"Called Through Baptism"
Isa. 42:1-9; Ps. 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matt. 3:13-17
Dr. George R. Sinclair
Pastor
January 13, 2008
I was in a meeting the other day when a guy got beeped--his pager went off. He looked embarrassed, fumbled around to shut the thing off. By the time he excused himself and returned, somebody else’s pager had gone off and at least one cell phone.
We’ve become very clever at calling. You can call from anywhere in the world. All you need is a satellite phone. Can you imagine that? Anywhere in the world.
I’m not much of a “techie.” I mean, have you ever read the instruction manual to your cell phone? Mine had a hundred pages of tiny print. I had to ask my son to program my cell phone. He didn’t fool with the book. Young adults don’t work that way. They don’t need instructions. They just start pressing buttons and somehow make things work. I don’t understand how they do that. I sure like the convenience of cell phones but I’m old school. I had a friend like that once.
Like me, my friend was a woodworker. His shop was in his basement right underneath his wife’s kitchen. We were always calling each other to swap ideas and figure things out. I’d call over to his house and his wife would invariably answer. “Is Tim there?” And she say, “Just a minute.”
And then I’d hear this loud stomping, three stomps on the kitchen floor: “Timmm!” (You have to appreciate that my wife’s friend was from South Georgia.) Timmm!” And then Timmm was on the phone. Old School communication.
My father was “old school.” When I was a boy he’d whistle me home. I could be two miles away and hear his whistle. And if I was late or had ignored my mother’s earlier attempts to get me home even my friends would tell me, “George, you better get going.”
Dennis Covington in his book, Salvation on Sand Mountain, recalls how parents in his neighborhood—mostly mothers leaning out of back porch doors—called their children home: “Frankie! Danny! It’s time to come home!” One mom rang a cowbell. Dennis says his own father had another method. Instead of yelling, Dennis’ father would walk to the ball field or to the lake or wherever he happened to be and would quietly and softly whisper, “Dennis, it’s time to go.” And then he and his father would walk home together talking about the day.
Reflecting on his childhood experience, Dennis writes, “My father always came to the place where I was before he called me.”
“Before he called me, my father came to the place where I was.” Something like that happens when Jesus is baptized. And something like that happens when we are baptized in Jesus’ name. God comes to where we are. When we are baptized, God gets near to us. God goes down in the water with us and calls us by name, “You are my chosen, my beloved with whom I am pleased.” In baptism, God comes to where we are and names us his children, his beloved with whom he is well pleased.
You know, when Jesus is baptized, when he comes up out of water, he sees “the Spirit of God descending like a dove.” You have to wonder about that, not about the Spirit but about the dove. Why a dove? I mean, doves hardly make good mascots. Why not a Falcon or an Eagle, maybe a Bluejay or a Jay Hawk? Why a dove when there are so many other more powerful symbols? If you’re going to be God’s regent on earth, surely you need something more substantial than a dove? Jesus gets a dove. Why a dove?
In Genesis, the Spirit of God hovers bird-like over the waters of creation. Maybe Matthew had that in mind. Noah sent out a dove when the waters of chaos receded and the dove returned bearing an “all clear” olive branch. Maybe Matthew was thinking about that. Then again, doves were a common form of sacrifice. You could buy a couple of doves for a few pennies. Doves were abundant and the most common form of sacrifice in Jesus’ day. Maybe Matthew had that in mind, that Jesus’ identity and destiny would be marked by sacrifice.
Symbols have multiple meanings, so maybe we shouldn’t be too quick to pare down Matthew’s artful choice. But then, Matthew’s fairly transparent. He drops clues all over the place signaling his intent not the least of which is his carefully crafted use of Scripture.
Matthew had read his Bible. He knew about the Messiah. He knew the Messiah was coming to set things right. The Messiah would be a king like David, a king who would come and rescue Israel. The Messiah was going to restore the nation’s fortunes establishing peace and justice throughout all the earth. Matthew had read all of that and then he met Jesus.
Now to be sure, Matthew tells us that the Jesus he met was a great teacher and prophet. In Matthew’s view, Jesus is like Moses. Jesus was a great law giver and prophet. Matthew also tells us Jesus worked miracles, he healed people, walked on water, multiplied fish and loaves. For Matthew, Jesus is “powerful.” Matthew even calls Jesus “Messiah.” As a matter of fact, Matthew tells us that in the very first sentence of his gospel: “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the Son of Abraham,” Matthew wrote.
Matthew believed Jesus was the Messiah, alright—here’s the rub: Messiahs weren’t supposed to die. Messiahs were supposed to win and win big. So, Matthew has a problem. Matthew has to sort out why Jesus suffered. Why he was rejected and ultimately, why he dies.
Turning to his Bible, Matthew finds two passages that help solve his riddle. One passage is from the Book of Psalms, the other from the prophet Isaiah. In a stroke of brilliance Matthew combines the two. “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” That’s how we see it in Matthew’s gospel. This is how it reads in the Psalms: “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.”
Now Psalm 2 is a particular kind of song. It was written to honor one of Israel’s kings. We don’t know which one. But when you swear in a king you need a song. And Psalm 2 was written for that purpose. It was used to enthrone Jewish kings, which in the culture of ancient Israel were not mere mortals. They were God’s sons. Unlike the Egyptians, the Jews didn’t assign personal divinity to their kings, but they did believe they ruled by divine right. Kings ruled because God put them there. And if God put them there then of course you were expected to obey. The apostle Paul shared the same view of Imperial Rome—obey leaders because they rule by God’s decree. It was a very effective way of establishing and keeping social order.
Anyway, Matthew read Psalm 2 and he’s familiar with divine right ideology so he knows how kings are supposed to behave. Real kings have real power. They’ve got muscle. But along comes Jesus and he’s got nothing. Then Matthew reads Isaiah 42, which says in part, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him.”
So far, so good. That fits political orthodoxy. Isaiah then added this twist, “a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench.” Isaiah envisioned a different kind of king, one who would establish justice but by unconventional means, “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases . . . he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities . . . and by his bruises we are healed.”
Isaiah envisioned a different kind of Messiah, one who ruled with unconventional might—not power over others, not power to destroy, but rather the power to heal, the power to forgive, the power to overcome despair and loneliness and meaninglessness with unusual love. Matthew thought Jesus was that kind of king, which is why when Matthew read Isaiah he said, “He’s talking about Jesus.” Jesus was just like that—a dimly burning wick who was not quenched, bruised to be sure but unbroken.
In Jesus, God comes to where we are. God gets down in the waters of our sorrow, our disappointment, even our death. That’s why Jesus gets a dove. Jesus rules by the power of sacrifice, sacrifice which redeems. Jesus rules by a love which is not weakness, but love which establishes justice, love which is fair, love which delivers us from evil. That’s the identity and the destiny given in Jesus’ baptism. And that’s the identity and destiny given us when we are baptized in Jesus’ name.
Some years ago, Presbyterian teacher Lewis Smedes was asked about forgiveness. What do you do when things don’t turn out like you planned? “My wife, she’s depressed a lot.” “My husband, his career’s going nowhere.” How do you deal with those sorts of things? And what about moral failures, selfishness, insensitivity, lack of respect, belittling, or the stuff that never gets resolved, that keeps recycling? What do you do with emotional unavailability, emotional infidelity, adultery?
Responding to these tough questions, Dr. Smedes gave a tough answer. He said Christians shouldn’t be too quick to forgive, that before we forgive we must first seek profound reorientation. Before we forgive, Lewis said we must first give up self-centeredness, which of course no one wants to do. None of us really wants to say, “You know, I’ve been putting myself first. I was only thinking about myself.”
Acknowledging flaws and fault is hard, but necessary. And I suppose it is the better known half of forgiveness. We know about repentance. Reconciliation requires honest confession. But there’s another aspect of forgiveness that is less well known and I think more difficult. Forgiveness not only requires confession, it requires accommodation, which is another way of saying that forgives requires empathy, the capacity to identify with the failure of others, which is what Jesus does when he goes down into Jordon’s waters. God comes to the place where we are and calls us by name. God accommodates to our weakness, to the flaws and faults of our humanity. Jesus gets down in the water with us coming to the place where we are and calls us by name. He doesn’t yell, he doesn’t shout—he whispers our name, Beloved.
Here’s the thing, in order to hear that whisper we must do no less for each other. To answer God’s call, we must go down to Jordan: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” To hear our name we must enter deep waters and when you enter deep water chances are you’re going to get soaked, but it’s also the only way we get our wings and fly.
Forgiveness is not without risk. It doesn’t come on the cheap, but the promise is life. The promise is joy. The promise is peace. For when we suffer the sins of others we are healed. The Bible’s other world is saved. And when we are saved we hear the name by which we are called from all eternity, “Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Amen.