Epiphany 1B, 7 January 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz
- Genesis 1:1-5. Beginning.
- Acts 19:1-7. We have not even heard that there is a holy spirit.
- Mark 1:4-11. He will baptize you with the [sic] holy spirit.
O God of beginning again, may we have the wisdom, the strength, and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth – come when it may and cost what it will.
Today is the day that the Church celebrates the Baptism of Our Lord. Jesus’ baptism is considered the beginning of his ministry; and so we have three scripture readings before us today that speak of new beginnings. “In the beginning,” goes our first reading from the first book of the Bible. “In the beginning God created” are the first words of Genesis, the first words of the Torah. Actually in Hebrew they say something more like, “When God began shaping.” There is no completed action. Rather, there is a strong sense of ongoing, incomplete shaping.
I want you to notice that this is not a story about before there was anything at all. This is a story of a new beginning. According to this story, there was already darkness, and there was already water for a breath of God, a wind, a spirit, to be blowing over. The earth was there. In Hebrew it says that the earth was all tohu wabohu, which is a little bit like it sounds: helter skelter, nonsense words for disorganized or chaotic. God began getting things in order, making sense of nonsense through breath or inspiration, and through the spoken word. I want you to notice that this story doesn’t tell about God eliminating chaos or night; God began creating some order, some distinctions, to set some limits. And it was good, all good. Both darkness and light are good according to holy scripture.
It was all good, not according to a scientific, historical, or even logical account of the beginning of time; this is a mystical and poetic account. Light and evening and morning are being shaped before the sun or other stars exist in this story. This is a story about Divine morality and spirituality, about goodness and blessing in creating, in shaping. This is an attempt to convey some wisdom about the Holy-One-Who-Dwells-in-This-World making order out of chaos and making good out of what looks like an utter mess. [1]. This is a story about what looks like such a mess that no good or order could possibly come from it.
This mystical, poetic account is written in stark contrast to Babylonian creation stories, which featured gods who caused chaos. It is even set in contrast to the other creation story in Genesis, which is older by several hundred years and which follows this one in Chapter 2. (If you read in the Bible past the first chapter of the first book, you discover that Genesis has two creation stories, which are not at all compatible. They’re both true, by the way.) This creation story is one of the newest stories written in the ancient Biblical texts, written late, and placed as a prologue or introduction. This story is the answer to Pharaoh’s question to Moses: “Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice and let the people go free?” It is the answer to the Babylonian Empire or any other imperial power enslaving the people of God: “Who is the Lord that I should let the people go free?” The testimony of scripture is that the one Who delights in the goodness and order of creation is the Lord, the Holy One. This testimony is reminding us of the essential goodness of the world according to the God who sees, in spite of how it may look to us. This testimony is reminding us not to forfeit our sense of awe about new beginnings.
You may know that according to Christian legend, after Jesus’ death, his mother Mary along with the beloved disciple John and Mary Magdalene, the Apostle to the Apostles, needed a new beginning. They all left the territory near Jerusalem and moved to the city of Ephesus on the western shore of what is now Turkey. Ephesus was a very large and old city in the midst of a building boom. Archeologists estimate that in the first century its population might have been as high as 250,000. It was a vital and wealthy port city, much bigger than Providence, one-third the size of Boston. Ephesus had a well-planned urban infrastructure, not only in terms of plumbing and transportation. Streetlights lit the city at night. There were also concert halls and theaters, and an extensive library. Ephesus had a stadium that could seat 25,000. Most interesting to me is that it was a city known for women’s professional leadership. Women in first century Ephesus had rights equal to men, and there are records of women teachers, architects, artists, sculptors and painters. Ephesus was sophisticated and progressive.
I tell you that as background to our story from Acts today, in which Paul tells of meeting some disciples of Jesus in Ephesus and talking to them about baptism. It’s a funny little vignette. Paul asks, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” They replied, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” Then Paul asked, “Into what then were you baptized?” They answered, “Into John’s baptism.” Paul said: “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus. On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. Altogether there were about twelve of them. That’s a tiny number in a city of 250,000! A tiny new beginning.
Baptism, in this story, doesn’t seem to have as much to do with repentance of sins, as it does with amendment of life to follow Jesus. Baptism here doesn’t explicitly have anything to do with water, or the Trinity, but a laying on of hands by Paul, an intimate touch in a prayerful moment. Baptism here seems to be submersion or immersion in a particular mission, involving prophesying and speaking in tongues, which can mean an unintelligible ecstatic utterance or the ability to speak more than one foreign language. It’s all in the ears of the listener, isn’t it? Whatever it means, it’s clearly a new beginning for these disciples of Jesus, who had never heard of a Holy Spirit until Paul found about twelve of them. Whatever baptism means here, it’s an inauguration into speaking for God (Who is Love) and speaking forth in God (Who is Love). As we know, Love changes everything.
And so, we come to our reading from the Gospel of Mark. I imagine that many of you know this story well. Still, I feel compelled to remind you that what looks like a proper noun with a definite article, the Holy Spirit, is an overreaching, grasping English translation. There is no definite article. John’s prediction is that Jesus will baptize with a spirit of holiness. Although none of the Gospels describes Jesus baptizing anyone in the way that we think of baptizing, or in the way that John was baptizing, it’s not a stretch to imagine that Jesus was immersing or submerging people in a spirit of holiness. Each encounter, gentle as a dove and as urgent as fire, inspired them, inaugurated them into roles of carrying out truth, speaking out truth about the Love of God, creating new beginnings where there is nothing but chaos, helter skelter, tohu wabohu; embodying and enacting the truth of God’s Love, come when it may and cost what it will. Truth and new beginnings, according to the Gospel of Mark, come from being bathed in a spirit of holiness, for Jesus and for any who desire to follow his lead. In his baptism, Jesus hears the words that everyone needs to hear, longs to hear, from the Divine: I will always love you no matter what; you are my beloved with whom I am well pleased.
It feels important to me to say that baptism is not an end any more than any other sacramental rite in the church is an end, whether it’s baptism or communion, holy matrimony or reconciliation of a penitent, confirmation or even the anointing at the time of death. Each one of the sacramental rites of the church anticipates and leans into the future. Each sacramental rite represents a new beginning. While we are not celebrating a baptism this morning, we are celebrating Eucharist. The bread and wine are food for the journey through the time between today and your next spiritual way-station. They are not a reward for the past. They are a gift of nourishment and strength for the future.
So, what do you know about the existence of a spirit of holiness? If you didn’t know there was one, whom can you find to tell you about it? In what new beginnings are any of us right now in the midst? The beginning of snow season in Boston, the beginning of a new secular calendar year. The Bach Institute fellows are leaning into new beginnings, new experiences, and new learnings. For what mission, what enactment of God’s love, are we being nourished with new insight, inspiration, and energy, with the reminder, however hard to believe, whether we believe it or not, that indeed each of us is God’s beloved?
The late Henri Nouwen wrote this wonderful blessing. [2]
You were beloved before you were born,
And you will be beloved after you die.
That is the truth of your identity.
That is who you are.
Whether you feel bad or not bad,
Or whatever the world makes you think or experience.
You belong to God [Who is Love] from eternity to eternity.
Life is just an interruption of eternity,
Just a little opportunity for a few years
To say “I love you too.”
- Ellen Frankel’s rendering in The Five Books of Miriam: A Woman’s Commentary on the Torah (San Fransisco: Harper, 1996), p. 3.
- Henri J.M. Nouwen. “The Truth of Your Identity”, quoted in Rebecca Laird & Michael J. Christiansen, eds., The Heart of Henry Nouwen: His Words of Blessing (NY: Crossroad Pub., 2003).