Baptism take one

 

As you read the meditations this week, I invite you to have a bowl of water in front of you.  You may want to begin by pouring out the water, hearing it splash at the bottom of the bowl and even splatter onto the table.  You may want to dip the tips of your fingers into the bowl.  Pay attention to the sensations that are sent all the way from your fingertips to your brain.

Do you feel warmth or coolness?

What colors do you notice?

Can you maybe even see your reflection in the water?

Play in the water a bit, let your inner five-year-old-self loose with joy – especially because this year has not been easy.

Now, I invite you to wet your thumb and trace the outline of the cross on your forehead.  Remember you are created in God’s image.  Remember God’s liberating love that seeks to let loose in your words/actions/presence.  Remember God’s grace that feeds us and forms us every day.  Remember, you are a beloved daughter and son of God.

Breathe into that truth.

Then read these words:

At that time Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan River so that John would baptize him.  John tried to stop him and said, “I need to be baptized by you, yet you come to me?”  Jesus answered, “Allow me to be baptized now. This is necessary to fulfill all righteousness.”

Two quick insights about the passage for you to ponder.  First, the setting of the Jordan River is a political statement.  The Jordan was where Moses preached his final sermon on the wilderness side.  Then mantel of leadership was passed to Joshua, who parted the Jordan River (just like Moses parted the Red Sea), the people walked through into the Promised Land.  The Elders collected twelve stones from the river bottom that were holy, tactile, tangible reminders of God’s presence.  (If you want to read the whole story it is Joshua chapters 3-4).  John didn’t just choose the Jordan as a random site, the Jordan choose John as a holy place for people to gather to remember – remember our history.  I wonder sometimes if we need to gather at the Potomac to remember our complicated and complex history as a country?  That we have struggled with living our ideals as a nation with our own self-interest and individualism – to name that and then wash in the river renewing us to live as God’s people.

Second, I love how John objects to doing this.  Is there any part of you that struggles with fully living the claim of baptism?  I do.  I do with people who push all my buttons and take all my energy.  Can I really show God’s love to them?  I struggle with when my frustration fumes and comes out in words I immediate want to pull from the air and put them back in my mouth.  Baptism is God's unconditional and unceasing claim.  We don’t do anything to earn this claim of love and grace.  It is.  You are God’s beloved. 

Now touch the water again, letting that truth soak in and saturate your life today.

Prayer:  Let this water today remind me who and whose I am.  I am (insert your name here), Your beloved, O God, let that truth loose in my life.  Amen and Amen.