Mark 1:4-11

Listen now for the Word of God.

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight” ’,

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’

The Baptism of Jesus

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

This is the Word of the Lord.

Let us pray: Loving God, Through all the words may it be your Word that is heard. Amen.
I have a friend who was raised in a quite conservative Christian denomination. And growing up he attended church camp in the western US. At this particular church camp many students were baptized and in my friend’s denomination they were quite concerned with ‘getting it right’. They believed that Jesus’ baptism involved him being completely submerged in the waters of the Jordan River and because Jesus was completely submerged then we too ought to be completely submerged at our own baptism.

So...whenever someone at my friend’s camp was baptized there needed to be at least three people, the person being baptized, the minister, and a third person who’s sole job was to make sure a wayward elbow or foot didn’t fail to go all the way under the water, lest a person one day find themselves in heaven missing that unbaptized arm or leg.

You may breathe a sigh of relief...I do not intend to approach either story you’ve heard from an angle that seeks to craft an argument about exactly how long and how the earth was created, nor am I very interested in denominational arguments about particular way’s of baptizing.

Today we have heard two stories about beginnings. Stories dealing with newness and hope.

We find ourselves this morning on the other side of Advent and Christmas. A season that, we’re told, is all about hope. We waited, and waited, and waited to welcome the Christ Child on Christmas morning. In preparation we lit candles, sang carols, and in celebration we gave gifts and ate together. (A surprising number of you even came to church that Sunday...). Hark the Harold Angels Sing...Glory to God in the Highest...Christ is Here...or so we sang on that Sunday...

But the very next Monday you still struggled with whatever it was you struggled with before. There were still homeless people sleeping in the alley. Our nation was still at war. Politicians still treated one another as less than human. And some of us wondered...what was all the waiting for...

When the reality of unfulfilled promises of newness was dulled we made our way toward New Years, and, again, many of us gathered with family and friends. We made promises to ourselves and our loved ones. Promises like, this will be the year I start taking better care of myself. This will be the year that I drink a little less. This will be the year I love a little more...This will be the year I...you fill in the blank. And that Saturday night we waited for the ball to drop. We echoed the sentiment of the Statesman editorial titled, “good riddance to a dismal 2011”.

So...today...it could be that you hear me talk about words like newness and hope...and in a completely justified act of self-defense...you tune me out. I hope you’ll stick with me for a few minutes. I think, we need to hear what Genesis and Mark have to say to us...what they have to say about us.

You will recall that the creation story from Genesis came up in the lectionary last year. You might remember that most scholars believe the creation story in Genesis 1 (there are two different creation stories in Genesis) this one was written while the Jews were in exile in Babylon. It was one of the most tragic and defining events in the history of that nation. The temple was destroyed and the nation was left in ruins.

In that period of history it was believed that the nation with the strongest god won wars. (I still wonder if we’ve progressed much from that ancient idea…) To be taken into exile meant not only that the nation had been defeated but that God had been defeated. The gods of Babylon seemed to control the future of Israel. The nation was mocked. You’ll recall those haunting first lines from the 137^th Psalm, lines inspired by the exile, “By the waters of Babylon there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.”

It was out of this hopeless, god-defeated, situation that the Jews wrote what is more confession than historical record.

To say the God of Israel swept over the formless void and separated light from darkness...day from night...and water from land...and then called it good...to say that God did that was to say that God could and would still create again...If the God of Israel could do it then, then God could redeem a people out of Babylon...God could make it good again...it’s a confession...it’s a poem of hope...a poem of newness...

Water has a peculiar and recurring role in the bible. It is used for creative but also for destructive purposes. It is that thing which washes us, but it is also that thing that can drown us. Not enough of it crops shrivel up and forests burn, too much and fields flood.

Many in the ancient world believed that the earth was a plate surrounded by water on all sides. They believed there was literally a dome that covered the plate to keep the water out.

Imagine your grandmother’s butter dish with a crystal dome on top of it. That’s how they viewed the world. Knowing that provides some clarity to verses like the one a few chapters later in Genesis when we are told regarding the great flood, “on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.” All God had to do was open the great dome of Grace surrounding dry land and all could be lost.

These stories of ancient Israel, stories of creation, stories floods, stories of defeat and renewal...they were stories that reminded people that God was in control, even when it didn’t feel like it. They reminded the people, they can remind us too, that God calls us good, even when we don’t feel like it. We are reminded that we serve a God who is creative even when the gods of destruction seem to rule all around us. Tomorrow you will wake up and you might continue to struggle with whatever it is you struggle with today. There will still be homeless brothers and sisters sleeping in the alley. And sadly our nation will still be at war. But it is precisely in the midst of our own Babylon's that God offers a blessing. This is always where we begin...You are called good.

Mark begins with a creation story of a different sort. There are no birth stories in Mark’s gospel, no wise men, no shepherds. Mark tells us the beginning of the Gospel begins in some muddy water at the boundary of the promised land.

Once again the nation of Israel was under siege. They weren’t in exile but they might as well have been. They were taxed to support an empire constantly at war, they were led by leaders who cared little, if at all, for the majority of their people...most of whom would never know anything but poverty.

A wild-eyed, animal skin wearing, prophet decided to set up a washing station in the middle of the desert outside Jerusalem. Away from the corrupt power systems and imperial rule. John the Baptist knew that if you wanted to see the Kingdom of God you had to go through the wilderness. To truly know God, to truly know yourself, you had to experience the loneliness, loss of comfort, and the loss of control that comes from time in the wilderness.

Some of you are there right now. You are in the midst of a lonely time. You are experiencing the powerlessness of joblessness. Some of you are about to be ordained as elders in our church and you might not fully understand what that means. Other’s of you find yourselves in a time of transition between relationships. Mark tells us the Good News begins in places like that.

It begins when you accept that you are God’s beloved, in you God is well pleased.

We are told that the heaven’s were torn apart and instead of a destructive deluge of water that Mark’s earliest hearers would have expected to come through a hole in the heavens, there came the sound of a loving parent saying, “You are my child...with you I am well pleased.”

Jesus made his way out to the Jordan to hear those words, and I hope you have made your way here to be reminded that you are loved, not because of anything you have or haven’t done, but because you are God’s child. The beginning always begins with a blessing. God created and said it was good. God meets you in the wilderness and says you are good. Please, if you hear nothing else today, hear this, and maybe even believe it...in you God is well pleased.

Amen.