Arbor Dale Presbyterian Church

mmqb 9 Jan 2012

Going Deep so go deeper. Jesus is going deep so that we can go deeper with him. He goes deep under the water so we can deep into life including the way we think, spend time, use our money, relate to others and direct our desires. That was the theme and structure of the sermon yesterday. I wish I had repeated the he goes deep under the water so you can go deep line more to draw the two parts of the sermon together. Here they are...

Big Events
I have a love hate relationship with Big Events. I am drawn to the sense of excitement and possibility, but I’m often repulsed by the sheer humanity of the a big crowd, there are just too many people making too much noise or creating too much spectacle.
The first big event I can remember being a part of was the 1989 Boy Scout National Jamboree. I spent almost two weeks in Fort A.P. Hill Virginia with 32,000 Scouts. It was epic. I can remember being one of the 32000 rocking out with the Beech Boys. I can remember hearing ‘George Bush the first’ talk to all of us like we were his grandsons. I can also remember the long lines for showers and missing out on activities because there were too many people. I can feel what it was like to march to assemblies with 32000 other people in the heat most of whom smelled like they didn’t wait in line for the showers. When it was all said and done I told my parents that i loved it and I hated it. I still feel that way about big events.

John the Big Event Baptist
John the Baptist was a big event. Luke tells us that the word of the Lord came to John. The word of the Lord is what Israel lived for. It is what they waited on and they had been waiting for a long time for a prophet like Moses. So when it came to John with the promise that something big was about to happen, people came out to see and hear more. They came out from the villages, from the country town and from Jerusalem, the big city. They came out to see John in his camel hair, with his long hair, with his strange diet and his invitation to be baptized and receive forgiveness for their sins. I expect that alot of people came out simply to be a part of the big event. It would be worth to see John and hear about the Lord even if you had to be with all those other sinners.

Big Event within the Big Event
While John was preaching and the crowds were gathers and the masses were being baptized, Jesus came out to be baptized. This was the big event within the big event. Most people probably missed it. They went to the Jordan and didn’t see the sky rip apart to reveal God’s glory. They didn’t see the Spirit of God coming down like a dove. They didn’t hear the voice of the Father say, “This is my son, the beloved, the one in whom I am well-pleased.”
This Big Event within the Big Event is something that no one coud predicted or would have expected. The righteous one comes out with sinners to start over? The chosen one of God is out there with the masses? And yet that is what happened. The one who is without sin goes out to be baptized. The one who is totally in line with God’s will and in harmony with God’s work goes out to repent or turn his life around. No one would have expected the Christ to be there as a part of the Big Event. And yet he was. He was there in the crown. He was one of the many on the banks of the Jordan waiting in line, taking a ritual bath. He didn’t need to come and yet he did.
Why? Because that is Jesus mission. He is sent to be with sinners. The Son is sent by the Father to be with the sheer humanity of real people at a really big event. He is a part of the big event not just to take his place among us but to take our place. Jesus came and took our place and was baptized so that he might begin to provide the perfect human response to what God was doing and has been doing since the foundation of all things.

Jesus does this ‘taking our place’ as he goes out differently than everybody else. Everybody else went for themselves. They went for a new start with God so that their lives would be better, richer, more satisfying. They went out to wash away a guilty conscience or get clean from a life of filth. Jesus went out not for himself, but for everybody else. He wasn’t self concerned or preoccupied with his life. He wanted instead to give us life. And so he went under the water, the ancient symbolic act of giving up control to the things of chaos so that you might come back to life. Jesus went under and came out to take our place and begin all things again.

This was deep work. Jesus is entering into all the chaos, all the pain, all the loss and failure, frustration and foolishness so that he can work with his Father to bring life out of the stuff of death. He goes down deep to bring it all back to his Father on high.

This is the same thing that Jesus will do on the cross. He will enter finally and fully into death so that the power of God might defeat sin and take away the sting of death. When Jesus talks about his crucifixion in Mark 10 he calls it his baptism. In other words, he is saying that he will finish on the cross what he began in the Jordan river; he will take our place in death so that we might join him in new life.

Iconic Imaging
Icon painters in the ancient church made this connection between the saving mission of Jesus and his baptism. They realized what Jesus was doing and painted picture of Jesus in the water so that it looked like he was entering the tomb. He would enter the tomb after he was killed. After he was crucified he was dead and buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimethia. He got a head start in that direction when he was baptized. He went down into the water to go down into the things of death to bring about God’s new life for us and for the world. Look at the cover of your bulletin to see what I am talking about.

Responding to Jesus going deep
If we see that image and hear the gospel and believe in our hearts that Jesus went deep down to bring me up and out of the stuff of death into new life, then what do we do? If we believe that Jesus made the perfect response for us, how do we say Yes and Amen and join our hearts and minds with his?
To answer that question I want to talk about our lives by talking about 5 parts of who we are.

We are going to start with the head. In our culture we associate our heads with the higher functions of thinking, imagining, reasoning. We think of our minds as the control center of who we are or at least the control center of all bodily functions. The head is important and what we do with our thoughts is critical to who we are and how we respond to Jesus. That is why Paul can say, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy...Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”   Jesus renews our minds when he goes under the water into all the old stuff of despair and lies, false images of God and forgetfulness of truth. Jesus goes into patterns of selfish thinking and reasoning, selfish stories and little lies to transform our minds. He makes it possible to know God as his Father, to see your self as a child of God, to know the gifts of grace and to begin to understand the hights and depths of God’s wisdom. Jesus can replace the old patterns of thought with God’s original design; we have to let him go under for us for that to happen.

Next, lets all look at our wrist. How many of you have a watch on? Raise it up. Lift it up high. When you look at your watch, what do you feel? For many of us watches are a necessity. We need them to stay on time. We need them to keep us going and focused and free. We look at a watch and feel like time is openning up for us. For others watches are a cruel master. They constantly remind us that we are a day late and a dollar short. They are always there letting you know that you wont get it done on time. We look at a watch and feel like time is escaping, fleeing away into a dark abyss. Jesus went under the water to free us from the ravages of time. He went into the stuff of death to wipe away the fear of being late or the fear of being caught by our past. He was baptized to free you from a life where past, present and future fall part and bring you into God’s time. In God’s time there is a day of rest. There is eternity to discover what we need to know.   There is sufficent worry for each day and the freedom not to worry about tommorrow.

If we touch our heads and wrist and remember the gospel, then we can also touch our back pockets. Now that is male way of saying that we can touch the place where we keep our money. Money is, according to 1 Timothy, the root of all evil. According to Jesus you can’t serve God and money. And that is hard for us to believe. Because we all believe that we would be better off with more money. Money gives us power, control, freedom, and influence. It can make you feel young and able to serve the Lord. But money can also trap you and crush you. It can make you feel week and unwanted. Money is a fickle master.   And for that reason Jesus came into the world and was baptized in our place so that we might know the constant favor of the Lord who rich in mercy. He came so that we might know that it is better to give (money included) than to recieve. For what good is it if a man gains the whole world and looses his soul?

If you touch your back pocket then you also need to touch your front pocket or that special place where you keep your cell phone. Where is it? Where do you keep that special little device that can get you in touch with just the right person? Where it that key to connectivity? Now I don’t want you to think that I am talking about texting too much. For me the cell phone is an image of how we can relate. It is a tool that you can use to reach out and touch someone. But it can also be a tool you use to shield yourself from others, from God and even from yourself.

last night we went to dinner and there was a random table of people next to us that I saw and immediately wondered, what connects those three people? Whatever it was, it wasn’t stronger than their desire to connect to others through their phones. At one point, the woman was talking on hers, the young guy who like his hair was texting and the other guy was just fiddling. Their devices symbolized their distraction, their failure to relate to the person in front of them.

Jesus came to free us from that great cloud of confusion and hurt and dissapointment. He came and went under to make all things new, relationship included. He was baptized for us so that we might love our neighbors with the attention we give ourselves or our cell phones.

The last thing I want you to do is rub your belly. This time of year in the post-Christmas regret era many of us rub our bellies and wonder about our lack of self-disciple. We think I thought it would be different this year. I thought I would be able to control my desire. But the truth of the matter is that we can’t we can’t control the deep down urges that are more subtle and strange than we expect. That is why Jesus came into the world and went deep for us. So that we might desire God above all things. So that we might live not on bread but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord to give life and hope, peace and joy, freedom and love.

Closing
There is an ancient story that I’ve heard in more than one sermon (which should be a red flag) that when the Crusaders were baptized, they purposely held their swords out of the water. This was a symbolic gesture to God saying something like, "I will be baptized into the Christian faith, but Lord, you can't have this area of my life - fighting, bloodshed, and war." All too often we act that way. We see what Jesus has done for us and think I can go with him, I am open to being baptized, but I want to hold on to this or that, to this part of my body or life or old-self.
That never works. It is only as we loose our lives, our whole lives that we gain life. It is only as I go all the way under in prayer, in fellowship with others, in reading the scripture and in serving others that I get raised to new life.
Whatever you have been holding back or whatever has been holding you back, it isn’t worth it. You can’t know that from the outside, but when you begin to believe in Jesus, and turst his Father and follow their Spirit, then you know that going down with Jesus into the water leads to new life and hope, to joy and freedom.