This sermon was presented at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on a rainy Sunday December 9, 2007, the second Sunday in Advent.
Isaiah 11:1-10
Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19
Romans 15:4-13
Matthew 3:1-12
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
I love the rain. I love to sit and watch it as it falls from the skies; listen to it as it hits the rooftops. As a little boy, our neighborhood didn’t have storm drains, it had ditches between the road and the sidewalk, and in the heavy thunderstorms I would watch them flood.[1] The ditches would begin by having some water in them and all of a sudden, a wall of water would roll and they would be filled to overflowing. There was a sense of awe as the majestic torrent of water rolled down the slope of the hill from our house toward the neighbor’s and beyond.
Our Call to Worship carries this image of majestic rain:
He shall live as long as the sun and moon endure,
from one generation to another
He shall come down like rain upon the mown field,
like showers that water the earth.
Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel,
who alone does wondrous deeds!
And blessed be God’s glorious name forever![2]
The Lord God comes like the rain upon the mown field, draping it with the moisture and nourishment it needs for life.
In the water there is birth, and in the water there is rebirth. In the water there is life and in the water there is death. In the water there is the warmth of being washed and in the water there is the peril of being washed away.
Our Call to Worship reminds us that the Lord God shall come down like rain upon the mown field, like showers that water the earth. Last week’s gospel reading reminds us that in the time of Noah the Lord God lifted the waters which wiped away nearly all of creation. And in these waters we find John the Baptist.
In the gospel, we find John coming from the wilderness to the Jordan crying his mission, his vocation, “Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight.”
John comes as a modern day Elijah. Nearly 900 years after the sudden departure of the prophet in the wilderness, John comes from the wilderness proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
As Elijah before him, John comes with a new way of looking at the world, a world that he comes to like no one has seen in an eon. John comes in a shirt woven of coarse camel’s hair, tied with a leather belt, and eating the foods of the poorest of the desert people, locusts and wild honey. There is nothing refined about him. He comes undeniably like thunder from a lightning bolt that strikes across the street. His message, his mission, his vocation is a radical turning from the ways of old and will not be denied, “Prepare the way of the Lord.”
A crowd comes to him, some of whom have come because of this radical message, some of whom have come because of his outrageous spectacle. He welcomes all who come, but some he welcomes with joy, others he greets with a rebuke; “You brood of vipers. Who warned you?”
His warning gets even more dire as he instructs, he warns his listeners to bear fruit worthy of repentance, or suffer the consequences. “Beware,” he says, “the ax is lying at the root of trees so every tree that does not bear good fruit and cast into the fire.”
John warns us as we enter his sanctuary in the wild to take the bath he is offering to beware. The Lord, the one who initiates this washing, will clear the threshing floor. The good grain, the fruit of the land nourished by the water and the soil will be separated from what remains. The grain will be sent to the barns, the chaff burned in the unquenchable fire.
Our identity as Christians depends on the story of the Gospel. The Gospel is the best, most authoritative way that we have of knowing who the Lord is in the history of the Christian community then and now. The Gospel gives us the story of who Christ is and who we are in Christ. And the word of God gives us a common story of the vision, the rituals, and the symbols of our life together.[3] In this, the story of Matthew’s story of John shows how we are introduced to the community and how Jesus welcomes us to the community.
The most important ritual we practice for welcoming a new member to the community of Christ is baptism. The most important ritual we who have been baptized can practice is remembering our baptism. In this, we remember who we are as the assembled body of Christ in the church. Through this remembrance, the church shapes us.
Peter Bower says, “Throughout history, the place of baptism has been regarded as a bath by which we are cleansed of sin, a womb from which we are reborn, a tomb in which we are buried with Christ and from which we are raised with him.”[4]
The images of water and the font are awesome, mystical, and varied. We reaffirm our baptismal vows because baptism “is the symbol of initiation into the household of faith, a sign of cleansing from sin, and a dramatic proclamation of dying and rising with Christ. Baptism is a Christian’s ‘ordination’ to the ‘royal priesthood’ and the mark of belonging to a community of saints that extends beyond time and space. Baptism signifies the presence of the Holy Spirit working among us to comfort, strengthen, and empower us in God’s service.”[5]
In Christ, we are baptized in water, sealed by the Spirit. We are cleansed in the water and blood of Christ our King for salvation. Baptized in water we are together with Christ in the tomb and together with Christ in his rising. Baptized in water we are God’s children born of the Spirit.[6]
Baptism as practiced by Christians is a radical response to the salvation given us by grace through faith. It is a means of identifying with the birth, life, and death of Jesus Christ. It is a radical sign of identifying with the community of God as the Body of Christ. In this sign we come to identify ourselves as the people of God. It is the first sign of coming to Christ, a motion begun by Christ long before our birth.
As the Lord God comes like the rain upon the mown field, covering it with the moisture and nourishment it needs for life, the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper cover us with the moisture and nourishment we need for our lives. And today, as we remember our baptism, we as the people of God come to share the meal Jesus shared with his disciples.
This is the meal he gave the apostles and the disciples. It is the meal we celebrate when
Through the words of the prophets
the Lord promised the people the Redeemer,
and gave hope for the day
when justice shall roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.[7]
As the waters introduce us to the community of the body of Christ, the supper nourishes us to do the work of the body of Christ.
The old song says,
Only love
Can bring the rain
That makes you yearn to the sky.
Only love
Can bring the rain
That falls like tears from on high.[8]
Tears fall from on high; these tears are the waters of our baptism. These are the waters John bathes us in while we are confessing our sins. These are the waters of our birth as we leave the womb, just like the fully human fully divine Jesus left the womb of his mother Mary. These are the waters of the tomb, the death and new life we come to in the water, at the cross and in the resurrection.
The love of God rains over us like the water of John’s baptism. The love of God rains over us with the glory and awe of the baptism of fire, the Holy Spirit’s coming at Pentecost. And the sovereignty of God reigns over us all as it has since the beginning. Jesus comes with the peace and love of God coming to earth to be human as we are and to be with us in community. Through this movement of the Triune God’s sovereign love; we are called to be the body of Christ in the church universal, through the love of God in the waters of our baptism, and by the power of the Holy Spirit in the baptism of fire.
Prepare the way of the Lord. Love reign o'er me.
[1] Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes do still freak me out, but a regular heavy t-storm, that can be pretty cool stuff.
[2] Office of Theology and Worship, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), The Book of Common Worship. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993, pages 693, 694.
[3] Westerhoff, III, John, A Pilgrim People. Seabury Press: Minneapolis, 1984 in A Baptism Sourcebook. Archdiocese of Chicago, Baker, Robert J. Editor. Liturgy Training Publications: Chicago, 1993, page 156.
[4] Office of Theology and Worship, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), The Companion to the Book of Common Worship, Bower, Peter C., Editor. Geneva Press: Louisville, Kentucky, 2003, page 161.
[5] Ibid, page 155.
[6] Saward, Michael A., “Baptized in Water.” Hope Publishing: Carol Stream, Illinois, 1982.
[7] Ibid, The Book of Common Worship, page 130.
[8] Townshend, Pete, “Love Reign O’er Me,” from Quadrophenia by The Who, MCA Records, 1973.
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