I heard on the news this week that last Monday was what is known as Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year. Normally the third Monday of January, this date is apparently not arbitrary. A brief search through that great bastion of all absolute facts, the Google, produced a formula for how this date is selected, taking into account the following factors: “weather conditions, debt level (the difference between debt accumulated and our ability to pay), time since Christmas, time since failing our new year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and feeling of a need to take action.”
Further Google research uncovered, probably to no surprise, that there is actually no scientific proof of January 20th as the most depressing day of the year. In fact, apparently the whole thing started in 2005 as a publicity stunt by a UK travel agency to get people to book vacations. Fun fact: the same guy who invented Blue Monday was also sponsored by an ice cream company to come up with a formula to calculate the happiest day of the year, sometime in mid-June. But, while Blue Monday may be nothing more than an unsuccessful marketing campaign, it is true that winter is hard because we humans need light. Our bodies are attuned to the rhythms of the sun and when, like in winter, our actual schedules do not line up with the sun’s schedule, the result can be a chemical imbalance in our brains that leads to increased fatigue and depression.
We need light. We need light because we are by and large a visual species. Our preference for light is not a modern pop-psychology excuse to stay in bed and watch Netflix in the winter, it is an evolutionary trait honed from the time when the things that hid in the dark could, and probably wanted to, eat us. A time like that of the writer of Isaiah.
Isaiah was talking metaphorically about the people walking in darkness, but it wouldn’t have been a hard metaphor for his audience to understand because the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali were pretty metaphorically dark places. If you’re up on your Old Testament Bible stories or your Andrew Lloyd Weber musicals, you may recognize Zebulun and Naphtali as two of the twelve tribes of Israel. According to scripture, after the conquest of the Promised Land, Joshua allotted land to each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Naphtali was given the northeastern most corner, north of the sea of Galilee, and Zebulun the land directly below it, what after the time of King David became the northern kingdom of Israel. This location meant when the Assyrian Empire started to strengthen and expand in the 8th century BCE, Zebulun and Naphtali were the first line of defense, and the first, therefore, to fall. And Isaiah, if you remember, was a prophet sent to get the southern kingdom to change their ways before what happened to the northern kingdom would happen to them. Which means these people who were in “anguish” and “contempt,” these were a people conquered people, people without safety or security, people without hope. This was what it meant to be people who “lived in a land of deep darkness.”
And to the southern kingdom of Isaiah’s time, these people sort of had this coming. There was great rivalry between the northern and southern kingdoms of what had been Israel, and the south saw the north’s fall as proof that their wicked ways had caused God to turn God’s back on them.
It is these dark and weary people whom Isaiah announced had “seen a great light.” This light comes not from the foreign powers, nor from the people’s efforts, this light comes from the God who had never left them, dark and alone as things had seemed. Because that is one of the cruel characteristics of darkness, when you are in the midst of it you often cannot see what is there alongside you, that potential for light that is just about to break through.
This is the power of the Epiphany season. Epiphany, this season of light, reminds us that even in the midst of darkness, when we cannot see our way through, the light of Christ is with us, just waiting for the right moment of illumination. The light of Christ is not a switch we can turn on; it is not waiting for our action. Rather, it is there beside us, moving in the darkness, though we cannot sense it, until finally we are drawn into recognition of the in-breaking presence of the kingdom of God.
This in-breaking presence is what the writer of Matthew was referring to in quoting Isaiah in our Gospel reading for this morning. We are only just a few verses out from the adult Jesus’ first appearance on the scene following the bold declarations of John the Baptist, yet already things seem to have taken a turn. Verse twelve informs us that John, who had built such a following in announcing Jesus’ arrival as the one “who will baptize…with the Holy Spirit and fire,” had been arrested by Herod and is in prison.
In the face of this setback, Jesus “withdrew [pause]… He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali.” This withdrawal may seem like retreat at first, which is why the writer of Matthew reminded us of the words of the prophet Isaiah. Because “from that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’”
Repentance, this demand by Jesus to repent, feels loaded because we’re used to hearing it from one another. Calls to repent often come from those with very specific definitions of who is in need of it and what such repentance should look like. But remember the one who is doing the calling here is not a person, it is the Word made flesh. The one who is making this call to repentance is Jesus. And repentance to Jesus is restoration to relationship. Jesus, who the writer of Matthew takes pains to remind us, is God with us, is always the actor, always the subject of any sentence, the one whom is driving the transformation of us. To repent there for is not to transform ourselves but to be transformed. To be drawn in to the light of Christ that is already breaking through the horizon.
Like John, Jesus suggests in this passage that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The Greek word here is engidzo, which has this sense of impending to it, like the first hints of grey in the dark of the eastern night sky, like the shifts in the soil of springtime before the crocuses burst forth from the snow. Engidzo says that this thing is coming already and though we cannot yet see it, like a freight train it cannot be stopped.
This thing that is coming is the kingdom of heaven, a new state of affairs in which all are “united in the same mind and the same purpose.” This invitation to repent is not so that we can receive the benefit of this kingdom, for that, remember, is already ours. That is the action that is the grace and the gift of Christ Jesus. Rather, this invitation to repent is so we can be about the work of spreading this kingdom, of sharing this gift with others. We see this call to repentance lived out in the rest of this morning’s Gospel reading when from his withdrawn location in Capernaum, Jesus called Simon and Andrew, who immediately left their nets and followed Jesus as he “went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.” The lectionary would stop us here, but if we go on two more verses we find this great light dawning further and further as Jesus’ “fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics”—read here all those whom society had cast aside as not worth the effort—“and he cured them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.”
Dear friends in Christ, do not believe the lie that the darkness wins. For the pattern of dawn in night, the pattern of winter to spring, the movement of Advent to Epiphany, reminds us again and again, that Christ is with us, though we cannot yet see it. But the in-breaking of the kingdom is at hand. Thanks be to God. Amen.
The extraordinary can look so ordinary
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Bearing Witness - A Sermon on Isaiah 49:1-7 and John 1:29-42
I am fast becoming a fan of Dr. Juliana Claassens, the professor of Old Testament from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. Last Sunday I basically read her commentary on the Isaiah text to you. This week, her commentary started with what is apparently a famous quote from theologian Soren Kierkegaard, though I’d never heard it before, “the door to happiness opens outward.”
Like last week our Isaiah reading for this morning places us among a people whose lives had been upended. Israel returned from the bonds of exile and is now trying to rebuild a community from the ruins. Which is a complicated place to be, because Israel is looking around, as one often does after a major disaster and finds itself faced with conflicting emotions. On one hand, they’re back in Israel. The exile is over and they survived. Things are not as bad as they were, not as bad as they could have been. But on the other hand, things are pretty darn bad. In Isaiah we see a person who is trying to make sense of how both of these conflicting realities could be true, how there could be both gratitude and despair. If it is possible for one to recognize blessing and still honor loss.
Short answer, yes. Yes blessing and grief can co-exist. Yes you can be grateful that things are not as bad as they could be and devastated that things are as bad as they are. Just like we can in fact walk and chew gum at the same time, we have the capacity to be both thankful and heartbroken. The way through this is balance. It is not enough to wallow in the grief, but nor is it helpful to pretend the grief is not real and focus only on the positive. And when faced with two extremes, sometimes the way to find balance is to introduce a third thing.
The thing God introduced for Israel was to turn their focus outward, Kierkegaard’s door to happiness. As we talked about last week, when we are afraid or uncertain our natural human tendency is toward self-preservation. We look inward, trying to bolster our own resources, ensure our own survival. Some of us at least. Others of us try to live in total denial that the bad thing ever happened and focus only on the positive. Friends, hard truth, neither work.
You know how on a plane the flight attendant tells you to put on your own oxygen mask before assisting other people. That is great wisdom for within the confined space of an aircraft, you have to look out for yourself first or you will be unable to look out for others. Fortunately and unfortunately, in the vast open complexity of the world, the strategy of looking out for yourself first before assisting others is often not only inefficient, it more often than not will hasten your own destruction. Because outside of a closed system, we need each other. It is in fact impossible to be fully self-sufficient, to make sure you have everything you need before you help. And if you try, you’ll miss the gifts others have to offer. Take our congregation for an example. The moment we decide we are too important to fail, that we have to make sure we have everything we need to ensure our own survival, that we have adequate resources, training, support, etc. for ourselves before we serve others, that is the moment our doors will shut. Yes, depending on the help, support, and resources of others, people we don’t know, people who might be different than us, who might challenge us, might change us, is scary. But the fact is God created us for each other, God created us to be in relationship with each other. So if you’re on a plane, yes, put your oxygen mask on first. But when you’re not, turns out the mask won’t work if it isn’t connected to another.
Now granted the people God was speaking to in Isaiah weren’t on a plane, or for that matter had any idea what a plane was, but that was essentially God’s message to Israel. The way to survive the upheaval of everything you knew is to reach out to others. Listen to the flow of this text. “The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me. He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away. And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” So here we have Israel declared God’s servant, in whom God will be glorified, hidden away. Think of the history of Israel. Way way back, Abraham had been promised his descendant would number the stars, and it was a rough road from then on. They ended up slaves in Egypt. God led them out of Egypt and established for them a nation. They wanted a king. God gave them Saul, he wasn’t a winner. Then they got David, he was better but definitely still had his down moments. Israel split into two, the northern kingdom was destroyed, then the southern, and then the people went into exile. This history of struggle and failure is clear in verse four, “But I said, ‘I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity.’” Listen to the despair in that, God you said we were your people, we tried to do what you wanted, to remain faithful. But here we are, amidst the ruins of your city, Jerusalem your jewel now destroyed, so what was the point of it all. But God, who remember in verse three just declared them to be God’s servant, goes on: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant[,] to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel. [No,] I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” Friends, how would we live if we truly believed that? What would we do, who would we be, how would we live if we truly believed that the door to happiness, to fulfillment, to not just survival but satisfaction and faith and wholeness, lay in the opportunity to share with others? In this Isaiah text we have a God who says to us, you are not my servant, you are more than that. And this promise is not to Israel, it is wider than that. Friends to me that just feels like freedom because it means it’s out of my hands. It feels like freedom, it feels like purpose, and it feels like trust.
Which brings us to John. First, just as a point of clarification, let’s remember that John is a super common name in the Bible. You might remember from the Passion story on Good Friday there were three women all named Mary. Jesus’ “mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene.” The name John is like that. There’s a million of them. So the John we’re reading about in this story is not the same John who wrote the Gospel of John. So we’ve got John who, like I mentioned last week, is an important enough character to appear in all four Gospel accounts. But John in the Gospel of John differs from John in Matthew, Mark, and Luke in this way. In John’s Gospel, John talks about baptism but we never actually see him baptizing. John’s real role in John’s Gospel is not baptizer but witness. John’s job is to witness to who Jesus is, John baptizes in order to witness.
The John from John’s Gospel is a great one to start Epiphany with because this John is one we can emulate. Obviously, the call to travel to the wilderness to begin a mission of baptizing people in the river and eventually baptize the son of God himself is not something we can all aspire to. But we can all aspire to do what John does in this text, we can all aspire to witness. We can all aspire to look for the presence, the action, the spirit of God in the world and to say, “Look, here is the Lamb of God.”
Pointing out God’s presence in the world may seem so simple, too simple, to matter. But look how this story unfolded. Jesus’ first disciples did not begin to follow because Jesus called them. They were not impressed with Christ’s message or transformed by his power. Jesus didn’t heal them or feed them or even speak to them. Verse thirty-five: “John was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.” One of those two turned out be Andrew, who brought his brother Simon, soon to be called Peter. Then through Andrew and Simon, Jesus met Philip, and Philip brought Nathanael, and you see where this is going, a long string of witnesses across time and space that leads all the way to us. All because John said, “Look.”
Dear friends in Christ, our witness matters. Our words matter. When we speak out against injustice, when we lift our voices to point out God’s presence, when we support each other, when we serve our neighbor, these things change things. Verse thirty-seven is the last appearance John makes in the Gospel of John, as he watched his own disciples walk away from him at his own command. We know from the synoptics that John won’t even live to see the resurrection, so it is very likely that John never knew the impact his words, his witness had on the world. But we know that they did, for we gather today as heirs of that first call to look and to follow.
So again, the same question the Isaiah text left us with, in Epiphany we become witnesses to the presence of Christ in the world. What would you do if you truly saw Christ? And what will you do now that you have? Amen.
Like last week our Isaiah reading for this morning places us among a people whose lives had been upended. Israel returned from the bonds of exile and is now trying to rebuild a community from the ruins. Which is a complicated place to be, because Israel is looking around, as one often does after a major disaster and finds itself faced with conflicting emotions. On one hand, they’re back in Israel. The exile is over and they survived. Things are not as bad as they were, not as bad as they could have been. But on the other hand, things are pretty darn bad. In Isaiah we see a person who is trying to make sense of how both of these conflicting realities could be true, how there could be both gratitude and despair. If it is possible for one to recognize blessing and still honor loss.
Short answer, yes. Yes blessing and grief can co-exist. Yes you can be grateful that things are not as bad as they could be and devastated that things are as bad as they are. Just like we can in fact walk and chew gum at the same time, we have the capacity to be both thankful and heartbroken. The way through this is balance. It is not enough to wallow in the grief, but nor is it helpful to pretend the grief is not real and focus only on the positive. And when faced with two extremes, sometimes the way to find balance is to introduce a third thing.
The thing God introduced for Israel was to turn their focus outward, Kierkegaard’s door to happiness. As we talked about last week, when we are afraid or uncertain our natural human tendency is toward self-preservation. We look inward, trying to bolster our own resources, ensure our own survival. Some of us at least. Others of us try to live in total denial that the bad thing ever happened and focus only on the positive. Friends, hard truth, neither work.
You know how on a plane the flight attendant tells you to put on your own oxygen mask before assisting other people. That is great wisdom for within the confined space of an aircraft, you have to look out for yourself first or you will be unable to look out for others. Fortunately and unfortunately, in the vast open complexity of the world, the strategy of looking out for yourself first before assisting others is often not only inefficient, it more often than not will hasten your own destruction. Because outside of a closed system, we need each other. It is in fact impossible to be fully self-sufficient, to make sure you have everything you need before you help. And if you try, you’ll miss the gifts others have to offer. Take our congregation for an example. The moment we decide we are too important to fail, that we have to make sure we have everything we need to ensure our own survival, that we have adequate resources, training, support, etc. for ourselves before we serve others, that is the moment our doors will shut. Yes, depending on the help, support, and resources of others, people we don’t know, people who might be different than us, who might challenge us, might change us, is scary. But the fact is God created us for each other, God created us to be in relationship with each other. So if you’re on a plane, yes, put your oxygen mask on first. But when you’re not, turns out the mask won’t work if it isn’t connected to another.
Now granted the people God was speaking to in Isaiah weren’t on a plane, or for that matter had any idea what a plane was, but that was essentially God’s message to Israel. The way to survive the upheaval of everything you knew is to reach out to others. Listen to the flow of this text. “The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me. He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away. And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” So here we have Israel declared God’s servant, in whom God will be glorified, hidden away. Think of the history of Israel. Way way back, Abraham had been promised his descendant would number the stars, and it was a rough road from then on. They ended up slaves in Egypt. God led them out of Egypt and established for them a nation. They wanted a king. God gave them Saul, he wasn’t a winner. Then they got David, he was better but definitely still had his down moments. Israel split into two, the northern kingdom was destroyed, then the southern, and then the people went into exile. This history of struggle and failure is clear in verse four, “But I said, ‘I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity.’” Listen to the despair in that, God you said we were your people, we tried to do what you wanted, to remain faithful. But here we are, amidst the ruins of your city, Jerusalem your jewel now destroyed, so what was the point of it all. But God, who remember in verse three just declared them to be God’s servant, goes on: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant[,] to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel. [No,] I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” Friends, how would we live if we truly believed that? What would we do, who would we be, how would we live if we truly believed that the door to happiness, to fulfillment, to not just survival but satisfaction and faith and wholeness, lay in the opportunity to share with others? In this Isaiah text we have a God who says to us, you are not my servant, you are more than that. And this promise is not to Israel, it is wider than that. Friends to me that just feels like freedom because it means it’s out of my hands. It feels like freedom, it feels like purpose, and it feels like trust.
Which brings us to John. First, just as a point of clarification, let’s remember that John is a super common name in the Bible. You might remember from the Passion story on Good Friday there were three women all named Mary. Jesus’ “mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene.” The name John is like that. There’s a million of them. So the John we’re reading about in this story is not the same John who wrote the Gospel of John. So we’ve got John who, like I mentioned last week, is an important enough character to appear in all four Gospel accounts. But John in the Gospel of John differs from John in Matthew, Mark, and Luke in this way. In John’s Gospel, John talks about baptism but we never actually see him baptizing. John’s real role in John’s Gospel is not baptizer but witness. John’s job is to witness to who Jesus is, John baptizes in order to witness.
The John from John’s Gospel is a great one to start Epiphany with because this John is one we can emulate. Obviously, the call to travel to the wilderness to begin a mission of baptizing people in the river and eventually baptize the son of God himself is not something we can all aspire to. But we can all aspire to do what John does in this text, we can all aspire to witness. We can all aspire to look for the presence, the action, the spirit of God in the world and to say, “Look, here is the Lamb of God.”
Pointing out God’s presence in the world may seem so simple, too simple, to matter. But look how this story unfolded. Jesus’ first disciples did not begin to follow because Jesus called them. They were not impressed with Christ’s message or transformed by his power. Jesus didn’t heal them or feed them or even speak to them. Verse thirty-five: “John was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.” One of those two turned out be Andrew, who brought his brother Simon, soon to be called Peter. Then through Andrew and Simon, Jesus met Philip, and Philip brought Nathanael, and you see where this is going, a long string of witnesses across time and space that leads all the way to us. All because John said, “Look.”
Dear friends in Christ, our witness matters. Our words matter. When we speak out against injustice, when we lift our voices to point out God’s presence, when we support each other, when we serve our neighbor, these things change things. Verse thirty-seven is the last appearance John makes in the Gospel of John, as he watched his own disciples walk away from him at his own command. We know from the synoptics that John won’t even live to see the resurrection, so it is very likely that John never knew the impact his words, his witness had on the world. But we know that they did, for we gather today as heirs of that first call to look and to follow.
So again, the same question the Isaiah text left us with, in Epiphany we become witnesses to the presence of Christ in the world. What would you do if you truly saw Christ? And what will you do now that you have? Amen.
Monday, January 13, 2020
A Map of Hope: A Sermon on Isaiah 42:1-9; Matthew 3:13-17; and Acts 10:34-43
It’s Baptism of our Lord Sunday this morning, so we’ll get to baptism eventually. But 2020 feels like it’s started with a rush. I read a commentary on Isaiah this week that gave me hope in the midst of this, so I want to start us out with Isaiah. Juliana Claassens, Professor of Old Testament at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, characterized Isaiah as “a map of hope for disoriented and dislocated people at risk of losing their bearings.” I read that and found myself taking a deep breath, thinking, “a map of hope is exactly what I’m searching for right now.”
“So,” Claassens asked, “how does a prophet go about talking to people who have been completely traumatized by seeing their city destroyed, their family and friends killed or taken away in shackles to a foreign land and who even feel that God has deserted them?” What Isaiah gives us here and throughout this book is a variety of images to help us see God in new ways, and thus see God with us in the midst of unexpected chaos, tragedy, and fear. God in Isaiah is both a mighty warrior who will deliver God’s people and a shepherd who clutches the little lamb. God is a divine warrior and a woman in labor. God is a highway in the desert, God is water in the wilderness, God is that wilderness flourishing. God is sight to the blind, God is light and life to those in dark dungeons. God is the bruised reed that will not break, the dimly burning wick that will not quench. In contrast to the image of God depicted in the psalm we read, which another commentary I read described simply as “loud,” here we see quiet, steady persistence. This one “will not cry or lift up his voice,” yet neither will he “grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth.”
First off, as one who, as you know, is not one to raise my voice, I found great comfort in this idea that there is a place and a role for quiet, steady, persistence. That justice can, and in this passage is, established not by the mighty but by those whom God has “called in righteousness… taken by the hand and kept… [and] given as a covenant to the people.” But more than that, Claassens went on to note “the remarkable thing we see in this text is how the people who have been traumatized are called not to do the typical human thing of what has been called “circling the wagons”… in Isaiah 42, the prophet offers a vision of the world in which an individual or a group of people in the midst of brokenness, in spite of brokenness, or maybe because of brokenness, will be a light to the nations.”
This passage, and Claassens read of it, is hope for me in two ways. First it says that we do not have to be mighty and powerful to be the ones God takes by the hand to do justice. We do not have to be the ones who have never been knocked down, who have it all together, to be “called in righteousness.” Claassens even quoted the great theologian Leonard Cohen, “Forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything, but that’s where the light gets in.” And second, the message of Isaiah to the people of its time and to us is that in the midst of the most difficult times, in the midst of the times when things feel the most out of control, the most broken down, when we feel the most helpless, God is still with us. And not just with us, God is moving us. God is leading us, guiding us, moving us out, not just for ourselves but for the sake of the whole world. I don’t know about you, dear people of God, but this promise of hope and the transformative power of compassion was, is, a message I need in this time where I feel so little power and control.
Which brings us to Matthew and the baptism of Jesus. The passage opens with Jesus coming to John in the wilderness to be baptized. This is important because it demonstrates Jesus’ control over the situation. By having Jesus travel all the way from Galilee to the Judean wilderness in order to be baptized, we see the first sign of the upside-down nature of the kingdom of God. In Jesus’ baptism by John we see Jesus define his identity in submission to another. Jesus maintained control by placing his ministry in the hands of another. John’s mission was to baptize and bear witness, Jesus came to John in the Jordan in order that John might fulfill that mission. Dr. Eugene Boring called this a “literary preemptive strike.” Given the current state of world affairs, Dr. Boring’s description struck me because this preemptive strike of Jesus’ is so unlike the definition of a preemptive strike I’m used to. Now, this is not to say anything about the necessity or benefit of any military action. There are certainly times and places in which preemptive strikes are necessary to save lives and prevent worse violence. But the very nature of a preemptive strike is a move to retain power, and in Jesus’ preemptive strike we see a move to share power. This is a very different definition of power. This is the “power made perfect in weakness” that Paul will talk about in Romans, when Jesus the sinless came to be baptized “with water for repentance,” before taking his place as the one who will “baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
John himself questioned this move. Now wait a second here Jesus, “‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.’” Let me read that again, “for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” As we saw with Joseph righteously going against the law and refusing to divorce his wife, righteousness in Matthew’s Gospel is about being in right relationship with God, it is about living in the way God has revealed even when that way of living goes completely against the religious, social, and cultural expectations of what it means to be righteous.
Jesus’ baptism is a fulfillment of righteousness because in Jesus’ baptism God is revealed. In this moment we see the heavens opened, the Spirit descending like a dove, and a voice from heaven proclaiming “This [this one, this one right here, This] is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, and at his baptism, Jesus’ identity is made abundantly clear.
And baptism for us too is a fulfillment of all righteousness, because in our baptism our identities too are made clear. In the waters of baptism we bear witness to the death of Christ, which takes away the bonds of sin and death that separate us from God and the declaration that with Christ we too are resurrected, we are made new, claimed as God’s beloved children. In the Acts text, Peter declared “We are witnesses to all that [Jesus] did both in Judea and Jerusalem” and in baptism we too become witnesses to all that God has done. That, as an aside, is why we baptize infants in the Lutheran church. We baptize infants because baptism is not a choice we make, it is a promise God makes to us. In baptism, God says, this is my child, my beloved. This one can never be separated from me. The promise that God made is true whether you chose to be baptized as an adult or whether someone chose for you as an infant. Because the act of baptism is God’s declaration to us.
As Peter declared to Cornelius and his family, we have been chosen by God as witnesses to this good news: That God shows no partiality, but in every nation everyone is acceptable, everyone is welcome, everyone is a part of God’s family. As Isaiah declared to the people of Israel so long ago, so it is declared to us today. “I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord, that is my name… See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.” Dear people of God, you, we, are the ones God has called, through the waters of baptism, to be light to the world. So do not fear, persist, for God “will not faint or be crushed until justice has been established in the earth,” and we are the ones God has sent to do it. Thanks be to God. Amen.
“So,” Claassens asked, “how does a prophet go about talking to people who have been completely traumatized by seeing their city destroyed, their family and friends killed or taken away in shackles to a foreign land and who even feel that God has deserted them?” What Isaiah gives us here and throughout this book is a variety of images to help us see God in new ways, and thus see God with us in the midst of unexpected chaos, tragedy, and fear. God in Isaiah is both a mighty warrior who will deliver God’s people and a shepherd who clutches the little lamb. God is a divine warrior and a woman in labor. God is a highway in the desert, God is water in the wilderness, God is that wilderness flourishing. God is sight to the blind, God is light and life to those in dark dungeons. God is the bruised reed that will not break, the dimly burning wick that will not quench. In contrast to the image of God depicted in the psalm we read, which another commentary I read described simply as “loud,” here we see quiet, steady persistence. This one “will not cry or lift up his voice,” yet neither will he “grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth.”
First off, as one who, as you know, is not one to raise my voice, I found great comfort in this idea that there is a place and a role for quiet, steady, persistence. That justice can, and in this passage is, established not by the mighty but by those whom God has “called in righteousness… taken by the hand and kept… [and] given as a covenant to the people.” But more than that, Claassens went on to note “the remarkable thing we see in this text is how the people who have been traumatized are called not to do the typical human thing of what has been called “circling the wagons”… in Isaiah 42, the prophet offers a vision of the world in which an individual or a group of people in the midst of brokenness, in spite of brokenness, or maybe because of brokenness, will be a light to the nations.”
This passage, and Claassens read of it, is hope for me in two ways. First it says that we do not have to be mighty and powerful to be the ones God takes by the hand to do justice. We do not have to be the ones who have never been knocked down, who have it all together, to be “called in righteousness.” Claassens even quoted the great theologian Leonard Cohen, “Forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything, but that’s where the light gets in.” And second, the message of Isaiah to the people of its time and to us is that in the midst of the most difficult times, in the midst of the times when things feel the most out of control, the most broken down, when we feel the most helpless, God is still with us. And not just with us, God is moving us. God is leading us, guiding us, moving us out, not just for ourselves but for the sake of the whole world. I don’t know about you, dear people of God, but this promise of hope and the transformative power of compassion was, is, a message I need in this time where I feel so little power and control.
Which brings us to Matthew and the baptism of Jesus. The passage opens with Jesus coming to John in the wilderness to be baptized. This is important because it demonstrates Jesus’ control over the situation. By having Jesus travel all the way from Galilee to the Judean wilderness in order to be baptized, we see the first sign of the upside-down nature of the kingdom of God. In Jesus’ baptism by John we see Jesus define his identity in submission to another. Jesus maintained control by placing his ministry in the hands of another. John’s mission was to baptize and bear witness, Jesus came to John in the Jordan in order that John might fulfill that mission. Dr. Eugene Boring called this a “literary preemptive strike.” Given the current state of world affairs, Dr. Boring’s description struck me because this preemptive strike of Jesus’ is so unlike the definition of a preemptive strike I’m used to. Now, this is not to say anything about the necessity or benefit of any military action. There are certainly times and places in which preemptive strikes are necessary to save lives and prevent worse violence. But the very nature of a preemptive strike is a move to retain power, and in Jesus’ preemptive strike we see a move to share power. This is a very different definition of power. This is the “power made perfect in weakness” that Paul will talk about in Romans, when Jesus the sinless came to be baptized “with water for repentance,” before taking his place as the one who will “baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
John himself questioned this move. Now wait a second here Jesus, “‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.’” Let me read that again, “for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” As we saw with Joseph righteously going against the law and refusing to divorce his wife, righteousness in Matthew’s Gospel is about being in right relationship with God, it is about living in the way God has revealed even when that way of living goes completely against the religious, social, and cultural expectations of what it means to be righteous.
Jesus’ baptism is a fulfillment of righteousness because in Jesus’ baptism God is revealed. In this moment we see the heavens opened, the Spirit descending like a dove, and a voice from heaven proclaiming “This [this one, this one right here, This] is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, and at his baptism, Jesus’ identity is made abundantly clear.
And baptism for us too is a fulfillment of all righteousness, because in our baptism our identities too are made clear. In the waters of baptism we bear witness to the death of Christ, which takes away the bonds of sin and death that separate us from God and the declaration that with Christ we too are resurrected, we are made new, claimed as God’s beloved children. In the Acts text, Peter declared “We are witnesses to all that [Jesus] did both in Judea and Jerusalem” and in baptism we too become witnesses to all that God has done. That, as an aside, is why we baptize infants in the Lutheran church. We baptize infants because baptism is not a choice we make, it is a promise God makes to us. In baptism, God says, this is my child, my beloved. This one can never be separated from me. The promise that God made is true whether you chose to be baptized as an adult or whether someone chose for you as an infant. Because the act of baptism is God’s declaration to us.
As Peter declared to Cornelius and his family, we have been chosen by God as witnesses to this good news: That God shows no partiality, but in every nation everyone is acceptable, everyone is welcome, everyone is a part of God’s family. As Isaiah declared to the people of Israel so long ago, so it is declared to us today. “I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord, that is my name… See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.” Dear people of God, you, we, are the ones God has called, through the waters of baptism, to be light to the world. So do not fear, persist, for God “will not faint or be crushed until justice has been established in the earth,” and we are the ones God has sent to do it. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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