The sort of persons we ought to be.

John’s baptism is hitting a nerve with a lot of people. Mark tells us all the people from the countryside and from Jerusalem are continuously coming out to hear John the Baptist. They are attracted by two aspects of John’s being.

First, he sounds like the prophets of old. He’s quoting Isaiah from another time when the people were also driven to repentance. The bit that Mark quotes evokes the entire passage we had in the first reading and more. God’s response to that repentance is warm and loving, “Comfort my people…Speak tenderly to Israel…prepare the way of The Lord…Lift up, do not fear…he will feed his flock…he will gather the lambs in his arms…he will gently lead..”

They want things to change and they know that change begins within each one of them.

Second, he looks like one of the prophets of old. Specifically, his camel hair outfit and eating locusts and wild honey are just like Elijah. They expect Elijah to usher in the coming of the messiah.

But it’s not just his preaching or his look. What John is doing is new. Although ritual washing is common in cultures around the world, there is no instruction in the Old Testament or precedent in Israel’s history, as far as we know, for the baptism of repentance that John is doing. But the metaphor is obvious for them as it is for us, with repentance, being cleansed from their sins.

And the fact that he looks like Elijah and is baptizing in the River Jordan is significant, too. At the end of his ministry, Elijah rolls up his cloak and parts the Jordan. Then he is caught up in a whirlwind and ascends to heaven. Remember also that when the Israelites finally left the wilderness to enter the Promised Land, they went across the Jordan.

Passing through the Jordan is a powerful symbol of new life, and they see hope in their entire future caught up in that new life.

My Godparents’ house is very old. It was built in 1718, literally a Colonial, so it’s a lot older than the country. (It’s in New Hampshire.) It is easy to pick out on their street because the chimney settled long ago actually leans back about two feet.  You wouldn’t necessarily hope for something like that, but it adds some character and charm. And, at over 300 years old, it requires some maintenance.

Soon after they bought the house in 1975, my Godfather began this huge project of redoing the paint.  I don’t mean just painting the house.  Painting over the old paint would have looked good for a while, but it would lose its integrity under stress from the winters. He decided that in order to do it right, to really make this paint job last and look good, he would have to take the old paint off – down to the woods.

At that time, 257 years of paint was not easily scraped.  He found out about a device. It was a heater, a couple of feet long and wide enough to cover each board.  He would place it along a board, heat it up until the paint grew soft, then scrape it away, all the way down to the bare wood.

It was slow and painstaking work, heating and scraping two feet at a time, and a pretty big two-story house. But it was necessary.

That’s the sort of maintenance John’s baptism offered. People wanted it and they needed it. They saw it as the means to regain God’s favor and thus improve their lives. That remains a major part of our theology of baptism today. People who get baptized later in life often feel a great weight of sin.

But Mark tells us right up front that this “good news” is Jesus Christ. Mark tells us right up front that he is the Christ, the Greek word for messiah, and the Son of God. That is who Jesus is, full stop. John is a transitional figure, a bridge between the old covenant and the arrival of Jesus.

Baptism in Christ includes going down to the bare wood of our being, but through the power of the Holy Spirit we are primed, as we pray “marked and sealed as Christ’s own forever.” That’s why we don’t baptize every week, or every day. One baptism is enough.

This morning we baptize Beckett Edwards, who is a living example of our ministry at Good Shepherd. He is the child of both the Andress and the Lutton/Edwards families. His parents were both formed in the life of this church and their love goes all the way back to our youth group. This is a happy day, indeed.

In Christ, we are caught up by the whirlwind of the Holy Spirit into eternal life. Our flag is planted firmly in the Kingdom of God. We claim that victory for Beckett and we reaffirm it for ourselves.

But there is ongoing maintenance. We handle that through our general confession, through specific confession when people want it. We also have a rite of the Reconciliation of a Penitent when needed because people struggle to be, as Peter wrote “…what sort of persons you ought to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness...” It’s a lot of work and it takes time, time that God is gracious and patient to give us. And Peter notes that we can “hasten the coming of the day of God” by attending to it.

I am reminded of that famous verse in Hebrews, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1)

That is our goal. That is our purpose. That is our hope. That is our destiny. Let us resolve afresh and anew to get on with it, together with Beckett.

AMEN