BAPTISM OF JESUS Jan 7-13

EPIPHANY 1

Sunday 1

Mark 1: 411 (or 111) (Sermon 1: “The Heavens Opened”)

Acts 19: 17

Genesis 1: 15 (Sermon 2: “The Town Crier”)

Psalm 29

GATHERING AND INVITATION

The grace of Christ Jesus be with you all.

And also with you.

The windows of heaven are open, whether we realise it or not.

The Spirit is moving like a dove whether we welcome her or not.

This is the new age of Christ whether we serve it or not.

This is the hour of salvation, whether we celebrate it or not.

Here and now, people of God, I invite you to a sharpened realisation,

an openhearted welcome, and a fulsome celebration.

Well, we have arrived in church together,

some with a rush, some more leisurely.

Now let us get ready to worship in spirit and in truth.

Amen! May the Spirit assist us.

Give yourselves to God, you children of the stars,

give to our God all your glory and strength

Give to God the glory that is your duty and delight,

let worship shine like the array of the night skies.

May the Lord give renewed strength to his people,

May our Christ bless us all with his peace.

SEEKING GOD’S HELP

Glorious are you, Holy God, the joy of the universe! As we come to celebrate your goodness, we pray that by your initiative in Christ Jesus, and through the counselling of your Spirit, we may be strengthened in faith, stretched to greater hope, and led into larger love, joy and praise. Through Jesus Christ, the beloved Son in whom you are well pleased.

Amen!

OPENING UP TO GOD’S GRACE

We come to God wanting forgiveness and renewal.

Let us pray.

God our Creator and Saviour, we are creatures who need your constant assistance.

Without it we will never completely break free from those forces, sometimes subtle and sometimes blatant, that compromise our spirit, and make an unholy alliance with the evil in the world around us. Our need is not for a quick fix, with cheap forgiveness followed by pious but impractical good intentions. Rather we pray for an ongoing radical transformation within our deepest being.

We ask for more and more of your saving grace. For the ability to discern our own secretive sins and to muster the desire to sincerely repent. We need a mercy that reaches into those depths where spiritual hungers and furtive corruptions coexist. We want you to forgive our self treachery, to eradicate any mutiny, and then liberate those holy desires which long to rise up into loving thoughts and faithful deeds.

Please immerse us in your healing waters of your love. Baptise us with your Spirit. Let us know that we are truly made in your image and destined for heights more beautiful than we can ever imagine. Through Christ Jesus, who for our sakes was baptised by water and the Spirit.

Amen!

FORGIVENESS

My fellow Christians, dare to be cheerful. Jesus said: “I have come that you may have life, and possess it to the full!” You are not hopeless! With all the costly grace of the cross, Christ Jesus sets you free!

Thanks be to God!

PRAYER FOR CHILDREN

Thanks, Lord Jesus,

for not being stuck up

but getting baptised

just like us.

Thanks for

inviting us to share in the church community

that you launched with your love and truth.

Help us to both enjoy it

and to help spread its happiness.

In your name,

Amen!

Thanks a million, Lord Jesus,

for not being full of yourself,

nor too proud to get baptised

alongside ordinary people

just like us.

Thanks, dear Lord,

for being baptised in the Jordan

and for inviting us to be members

of the church which you got started.

In your name.

Amen!

PSALM 29

See “Australian Psalms” page 45

Ó B D. Prewer & Open Book Publishers

DEEP WATERS

When gates of heaven seem closed to me

and all prayers seem futility

don’t come at me with attitude

or cover me with platitude

but let me share the waters awhile

with my Mate from Galilee.

When the church seems to leave me dry

and no god seems to heed my cry

don’t look askance and say me

you’ll condescend to pray for me

but let me share the waters awhile

with my Mate from Galilee.

When the blessed Dove seems far away

and words seem stone in the creeds I say

don’t think me lost in vanity

or that I speak profanity

but let me share the waters awhile

with my Mate from Galilee.

Ó B D Prewer 2002

COLLECT

God of the living waters, which cleanse and refresh the driest gullies of the human experience, thank you for inviting your beloved son to enter the waters of baptism with us. Grant that we who share his baptism may lovingly participate in his ministry, carrying the cross whenever he asks, dying daily to selfishness, and rising with him when the trumpets of joy call us into our eternal home. to the glory of your name.

Amen!

SERMON 1: THE HEAVENS OPENED

Mark 1: 9-11

In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending like a dove; and a voice came from heaven: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

The question is often asked: “Why did Jesus need to be baptised?” The baptism that John the Baptiser offered was: “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”. Why did Jesus get involved in that? Of what did he need to repent?

Maybe our question is markedly one that comes from hindsight. Maybe we ask the question because we are reading the incident through spectacles tinted by centuries of doctrine and creed. For the people of his day, including the first disciples, our question may have puzzled them. They might well respond: “Why not?”

Moreover, perhaps the question would never occur to Jesus. A truly holy person is unaware of their holiness. There is no evidence that Jesus was aware of his own goodness. Remember that occasion when Jesus was called “Good Master” to which he responded: “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God.” From Jesus’ view point, to respond to John’s call for baptism, may have seemed the only good and righteous thing to do.

What is certain, is that our question “why?” though perfectly reasonable for us to ask, was near the bottom of the priority pile as far as the gospel writers were concerned. There were more important issues. In Mark’s Gospel the chief interest re the baptism of Jesus is in what happened: God affirmed Jesus. God emphatically said “YES” to Jesus.

And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending like a dove; and a voice came from heaven: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

THE HEAVENS OPENED

That word picture of the heavens being opened is important. It reminds us of the Old Testament expression: “The windows of heaven”. When the windows of heaven open there are no barriers between earth and heaven. Human prayers freely ascend and divine blessings descend without hindrance. It is a situation of wonderful felicity for the believer. When the heavens are open anything is possible.

However, the era surrounding Jesus was a time of sadness for the Jewish people. They believed the windows of heaven had been closed for centuries. They wistfully looked back to the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Miriam and Joshua, Elijah and King David, Amos, Isaiah and Ezekiel. In their compacted view of history it seemed that the windows of heaven were always open in those blessed days.

But in their own time, as it had been for ages, the heavens seemed closed. There were now no great prophets, no great law givers, no charismatic liberators, no singers of new psalms. No outpouring of the Spirit, no new Word from God. It was a barren time. The heavens seemed closed and they deeply mourned the continued silence. Maybe, they thought, the windows of heaven would remain shut until the golden age of the Messiah arrived.

This was largely the mindscape of the Jews when the son of Mary arrived at the Jordan River. Jesus, Marks writes, came to the Jordan River and was baptised by John. Immediately (note that characteristic Markan word “immediately”) the heavens were opened and the Spirit descended and alighted on Jesus of Nazareth. Then the Word of God came from heaven: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Mark 1:911

For those early Christians like Mark, the waiting, the longing and the grieving were over. The gates of heaven were now wide open; the Word was speaking, the Holy Spirit was active. It was now a time for celebration.

CONTEMPORARY EXPERIENCE

Let’s step from that situation by the Jordan River into our own era, more specifically the period of the last 150 years or so. This has been an era when numerous people have felt the heavens are closed; they have felt the absence of God.

From time to time, in relaxed conversation with no church persons, a comment like this will be made to me: ‘Maybe there is some sort of God. Certainly I am not prepared to say there is no creator. But if there is, such a God must be so beyond us that our little affairs are of scant importance. I see no sign of God, hear no word from God. As far as my life is concerned, God may as well not be there.”

One of the most powerful expressions of this feeling of the absence of God came almost 100 years ago from the pen of Jean Paul, when he wrote about the atheistic fear that sometimes threatened his faith. In his essay “Speech of the Dead Christ from the Universe,” the dead cry out to Christ who hangs above the high altar: “Is there a God?”

“I voyaged through the world, I climbed into the suns and flew along the Milky Way through the wastelands of heaven, but there was no God. I climbed down.....and peered into the abyss and cried out: “Father, where are you?” But all I heard was an eternal storm that no one rules, and a shining rainbow from the west hung over the abyss without a sun to create it, and rain fell from it. And as I looked up through the immeasurable universe to find the divine eye, just an empty and bottomless eye socket stared back at me.”

“Then the dead children who had come to life in the graveyard came into the temple and threw themselves down before the lofty figure above the altar, and cried “Jesus, have we no father “And he answered, his face streaming with tears, “We are all orphans, you and I, we are fatherless “

That empty eye socket! What was supposed to be the Divine eye at the heart of the immense universe was reduced to a skeletal eye socket! What a metaphor! The felt absence of God. The felt absence which has been characteristic of the modern era.

Fortunately for the writer Jean Paul, this desolate mood did not hold sway, his faith returned with joyful weeping. But for many of our contemporaries, this is a permanent feeling. The heavens seem closed. If there is a God, then such a God is remarkably silent as far as they are concerned. They may not be committed atheists, but they live life as if there is no God.

For some of us who live by faith, a similar mood can cloud our experience. From my extensive pastoral, counselling experience I would estimate there may be only about 20% of believers who live their lives in a continual sense of the Presence of God with them. For about 80% there are days, sometimes months, sometimes years, when they faithfully follow Christ even though the absence of God afflicts their feelings. They pray, they serve, they worship yet the windows of heaven seem to be shut. These folk remain wonderfully true to the Gospel.

GOSPEL PROCLAMATION

The Gospels tell us that with Christ Jesus the heavens opened. At his baptism he saw the opening, experienced the Spirit, and heard the Word of Divine affirmation. His complete activity then becomes a testimony to the open gates of heaven. It is there for all to see: his life cleaving history like a great watershed! He inaugurates the New Age of God, the age of accessibility.

Isn’t that how it still is for us? The windows of heaven are opened. We see it in Jesus. In everything this incomparable Person was and did. Jesus’ life and death embody the opening of the heavens. Open! Absolutely open! God with us! We see it in Christ Jesus¾:

¾His love for people, his radical teaching as in the Sermon on the Mount, his

teasing parables.

¾His healing of the sick, his touching of lepers, his table fellowship with known sinners.

¾His embrace of the outcaste, his liberating of the insane from their delusions.

¾His non-violent challenge to his enemies, his cleansing of the temple market.

¾His last supper with his friends, his emotional agony in the garden of Gethsemane.

¾His betrayal, arrest, night trials, and abuse torture, his staggering to Golgotha.

¾His crucifixion and concern for a thief at his side, his death and burial, and then

the wonder of Easter Day and his living Presence among his disciples.

No matter what our fickle feelings, the heavens are definitely open, declares the Gospel. No matter what our mood, the Spirit has come on this Jesus, and we hear the Word of God affirming this unique Person as the beloved Son.

My friends, please do not put your faith in your own unruly feelings, but in the Gospel; the good news about Jesus of Nazareth. Your subjective experience may sometimes coincide with the word of God, but often it will not. The whole life, death and resurrection of Christ is the ground of faith, not your personal moods. Stake your life on him, not on the ebb and flow of your subjective experience.

Although this sense of the absence of God may be more marked in our age, it is not something new. The most wonderful Christians in many centuries have experienced times when they felt the windows of heaven were shut. They have known the grey times, when the feeling of God’s absence infiltrated their days like a chilling fog blotting out the sun. But they have refused to be dominated by these unwanted moods. They have committed each day to Christ and got on with their high calling.

WORSHIP IS CELEBRATION

The windows of heaven are open. For this reason it is my conviction that the public worship of the church should always be a joyful celebration. The primary emphasis should not be on pleading with God for this or that, not a wallowing in our human imperfections, but a celebration of the great things God has done!

The approach should be one of joy and affirmation. Hymns should include plenty of thanks-adoration-praise. The prayer for forgiveness should be dominated by the declaration of saving grace. No matter how confronting, sermons should never thunder outside the circle of God’s love. The Holy Communion should not be a dour memorial but a joyful Table Fellowship. The emphasis in Baptism should not focus on human vows but in God’s initiative-grace. The benediction should not come across as a wistful hope that God might be with the people as they go out into the tough world, but an affirmation that God will certainly be there always!

For the lucky people of the church, the heavens are never now closed. Never! In Christ and through Christ they are open! To hell with the negative feelings we may sometimes have! To hell with our moods! Those feelings do not determine the status of the windows of heaven. It has been determined in Christ Jesus. The Word and the Spirit flow free and are among us.

When the heavens are open, anything is possible.

SERMON 2: THE TOWN CRIER

Mark 1:1 The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

In Michael Swanwick’s novel “Jack Faust” one Jew named Nathan, who had suffered much, asks the question that millions have asked: “WHY?”

Jack Faust’s answer is gloomy:

“To ask why implies that things happen for a purpose, and they do not. There is no purpose, no direction, no guidance to events. Nothing means anything. The world is a howling desert of meaninglessness, and reason is useless before it. There is only blind event.”

How do you react to that? “Nothing means anything. The world is a howling desert of meaninglessness.”

MARK HAS GOOD NEWS

The Gospel of Mark has a different theme to play, based on a joyful creed. His message was not dismal but daring.

The Gospels are not biographies. Mark was not a bloke who took some papyrus paper and a quill, and sat down to calmly compose a brief biography of an interesting man called Jesus.

Mark was essentially an evangelist. He is like a town crier standing in the busy market place and announcing an extraordinary event of great joy, or like a king’s herald arriving in town with an excited proclamation of wonderful news.

Mark’s Gospel does not answer every “why” question that nags us. Nevertheless it does build on the Old testament theme that both the universe and human history have a purpose, and the Creator is personally involved it from beginning to end. Yet Mark has even better news than that.

So my friends, please recognise Mark as the town crier, not as an observer. “Hear ye, hear ye!” Good news. Gospel. Get that picture of him and you are on the right track.

GENESIS AND JESUS

Today, I will enlarge the Lectionary reading (as set for this day) by moving it back a few verses to the beginning of the Gospel of St Mark; to the first verse.

Also today in the Lectionary we were transported back to the first verse of the Bible; in Genesis 1. For Mark, these two events have a close affinity; they interrelate.

Genesis announces the beginning of the whole universe, the creation:

In the beginning God created heaven and earth.

In the beginning God. Not blind chance. But a personal, purposeful Being.

That same word “beginning” is repeated in Mark’s opening verse

The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Mark wants us to hear that echo from Genesis. What God did at the beginning was astounding beyond reason. What he did in Jesus, was just as astounding, maybe even more so, awesome beyond reason. We are the recipients of the blessing of both. The creation event. The new creation event.

The actual word “genesis” is not mentioned but it is implied by our town crier. The book of Genesis, (genesis) declares of the first momentous miracle: The birth of the universe and all the subsequent events of that old era. There is a purpose, a meaning; and it is a divine and glorious one.

The Book of Mark proclaims the second genesis miracle: The birth of the new era in Jesus, the brave new world of the kingdom of God. Mark was in a profound sense a new age guy.

Not new age in the sense of fiddling around with crystals, pyramids, and astrology, or singing with the nonsense of the 1970’s, “This is the age of Aquarius!” Mark believed a new age had been launched by Jesus; it was like a recreation; truly a genesis.

BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

After that opening sentence, The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,

what follows in Mark is a précis of the story of John the Baptist; that austere cousin of Jesus who preached in the wilderness and baptised those who repented their sins in the waters of the Jordan River. This John event readies us for the really big news: The announcement of the arrival of Jesus on centre stage, to fulfil the faith and hope of the prophet Isaiah.

What about the actual baptism of Jesus? In those days Jesus arrived from Nazareth in Galilee, and was baptised by John in the Jordan. Why did Jesus submit himself to that?

Unlike us, Mark, the town crier, is not concerned with the question (asked by our contemporary world with its fascination with the psyche) as to why a choice soul like Jesus wanted to share in “the baptism of repentance, for the forgiveness of sins.” Such themes are not his thing.

Mark is pre-eminently the evangelist, the good news guy, the town crier. He is focussed on proclaiming the best possible news this world could hear about. One has come among us, whose sandals even the great prophets are not worthy to untie, who has brought a new age into being.

The baptism of Jesus begins this salvation story. In those days Jesus arrived from Nazareth in Galilee, and was baptised by John in the Jordan.

Moving on a little, there is the matter of the Spirit. “When Jesus came out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove Again there is an interplay between Mark and the opening words the Book of Genesis.

The Book of Genesis, in verse 2, speaks of the Spirit of God who was purposefully moving over the face of the waters. The Holy Spirit is the active agent in all creation.

Now in Mark’s Gospel, as Jesus rises up out of the waters the Spirit is there again.

“When Jesus came out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove; and a voice came from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, with you I am very pleased.”

Here the purposeful hand of God is displayed. History is being reshaped. An event as mighty as the first creation was taking place. Here is a sign of that divine purpose that threads through history. Jesus was filled with the same Spirit that brooded over the first creation. The second creation, the radically new era, was beginning This is the new age of the kingdom of God.

In these few opening verses, we have the Gospel foreshadowed in a few words. Mark, the town crier, begins his proclamation with the key to all that will follow.

FULL UNDERSTANDING COMES SLOWLY

However it would take the contemporaries of Jesus much longer to recognise the profound meaning of this Jesus event. This truth is so extraordinary that it will prove hard to recognise and to grasp. Men and women in the Gospel story will come to the truth slowly; flickers of light penetrating their dense minds and stunted faith.

Mark will go on to repeatedly tease his hearers about the Mystery of this man Jesus. Our town crier will tell of Jesus in action, teaching, healing, and driving out devils. This Jesus will astound people. He will shock others. Gravely offend some people. Win the loyalty of others. In the evangelist’s good news the question will keep rising up like some disruptive yeast: “Who is this person Jesus? What is his secret? From where does he get his authority?”

Because of our dullness of heart, it will take a long while to get it. It is likely the listener will only look back later and understands the significance of Mark’s opening verse -The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We will need to follow the town criers message through to its shocking yet wonderful end. The climax of the message will be in the story of Jesus’ betrayal, suffering and death. Mark devotes one third of his Gospel to that last, fateful week.

Only at the crucifixion will the awesome impact of this new genesis will be fully felt. The good news knows no limit; human folly and arrogance, human sins and corporate evil, cannot suppress this new genesis.

From the most unexpected place, a hill where criminals were executed, the town crier proclaims a salvation event which surpasses all others.

In a winsome irony, it would be a nonJew, a Roman despised Gentile centurion, the actual man in charge of the exsection squad, who in Mark’s message will become the first herald of the full message, proclaiming when Jesus died: ‘This really was the Son of God.”

That takes us back to chapter 1, verse 1. The opening words of Genesis, and these opening words of Mark: “The beginning.” The old beginning was good news, the new is marvellous news! News of our God, God in creation and salvation.

That is where the town crier wants us to hear; to hear and comprehend. He wants us to be able to recognise and trust this Jesus of new beginnings, this new creation.

The evangelist wants us to worship and adore the Divine Mystery-Love at the heart of it all things. Meaning. Purpose. A story of liberation and healing.

SUMMARY

Do you recall that story with which I commenced? The novel by Michael Swanwick?

Nathan, the long suffering Jew asked “WHY?”

Jack Faust answered:

Mark, our wonderful town crier, knows better. The evangelist declares: There is meaning, and that meaning is not something invented by us. It exists before the beginning and after the end. Its flows from the activity of God, our awesome Creator and Redeemer, in whose name we come to the baptismal waters, where all things become new.

THANKS FOR WATER

Most generous Creator and Friend, please receive our thanks for the remarkable gift of water, without which this earth would be as barren as the moon.

For the water bag of the desert traveller, and the verdant oasis waiting to welcome the weary pilgrim or the lost.

For the frequent downpours that create rain forests and the occasional storms that make the desert blossom like the rose.

For small, hanging lakes among the mountains, beautiful as jewels, and for larger lakes where water skiers find exhilaration.

For the music of small streams running over rocks, and the roar of cascades and thunder of waterfalls.

For small ponds where children look for frogs, and for frozen winter puddles on which they stomp and make fracture patterns.

For sparkling seas in which to bathe during a heatwave, and the opportunities for surf riders when the waves are up.

For the blessed sound of rain on a roof after a drought and the sun showers and rainbows of springtime and autumn.

For farm dams that provide for herds and flocks, and for irrigation facilities that nurture citrus groves and vineyards.

For a long glass of cool drink on a hot day, and on a cold day the steam rising from a cup of tea or coffee.

For swimming pools and frolicking children, and the town water supply that stores water and brings it right into our homes.

For creeks where those in canoes can paddle and explore, and white waters that provide thrills for intrepid rafters.

For the garden hoses that water lawns, flowers, and fruits, and the sparking of fountains set in city places.

For the water that cleanses our soiled bodies, and the sensual delight of warm shower flooding over our shoulders on a winter’s morning.

For the waters that support an infant in the womb, and the fluid that largely constitutes the body we inhabit.

For the River Jordan where John prepared for the coming of Christ, and for the hour when our Jesus entered those baptismal waters.

For the fonts and baptismal baths in church and cathedral, for our own blessed baptism among the children of God from every land on earth.

Bountiful Friend, we thank and praise you for this special gift of water, and we pray that we may be good stewards of such bounty, maintaining its purity and availability for generations that are to come. Through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen!

THANKS FOR FECUND MOMENTS

**For two voices.

Let us give thanks for those happenings, and those people, that point us beyond the surface of things to the deeper realities.

Let us pray.

Most loving God, thank you for the many things, great and small, that enlighten us beyond our common way of seeing things.

For the unexpected beauty a photographer has caught in a drab scene, or the insight revealed in a great painting.

For the chance comments overheard on a train, or words glanced at in a magazine while waiting to be seen by our doctor, that take us beyond the trivial to the profound.

For the crafted words of great poets, sending little shafts of light into the shadowland where we spend much of our busy days.

For an observation made by a friend, that bypasses our common way of seeing things, and alerts us to a wider range of possibilities.

For times in wilderness places, where the raw grandeur of nature peels away the layers of urbane insulation and exposes us to the Creator.

For a passage of music that pierces through the surface thoughts and feelings and speaks to the vulnerable beauty that lies deep within our being.

For a well known Bible passage that we thought we understood from beginning to end, yet we suddenly hear as if for the first time.

For a line in a hymn, a thought in a prayer, a phrase in a sermon, that teases us and sends us after new questions rather than old answers.

Far beyond all else, we give thanks for the Holy One who came to the waters of the Jordan for Baptism. For the heavens opening, the Spirit alighting, and the Word clearly sounding.

We thank you, loving God, that although we may not be very wise or faithful, we have come to that same watering place, and follow that same beloved Son from the Jordan to Galilee, and from Galilee to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem to Golgotha, and from Golgotha to the amazed women at running from a vacant tomb.

For your open, inclusive light and joy in Christ Jesus, with us to the end of the world, we give you thanks and praise, from now unto eternity.

Amen!

PRAYING FOR OTHER PEOPLE

Let us pray.

Most Holy Friend, please teach us to pray for others, with our feelings and well as our minds, with our actions and well as our words.

Teach us to pray for those who believe the heavens are forever empty and devoid of any divine purpose or compassion. Let there be light and hope;