Sermon 1/10/2021 “Water, water, everywhere!”
Preacher: Jo J. Belser
Location: Church of the Resurrection at VTS in Alexandria, VA
Text: Mark 1:4-11
Day: 1Epiphany, Year B, during a pandemic
Did you notice that every one of our scripture lessons today has water in it? Water, water, everywhere!
- The water of chaos that our first lesson says existed before creation, water than God breathed on to begin the process of creation. Notice God didn’t destroy chaos and he didn’t destroy darkness. Instead, he just separated them: the water of chaos from the water of life; and the darkness from the light. God put them each in their place, so that we could have a real choice of which to serve in life.
- Our Psalm today says the powerful voice of the Lord is upon the waters. Our Psalmist urges us to respond to hearing God’s voice by worshiping God—as we are doing today.
- Our two lessons from the New Testament are each about the water of baptism. The lesson from Acts contrasts baptism only for repentance and only by water with baptism by Christ’s spirit.
- Today’s gospel lesson tells of Jesus’ baptism by John in the water of the Jordan River. All four gospels tell of this event, revealing its importance. In Mark’s recounting of Jesus’ baptism, God’s spirit moved over Jesus and the Jordan River THAT day. In other words, Mark suggests there was a new creation, a reordering of creation, when Christ Jesus was baptized.
In scripture, many important events involve water.
- Genesis chapter 2 verses 10 to 14 says there were four rivers that came together to form the Garden of Eden. In this way, God put water to work to serve creation.
- God told Noah he would need a boat to survive God’s punishment by flood. On THAT occasion God let some of the water of chaos back into play in the fields he had created. God “deregulated” the water, although he later repented of such of having destroyed so much of his own creation.
- The scoundrel and patriarch, Jacob, when he was running for his life, wrestled an angel by a river. After “hitting rock bottom,” asleep on a rock by the river, Jacob was reborn, re-created by the blessing he received. Jacob was born anew as Israel and a people was formed, a people whose identity was formed around worship of God.
- Moses led his people from slavery to freedom by baptizing them in the Red Sea. They stepped out in faith and terror THAT day, pursued by Pharaoh’s army. And God once again separated the life-giving force of freedom from the orcce of chaos. In short, God put distance between those two spirits once again.
- But this was not the only time Moses led his people to to water. Moses struck a rock in the wilderness when the people were greatly thirsty. Water came gushing forth: life-giving water, letting us know that God’s spirit was once again stirring up new life.
Today’s Psalm tells us that God speaks through water, acts through water, and we ought to pay attention whenever there are big events involving water. W know this; we call floods and tsunamis and other weather phenomena “acts of God.” We chide our post-modern selves when we associate disasters with God because we don’t like to think God punishes us. We tell ourselves the scientific explanations, blaming science when water flows amok—in part also because others’ pronouncements about what is angering God ring so hollow, so tinny. Our Psalm tells us the only fitting response to chaotic water events is to worship God by recognizing he is in control of all things, even water. Maybe especially water.
Today’s gospel lesson tells of Christ Jesus coming to the water for baptism. And the message that speaks loud and clear from God is that Christ Jesus (and by extension we created beings) are beloved by God, cherished, and pronounced worthy, recreated in God’s image. The water that forms us, that make sup 60% of an adult human body, that water is God. According to the Journal of Biological Chemistry, our brains and heart are 73% water and muscles 79%, so we have more of God THERE in those parts of our being what choose and act. Even our bones are watery, at 31%. Water, water, everywhere; God, God, everywhere!
The very water within us, the very God within, and all around us, urges us to choose what is life-giving instead of choosing chaos. While we are choosing, though, we need to remember that ALL human beings are made in God’s image, that every living thing bears God in our world, and that we must choose between what is life-giving and that which would destroy what God has created.
While we bear God into our watery world, remember that God loves everyone—the elected and the rejected—all beloved of God as much as we are God’s beloved. How will you use your watery self this week? How will we each resist the temptation to dwell in chaos?
