Choosing Rescue
Epiphany 1
Fr. Tim Nunez
May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Today’s gospel from Matthew brings us from the birth of Jesus to confront the very difficult truth of why we needed Jesus to come into the world.
Our relationship with God has been fundamentally broken from the beginning of human consciousness because we use our freedom to choose against the Lord’s will. Not everyone all of the time, but everyone some of the time. Somehow, some way, sometimes, we all do. Paul wrote this to the Church at Rome, “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) John put it more confrontationally, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8)
If you doubt that, think of it this way: what other creature on this planet routinely chooses to act against its own best interest and/or that of its community? We chafe against laws, rules, homeowners’ association covenants. We chafe against our own self-disciplines like diets. Sometimes we even chafe against our needs, like medication.
That nature separates us from God. True life resides in and with God, and he has been working to bring us back into relationship from the beginning. God spoke to Abraham – I will be your God and you will be my people. Remember at that time every other culture was envisioning gods out of the elements they could observe, sun, moon, wind, stars, sea.
Remember that God also later said to Abraham, “Through you I will bless all nations.” (“Nations” in this context means peoples, as in cultures.) This is also echoed in our passage today from Isaiah – “justice to the nations” and “a light to the nations.” Yet, history shows us that despite Jews spreading around the world as merchants, artisans and traders, they did not succeed in bearing witness to all nations about the One True God.
The whole world was spiritually dry, needing the true water of life.
Water serves as our best analogy for how necessary our relationship with God is to true life. It is biologically, absolutely essential to human life. We are roughly 60% water – give or take - and we cannot live without it. It is also critical to every form of life we know.
Water being necessary for biological life is very apparent around the River Jordan. The Jordan flows from the roots of Mount Hermon down to the north end of the Sea of Galilee. It resumes from the south end of Galilee, flows due south, a green ribbon through the desert, until it reaches the Dead Sea.
You can see exactly how far the irrigation reaches: it’s green, then it’s dirt. Green and dirt. Life and death. God and sin. Life is much more than biological life.
When Jesus comes to the Jordan, he has been in the world. Now it is time to begin his public ministry. He is in the life-giving water. This is a life and death moment, not just for him but for humanity and the whole creation.
People generally join John the Baptist in questioning why Jesus would undergo baptism. We understand that baptism is the washing away of our sin. We get the connection between water and life, and sin and death. But Jesus doesn’t need that wash. He is, after all, God incarnate, uniquely perfect and free from all sin. His will is perfectly aligned with his Father’s will. So why present himself for baptism?
Think about it this way: Baptism is a rite of life and death. In his own baptism, Jesus is affirming his oneness with humanity – fully human even as he is fully divine. He is affirming his life-giving relationship with the Father and is establishing his life-saving relationship with us. In stepping into those waters, Jesus identified himself completely with us — taking our place for us sinners, so that we might take our place with him among the redeemed.
That is, as he says, fulfilling all righteousness. This will become most clear in his death and Resurrection.
This deep connection between water and life shapes our prayer of Thanksgiving over the Water at baptisms:
We thank you, Almighty God, for the gift of water.
Over it the Holy Spirit moved in the beginning of creation.
Through it you led the children of Israel out of their bondage
in Egypt into the land of promise. In it your Son Jesus
received the baptism of John and was anointed by the Holy
Spirit as the Messiah, the Christ, to lead us, through his death
and resurrection, from the bondage of sin into everlasting life.
We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are
buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his
resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.
Therefore in joyful obedience to your Son, we bring into his
fellowship those who come to him in faith, baptizing them in
the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
We are literally putting our old sinful selves to death and rising to new life in Jesus. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans:
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:3-4)
We see the promise to Abraham about blessing all peoples fulfilled through Jesus in today’s passage from Acts. Cornelius is not only a “Gentile,” he is a Roman Centurion, an officer of the despised, pagan occupying Roman army in charge of about 100 soldiers.
But he also believes in the one true God and is a man of devout prayer. In prayer, he gets a vision to send for Peter. In prayer, Peter gets a vision about trusting God’s will. Peter preaches the Good News about Jesus to his household, the Holy Spirit falls on them, and Peter baptizes them all; men, women, servants and children.
And thus the water of life flows into the desert. What was arid dirt is sprouting green shoots. What was consigned to sin and death has new life in Christ. It doesn’t matter that they were Gentiles. It doesn’t matter that they came from a pagan culture. It doesn’t matter that Cornelius was in the Roman army. It doesn’t matter who was in the household. God shows no partiality.
And let us all remember that as the Body of Christ in the world right now, it is through us that God is trying to water the desert. You already know everything Peter said to Cornelius’s household. You already know how to pray. Be open and ready to share this water where, when and however the Lord gives you the opportunity.
Drink deeply from the waters of life. Let Jesus refresh every dry place within you. Remember God will water the desert through you.
AMEN!