Scripture Readings: Genesis 9:8–17 | Psalm 25 | 1 Peter 3:18–22 | Mark 1:9–15
“For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God.” (1 Peter 3:18a). Here we are again, at the first Sunday of Lent: the season of solemn preparation for Holy Week… when Christians step back into the story of Jesus Christ our Saviour, and all that He has done for us… choosing the path of the cross, enduring suffering, shame, and death to set the world free. It's a time when Christians remember the Good News that’s at the heart of all that we say and do… and it’s a time for us to reflect on our own lives, and to take steps to have them re-aligned to the ways of God. And for those who are just starting out in their journey of faith, Lent has long been a time of preparation for baptism… a time for new believers to learn the depths of, and respond to, the Good News of Jesus Christ… turning from the old ways of selfishness and sin, and being bound to the life of our Saviour… immersed in Jesus, once and for all. And so our Scripture readings this morning invites you and I to reflect on the depths of what baptism means for the people of God: whether we were baptized sometime in the distant past, or if that sacred step might still lie before us, today we’re called to contemplate the world-changing reality that baptism invites us to share in. The roots of the reality of baptism go way back in God’s story… and our first reading today calls us to turn back to Genesis, and remember a truly ancient account of life being delivered from disaster: the story of the great Flood. Now we don’t have time this morning to read through the whole Flood story as told in the book of Genesis, but I would highly recommend reading it, or reading it again if it’s been a while. For many of us, it’s hard to see how the Flood narrative fits into the story of God’s great rescue mission. We tend not to think too much about it, or what this part of Scripture is trying to say to us… both about ourselves and the dire consequences of our choices, as individuals and as communities… and also what this story is saying about the Living God, and what He is up to in our world. But to keep things moving this morning, I’ll just make a few points that this story from Genesis wants to drive home. First off, the motivation behind the flood is not God’s anger, but His profound grief… grief at seeing what we humans were doing to His good world, and to each other… heading fast for self-destruction. And so, out of anguish, God chooses to bring an end to the extreme bloodshed and violence that had consumed His creation… drowning our infectious wickedness, as the waters of chaos and death are unleashed… while carefully preserving life through Noah and his ark. In short, it's not a story of an uncaring God venting misplaced anger on an innocent world. It’s a story of a God full of compassion and mercy… and who as a last resort, takes severe but ultimately life-saving steps to give His world a brand new beginning it could not have given itself. A new beginning based on a promise, which we read this morning in Genesis Chapter 9:9-11, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” As severe as this act of salvation was, the Living God promises that it will never take place again… not because people had changed, as it turns out… but because of God’s gracious commitment to make peace with His broken but still beloved world. And so the story goes on… through God’s partnerships with Abraham, and the people of Israel Abraham’s descendants… as the LORD keeps graciously working with sinful, self-centered people (like us!), to bring about His great rescue mission… to bring about an ultimate new beginning that will endure, and have no end. Turning now to our reading today from the Gospel of Mark, we hear the story of Jesus of Nazareth as He goes out to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. Now John’s ministry was all about new beginnings for God’s people, who John said had gotten seriously off track, and now desperately needed to turn around. The act of going under the waters and out again in baptism evoked many stories from Israel’s Scriptures… stories that brought to mind the ways that the Living God had graciously saved His people in the past. Stories like Noah and the Flood. And stories like Moses leading God’s people from slavery to freedom through the Red Sea that God parted for them. Or the story of how Joshua led God’s people out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land, crossing the very same Jordan River, again on dry land, as God provided the way for them. All these stories reminded God’s people that they were called to die to these old ways of life… to wickedness, and slavery to sin… and turn to God who could bring them through the deadly waters and give them a new beginning. John’s practice of baptism was about giving God’s people a tangible way to practice repentance… to turn back to the Living God and His ways wholeheartedly, holding nothing back, and stepping into… being immersed in the stories of God’s saving mercy and love. Does this describe our experience as Christians today? Are we wholeheartedly turning our lives over to God? Or are we, like so many before us in the Scriptures and in our whole human story, more often than not turning our hearts away from the LORD, and retracing the old paths that keep leading us towards selfishness, sin, and destruction? As Christians today we too are called, again and again, to seek to be true to this new beginning we have been given. Whenever we struggle, and fall, and fail to follow God’s ways, we must turn around, repent, and believe… Believe what? Believe we can pick ourselves up? No. Believe that our mistakes are not that big of a deal? No. Believe what? Believe the Good News... the promise that our new beginning in baptism rests completely upon… We believe in Jesus Christ, our Saviour, and what He has done for us, once and for all. Jesus, the beloved Son of God… the One who is always at one with His Father, in heart, purpose, and action… the One who is completely without the sin and self-centeredness that has plagued humanity since the start. This same Jesus, the Gospel writers tell us, did not seek to keep Himself at a safe distance from our wickedness… but instead, He bound Himself to us while we were still sinners… He joined God’s people, who were all in desperate need of new beginnings, at the Jordan River, and He stepped into the waters with us… immersing Himself in our broken, sin-soaked story… bearing its terrible weight on His shoulders for us… for our salvation. In wholehearted devotion to His Heavenly Father, Jesus reclaims our messed up human story… reliving it faithfully in ways we never could, and step by step, our Saviour took upon Himself all of the consequences of our failures… suffering all the rejection, condemnation, cruelty, and shame that we could muster… letting us nailed Him, the beloved Son of God to the cross… completely immersed in our rejection of God’s ways, and dying our cursed death. But the Good News is this was not the end of His story. This was instead the way the Living God brought about His glorious new beginning… for His beloved Son, and for all of creation. Jesus did not suffer and die in vain, but to undo the power that sin and death held over us… completely sharing in our death, so that we might completely share in His resurrection. This is the Good News that drove the Apostles to turn the world upside down: Jesus died, and rose again to reconcile the world to God, to bring Heaven’s peace to Earth, and turn our whole story around, once and for all. Listen again to the words of St. Peter from our second reading today: “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18). Jesus not only stepped into the waters of the Jordan River, He allowed the full force of death to wash over Him. And yet, God raised Him again from the dead, the firstborn of God’s New Creation. His baptism of death is the deep reality that makes all our new beginnings possible, and His resurrection is the promise the Church believes and proclaims to the world. When we are baptized in the waters, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we are being completely immersed in Jesus Christ… in the reconciling reality of what He has done for us, once and for all at the cross. We have no promise of new beginnings apart form Him, but we have been promised a new resurrection life bound to Him… wholeheartedly drawn into God’s holy ways, empowered by the Holy Spirit to finally start setting sin aside for good, and to share this life-giving hope with those around us. The purpose of baptism is to connect us to God’s gift of new life offered to us in Jesus Christ the Risen Lord. It’s saving work in our lives, as St. Peter puts it, comes to us “not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.” (1 Peter 3:21-22). The One who immersed Himself completely in our shame-filled story, now immerses us into His glorious one… and as He rose from the dead to reign forever at God’s right hand, we His people will share in the gifts of His Good Kingdom, both in this life, and for all eternity. Thinking again about Lent, and how it calls us to reflect on the core of the Christian faith, we do well to remember that baptism is a way of life: It happens once... but is meant to bind us to Jesus Christ our Saviour for all time. So, when we find ourselves thinking, or speaking, or acting in ways that are out of line with the new life Christ has given us… when we forget whose story we now share in, and the deep reality of the Good News… what will we do? May God’s Spirit give us the grace at those times, to repent… and to believe the Good News that God’s own beloved Son has truly turned our stories around, once and for all… and turning to Him, may we find ourselves embraced by the love of our Heavenly Father, and surrounded by our many sisters and brothers who have also been invited into this new beginning without end. Amen.
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Rev. RObRev. Rob serves as the Priest-in-Charge at St. Luke's Gondola Point, and as the School Chaplain at Rothesay Netherwood School Archives
December 2024
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