be a saint not to want some recognition a saint like the Apostle Paul, who wrote, "I do not consider my own life important or valuable ...so long as I can finish my course and complete the ministry which ...Jesus has given me...." (Acts 20:24, PHL)
In a similar vein Paul wrote, in Philippians, "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. ... I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung...." (Philippians 3:7-8, KJV)
I recall a conversation I had with my brother when I was young and discouraged and overwhelmed by the futility of life which is different from being old and discouraged and disgruntled and I said something similar to what the Apostle Paul said only I used the vernacular and he responded that even that particular item has a very useful role as fertilizer. It's frustrating when someone interrupts one's reverie about life's vanity, and even more so to discover that even things you deemed of no account have a purpose.
Jump! The Baptismal River Invites our Trust
There's one more thing the river asks of us, and that is trust. Erland Waltner, who passed away two years ago at the age of 94, was the president of the Mennonite seminary when Dorothy and I attended there. He was a well-respected Bible teacher and church leader. He took on great challenges, but he said that he would describe his faith when he was young as a "spirituality of the road". He likened his time with God in those years to a pit stop in the Indianapolis 500, when racers stop to refuel and check tires before hurrying back into the fast lane as quickly as possible. ("From Road to River Spirituality," in Godward: Personal Stories of Grace, by Ted Koontz, 1996, page 176)
In his elderly years Waltner talked more of a "spirituality of the river," in which he nurtured a deeper trust in God than he did in his early years. He learned to be carried by the river no small task, he admitted, when, like him, he never really mastered the ability to swim. It's hard to let go. It's hard to trust a spiritual dynamic caught by Susan Ruach in a poem called, "A New Way of Struggling".
To struggle used to be
But there is another way
("A New Way of Struggling," by Susan W.N. Ruach, cited in "From Road to River Spirituality," by Erland Waltner, Godward: Personal Stories of Grace, by Ted Koontz, 1996, pages 175-180)
Delight! I'm not sure that's what I felt at my own baptism. It was a solemn occasion, and an important occasion, a moving moment not without joy, but delight? Baptism was cast more in the manner that I, sinful, wormy wretch, should be so lucky as to be allowed to squeak into the kingdom of God. That God might delight in my baptism never occurred to me. And yet at Jesus' baptism the delight and favour of God is almost palpable.
I want to be famous
That's an amazing image! A buttonhole! Nothing but a hole, yet essential for holding a small button, which in turn keeps your shirt or blouse fastened. A good button-hole holds that button with just enough slack to allow the button through, but is tight enough to keep that button in place. On an entire fashionable ensemble a button-hole doesn't exactly have a place of honour! Very few fashion experts comment on button-holes, but they play a very important role in projecting your best sartorial self. Were button-holes to get uppity, complaining about the lack of attention they get, they might just let you hold all the cloth together yourself! Often a button-hole is the only thing standing between you and embarrassment!
...
I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.
To grab with both hands
and shake
and twist
and turn
and push
and shove and not give in
But wrest an answer from it all
As Jacob did a blessing.
To struggle with an issue, a question
Simply to jump
off
into the abyss
and find ourselves
floating
falling
tumbling
being led
slowly and gently
but surely
to the answers God has for us
to watch the answers unfold
before our eyes and still
to be a part of the unfolding
But oh! the trust
May we, as we remember, or anticipate, our baptism,
necessary for this new way!
Not to be always reaching out
For the old hand-holds.
be assured of God's pleasure in us;
be inspired to continue our God-given mission, however humble;
and learn to trust in God. AMEN
Quotations of Scripture are from the New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise noted.