Today is the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, which is always the first Sunday after the Feast of the Epiphany. My sermon will be a reflection, a meditation on the waters of baptism.
We all know the story we heard in the Gospel today. It seems like everybody is going down to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. Jesus also goes down and is baptized. As he comes up out of the water, the heavens open, the Holy Spirit comes down in the form of a dove and a voice says, “This is my Son with whom I am well pleased.”
There are two facts about water that are important to our understanding here. One is that the water we have is all the water that we have. That means that the water in the McKenzie River is exactly the same water that the dinosaurs lived in, fought, and played in. There are theories about how we got so much water that we have now, but basically what we have now is what we have. That is actually not 100% true. A science professor at Virginia Tech pointed out to me that when lightning strikes granite a few drops of water are created. And another professor pointed out to me that if you drive a hydrogen bus or hydrogen car, out of the tailpipe will dribble pure water. Recently I was told that when the Hindenburg exploded, which was filled with hydrogen, it created rain. It’s very hard to do, but with those exceptions the water we have is all that we have. That is a fact.
The other fact is that water circulates. It evaporates and goes up into the sky, creates clouds, the clouds circulate around the world, and the water comes down in the form of rain and sleet and hail and drizzle. It lands mostly on the oceans, of course, but also on land where it works its way through creeks and streams and lakes back into the ocean. The ocean water circulates, also. So the water we have is all the water we have, and the water circulates. In this world, we all drink from one well.
If you think of a font at a baptism, that font of water has molecules in it that were in the Red Sea the day the Children of Israel left the house of bondage, slavery in Egypt, and went into the desert in freedom. There are molecules in that font that would have brushed against the Children and perhaps even Moses himself. There are molecules in that font that were in the Jordan River the day the Children of Israel crossed over from the desert into the Promised Land led by Joshua. There are molecules in that font that were in the Jordan River the day that Jesus was baptized, and likely brushed against Jesus.
What that means is that when we are baptized, we are spiritually, but also physically joined to the Children of Israel escaping slavery, to the Children of Israel entering the Promised Land, and to Jesus himself at his baptism.
My friends in Christ, I bid you this week to give thanks to God for the gift of water and pray that we may be ever more faithful stewards of the gift of water that we have been given to our care.
And secondly, give thanks to God for the gift of baptism by which we are made one with Christ, his life, his death, and his resurrection. Why? Because God is love and Jesus preaches love, endlessly. And for that we give thanks to God, knowing that God loves you, God loves us, each and every one, more than we can ask or begin to imagine.
AMEN
