Water, especially as snow & ice, seems to be on everyone’s mind and in everyone’s driveway. We’d miss it if it suddenly dried up. Water flows through the Scriptures for the upcoming weekend, mostly as a symbol of Grace offered abundantly to pilgrims through a barren land. Some of you may wish to re-explore The Baptism of Christ, if you opted as I did for an Epiphany visit from the Wise on the first Sunday of the year.
Genesis 9:8-17 expounds on the theology of Noah’s Flood, a story found in many cultures of antiquity. What’s unique is that God here makes a covenant surrendering God’s prerogative to destroy through water, and seals it with the Sign of the Rainbow. New to this story is the concept of God’s nature to save, and to re-create. God is no longer a far-off manipulator, but has revealed holiness as bound up in humanity–ah, an introduction to Lent! Portrayed here is a God now subject to the hopes and dreams, griefs and disappointments of those made in Divine Image! Can we have a God big enough to be self-limited by the profanities of the children of dust?
The Epistle, I Peter 3:18-22, can be pretty complicated at first reading. The author suggests that The Ark was sacramental, that it was the salvation which God provided during the cleansing flood. The floodwaters themselves, then, can be claimed as means of Grace, for this over-abundance separated the Righteous from the Children of Chaos (v.20). In the next verse, he/she says that this prefigured Baptism; the Church now announces regularly that in the newly-baptized the Holy Spirit has yet again flown over the waters.
The Gospel lesson is Mark’s amplified remembrance of Jesus’ own baptism, 1:9-15. The core of these few verses is the Voice from Heaven which supports Jesus by saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Compare this with other Gospel accounts which indicate that the Voice was to the CROWD, directing them to the Otherness of Jesus. Here again we see God getting involved with Creation–God just can’t stay away, thank you Lord!
Some preachers/teachers will want to segue immediately to the 40 days in the wilderness (vv.12-13), which is OK…but somehow seems to diminish the intimacy of the covenant and baptism. Whichever road is taken, Lent is introduced as a season of God’s embrace to the wanderer and the profligate alike.
God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King
My explorations of the Scriptures for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com
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