"Torn Apart"

On this day when we celebrate Jesus' baptism, I chose to emphasize God's actions when the newly-baptized Jesus arose from the water. Oh, God identified Jesus as his beloved Son; but God did something else, too. If you don't know what it was, then this sermon might remind you.

Today is the first Sunday in Epiphany, the church season that reveals Jesus as God’s son and the Light of the world. The assigned lectionary text for this Sunday is the baptism of Jesus (Mark 1:9-11). It’s a little bit jarring to skip from seeing Jesus as a baby in a manger on Christmas Eve to his baptism as an adult in just a little over two weeks. This year, it is doubly jarring, as this text comes on the heels of the violent coup attempt in our nation’s capital just 4 days ago. Baptisms are joyous events: events that gather whole families in celebration. What we saw on Wednesday was certainly not something to celebrate! Now, I’m a believer in the wisdom of the lectionary, that group of biblical texts that are preached through a three-year cycle. Preaching those texts helps keep us preachers from dwelling on our favorites (and believe me, we have them). But on some Sundays, that presents a problem, because I am also a believer in preaching, as the theologian Karl Barth put it, with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. There is a real disconnect between the joy of a baptism and the recent violence in our society. But when I am in the midst of this dilemma of what to preach, I remember that the biblical texts were not written in isolation from their own society. What the gospel writers said about Jesus was influenced by what was happening around them; and those writers lived in times that were even uglier and more violent than the times in which we live. Jesus lived in a time when his country was occupied by the Roman empire. There was no such thing as democratic rule, and the emperor was considered to be a god. The punishment for offending him was crucifixion, that most shameful, painful, and lingering death. The darkness of the Roman empire was even deeper than the darkness in which we live today. And it was in that darkness that Jesus was baptized.

On a typical Sunday, I would probably focus on the water in which Jesus was baptized. I would remind you that water is frequently the symbol of a new creation; and I would give the examples of the chaotic waters that existed before God called creation into being, the waters of the flood that cleansed the earth, and the waters of the Red Sea through which Moses led the Israelites during the exodus. But today isn’t a typical Sunday; so I want to focus, instead, on the heavens that stretched above Jesus, and what happened when he emerged from the waters of the Jordan River. Did you catch it? The heavens were “torn apart” to allow the Holy Spirit to descend upon the newly-baptized Jesus. Mark doesn’t use that word casually. The Greek word that he uses for “tear apart” is “schizo.” (We get the English word “schizophrenia” from it.) That word is used when something is ripped apart in haste. “Schizo” is no neat shredding of financial documents, such as when we feed our bank statements into the shredder and they come out the other side in neat little ribbons. No, when we “schizo” something, we grab it and rip, not caring whether the end result is neat or messy. The point of “schizo”ing something is to get it torn apart quickly, because time is of the essence. The only other place that Mark uses that word in his gospel is at the very end of Jesus’ life. As Jesus breathes his last on the cross, the curtain in the Temple that separated the people from God was “torn apart.” When God “schizo”s something, God is coming to be with us in the quickest way possible! And isn’t that what we ask of God in one of the texts from Isaiah (64:1-4) that we read during Advent this year “Tear the heavens apart!” we plead. “Come down here and do something!” God did exactly that when Jesus was baptized.

And did you notice how God came to be with us? After God tore apart the heavens, God didn’t arrive with a flaming sword or a host of angels. God came to be with us not by violence, but by sending the Spirit in the form of a dove. A dove reminds us of the new beginning after Noah’s flood; a dove reminds us of God’s peace; a dove might even have reminded the first readers of Mark’s gospel of a sacrifice. Into this world of darkness and violence and ugliness came God’s Spirit of light, peace, and beauty, filling Jesus with it to the brim. But the Spirit doesn’t only give us peace and beauty. The Spirit also gives us courage. God knew what Jesus would have to deal with during his ministry. He would face people who laughed at him, other people who thought he was crazy; and people in authority who wanted to shut him up. He was going to need courage to speak out against evil; to challenge lies and oppressive systems; to expose people who claimed to be religious for the phonies that they were. That isn’t easy. Jesus was no sissy.

Now, we are children of that same God, filled with that same Spirit. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul reminded his congregation that “you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus,” (3:26) and “because you are children, God sent the Spirit of his son into our hearts.” (4:6) Those same statements apply to us, too. We are filled with the same Spirit of light, peace, beauty – and courage. The evil that Jesus faced hasn’t gone anywhere. Sometimes it goes underground and we forget about it for a while, but it’s still there, festering like a wound under the surface of the skin. We can’t ignore it any longer. There are people who think that they are better than other people because they have white skin, or because they have more money, or because of who their daddy was. If Jesus were here today, he would call them out on that; but since Jesus isn’t here, it falls to us to do it for him. In our baptismal vows, we are asked “Will you resist oppression and evil, show love and justice, and witness to the work and word of Jesus Christ as best you are able?” Our answer is, “We will, with the help of God.” It is the Spirit that gives us that help. Baptism is a reassurance of God’s blessing, to be sure; but it is also a call to action! In the darkness of this world, God’s Spirit is the One who gives us the guidance to discern evil, the courage to fight it, and the hope to believe that evil won’t win in the end.

Baptism is indeed a cause for celebration! God can’t wait to come to us, even in the darkness of our world. Actually, God tears the heavens apart to get to us because of the darkness of our world. “The Light still shines in the darkness,” says the gospel of John, “and the darkness has not overcome it.” The Spirit will be with us forever, bringing peace, beauty, and joy – and the courage that only God can offer. Thanks be to God!