FIRST READING Genesis 1:1–5
1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
PSALM Psalm 29
1 Ascribe to the LORD, you gods, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength. 2 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due God’s name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness. 3 The voice of the LORD is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders; the LORD is upon the mighty waters. 4 The voice of the LORD is a powerful voice; the voice of the LORD is a voice of splendor. 5 The voice of the LORD breaks the cedar trees; the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon; 6 the LORD makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Mount Hermon like a young wild ox. 7 The voice of the LORD bursts forth in lightning flashes. 8 The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. 9 The voice of the LORD makes the oak trees writhe and strips the forests bare. And in the temple of the LORD all are crying, “Glory!” 10 The LORD sits enthroned above the flood; the LORD sits enthroned as king forevermore. 11 O LORD, give strength to your people; give them, O LORD, the blessings of peace.
SECOND READING Acts 19:1–7
1 While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples. 2 He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” They replied, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 Then he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They answered, “Into John’s baptism.” 4 Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus.” 5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied — 7 altogether there were about twelve of them.
GOSPEL Mark 1:4–11
4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
THE BAPTISM OF OUR LORD
Before I begin, I’d like to read you the devotion from the Carolinas Mission District website written by Pastor Ryman this past Tuesday. By the way, if you didn’t know it, pastor’s and lay-leaders from across the NALC contribute to the devotions that are published daily on the CarolinasNALC.org website and I recommend that you to take a look at it each day. I know a shameless plug, by it’s a good resource and I encourage you to use it. The reason I’d like to read this particular devotion is that it goes right along with our readings for today.
Pastor Ryman wrote: “Can you imagine the ruckus in the synagogue during worship? Rabbi, I don’t like the new music for the psalm. It was too hot/cold inside. I think we should sit/stand during the prayers. Rabbi, who gave you permission to heal that man with the withered hand on the Sabbath? Does [any of] this sound familiar?
[If not] It should, for such issues arise everyday within congregations. These situations shift focus away from worship and give way to legalism, power struggles, control issues and conflict. Rarely, if ever do they have anything to do with accomplishing Christian mission and ministry. Jesus often faced such scrutiny, because He didn’t always conform to rules and traditions. Instead, much to the chagrin of the Pharisees, His purpose was to show God’s love and compassion through service to His neighbor.
There will always be persons who look upon the church as a place of perceived power or control. There will always be those who grumble. Yet, the lessons for today teach us that God’s work is not confined within walls and stained glass windows. Jesus shows us the way; withdraw rather than fight, and continue to do the work to which God calls His beloved children.” I thought Pastor Ryman did a great job of capturing the struggles many of our churches are facing today and I thought it was well worth sharing with you. People get caught up in, what theologian Philipp Melanchthon called, the Audiphoria, or the unimportant stuff and completely miss the ministry that we’re called to do. Let me come at this from a different direction.
There’s a popular idiom that’s been around for some 500 years that illustrates how we sometimes miss the big picture because we get wrapped up in the details. In 1546 John Heywood is credited with coining the phrase “you can’t see the forest for the trees.” And how often do we prove the statement correct. How often do we miss the beauty and complexity of the world around us all because we’re too busy being focused on the wrong things? How often do we miss the joy and laughter of a child because we’re overly concerned about the volume of their play? How often do we fail to appreciate the athleticism and complexity of the game, all because we’re too focused on the win/loss column?
I like the story of the Middle Eastern prince who fell in love with a beautiful peasant girl. Eventually he proposed marriage and she accepted. The prince felt that such an event should be marked by a gift of rare beauty, so he searched the empire for the most beautiful diamond to give to her. After acquiring this perfect diamond, his next thought was, that this beautiful diamond certainly demanded a specific box of rare beauty for the presentation of such a rare and precious gem. So he commissioned the royal cabinetmakers to make the most beautiful box in the kingdom for the diamond.
On the day the diamond was to be presented, appropriate servants, horsemen, and soldiers were summoned to march in the entourage to the peasant girl’s cottage. The neighbors and family gathered as they approached. When the prince presented the kingdom’s most beautiful diamond, nestled in the kingdom’s most beautiful box, they were amazed and awed at the spectacle. The peasant girl studied the gift at length, and then startled the crowd by discarding the diamond and keeping the beautiful box.
This is not unlike what we’ve done with the miraculous story of the creation given to us in our text. We’ve spent countless days debating the scientific inadequacies of the story or trying to reconcile it to the results of our latest findings in the laboratories. And in the end, all we’ve accomplished is that we’ve completely missed the beauty of the gift that God has given us in this great story.
There is an unforgettable scene in the movie The King and I. Anna, the teacher for the king’s children, was summoned late one night to the king’s audience hall. There she found the Siamese monarch engrossed in reading a large book. “Why, your majesty,” she exclaimed, “you’re reading the Bible!” The king’s response was that Moses was surely an ill-informed man if he thought the world was created in six days. Anna’s reply was informed and accurate. “Your majesty, Moses was not a man of science; he was a man of faith.”
The account in the Bible is a faith story, not seeking to tell how the world was created scientifically, but by whom and why He created the world. This passage is a gift to us as beautiful as any diamond we’ve ever seen. As such, it would be good for us to hold it up and examine the different facets of it as a jeweler would examine a beautiful stone, hoping to unlock its incomparable beauty.
The original text employs a term for the word create which is never used to denote any human activity. The Hebrew word bara (baw-rah) is reserved and used exclusively for the prerogative of God. The biblical writer is clearly attempting to express something specific. Unlike the way humans create, that is we make something new or reorder materials from something else found in God’s creation, God on the other hand can create from nothing. What the writer is trying to say is that what God is creating and making here possesses a quality fundamentally different from anything created and made by human scientists, artists or architects. The human artist, for example, must wrest the image from the material, which itself sets limits to the freedom that the artist has with it.
Near Clarkesville, Georgia, on the banks of a river, there’s an old mill and the workshop and gallery of a very gifted potter. He takes the raw clay from the banks of the river and creates beautiful pottery that commands very high prices. Each piece has inscribed on it “the Mark of the Potter,” which is the name of the shop. That isn’t what our text for today is saying. Reading the text in this manner would set limits upon the purposes of God. On the contrary, God created from nothing an undistorted reflection of His thoughts, and this creation bears only the mark of God. So God’s creation proceeds with a sovereign freedom that has no other influence or limitation.
Some creation myths, found in other religious beliefs, don’t have God doing this kind of creation. They have the gods creating the world out of pre-existing matter. That pre-existing matter sets limits on what the creation can be. That isn’t so with our God — He created the world out of nothing. In fact, the entire first chapter of Genesis pulsates with the creative nature of God: “God said,” “God saw,” “God created,” “God called,” “God made,” “God appointed,” “God divided,” “God ended,” “God rested,” “God blessed and sanctified.”
These words, describing the creative activity of God, overwhelm us with implications for our lives. It means that we are the story of creation. Our lives are fashioned and guided by the same God who put the stars and the sun in place at the beginning of the world. Long before we could think of God and love Him, He has already thought of us. Before the foundations of the world, there began the history of a great love and a great search.
God made the world from nothing. We are in it, and therefore we must accept responsibility for the gifts and talents He has entrusted to us. One day He will inquire, “What have you done with yourself?” We will have to give ourselves back to God just as surely as we have to repay the money we borrowed from the bank or property we borrowed from our neighbor. We will be judged by what we’ve done with what He has given us. He will ask, “What have you done with your body, your gifts, your calling, your family, your wife and children, your friends, and the church I gave you along the way?” There will be no excuses. The creative process takes away all the excuses and limits that we set on ourselves. We will not be able to blame our lack of stewardship on anything; we must accept it ourselves.
God who confronts us with our stewardship is the Father of Jesus Christ. God is faithful and never lets us down. God Himself isn’t a mere part of the world; He is the Lord, the creator of the world, and He dwells in majestic remoteness for all things made, from all creatures. But even though He is the Lord of the world who stretches His commanding hand above the universe, He knows me, and He clasps me to His heart. He will never give me up. I shall always be His child, even when I depart from Him or when death comes or the world ends. His faithfulness will never cease.
Luther said, “God made man out of nothing, and as long as we are nothing, He can make something out of us.” He will never give us up. “As Jesus was coming up out of the water, He saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on Him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:10-11).
This Sunday we are reminded of the baptism of Jesus. Granted, that theme is secondary in the creation story, yet it is appropriate that at the beginning of the year we recognize its implications in our lives. It’s a way of renewing our vows in this Epiphany season. Too often baptism is a rite for small children and is a good excuse for families to get together. The trivialization of this profound moment robs us of its mark, God’s mark, upon our lives. We need to remember that this mark has made all the difference.
Baptism is a moment of decision. In the creation story God decided to create order out of chaos. In the baptismal experience we acknowledge our decision to let Christ bring order to our lives and the lives of our children which are heretofore chaotic. In fact, chaos describes the condition of at least seventy percent of the adult population. They are “without form and void,” totally incapable of loving others. This relationship with fellow humans is manipulative and self-serving. They don’t care for anyone else, are unprincipled and governed by their own will. Their total being lacks integrity.
When people at this stage get in touch with their own being, it can be very painful. They either ride it out unchanged, destroy themselves, or listen to the Holy Spirit and decide to allow God to change them, to convert. Such conversions can be sudden and dramatic and are God-given. It’s as if the person has said, “Anything is preferable to this chaos. I’m willing to do anything to liberate myself from this turmoil.” Nevertheless, with the Holy Spirit’s help, a conscious decision can be made for God. As the spirit moved upon the waters at creation, so the Spirit moves upon the chaos of human life and brings order. The baptized life is the opposite of the undecided life. Regardless of its form, or the candidate’s age, in baptism the yielded life began when they were “drowned” in baptismal waters and rose resurrected in the Spirit. Because of this decision, by the parents or the person themselves, aimlessness is no longer an option.
The decision for Christ becomes the first thing in the new life of order and grace. Everything else is secondary. We have but one purpose and that is to express Christ in this world. This decision for Christ and the subsequent baptism is, in effect, a calling and commissioning for us. It’s at this point that we are certified for service by the Christian community. This is why Luther taught that in baptism we become part of the Priesthood of all Believers. In a real sense all Christians are called, not just those who have been set apart as ordained clergy. Baptism puts life in proper perspective. We have but one purpose: to express Christ in the world.
“In the beginning God” … “and God said that it was good” (v. 9). He begins a work and confirms that it’s a good work. As Mark says it, “You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.” These words of affirmation are words of grace. Grace is what we hunger for. Baptismal affirmation empowers us for ministry. The descent of the dove empowers the baptized not only to defeat every form of evil, but also to be the people of God — as God has called them to be.
Henry David Thoreau once went to jail rather than pay his poll tax to a government which supported slavery. His friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, visited him in jail. Walking up to the cell Emerson asked with surprise, “Henry, what are you doing in there?” Thoreau never missed a beat as he replied, “Nay, Ralph, the question is what are you doing out there?”
In baptism God creates a new being and reorders our life through the giving of the Holy Spirit. We’re welcomed into the church, the body of Christ, which helps to sustain and equip us from ministry. We die to the old Adam and are raised new in Christ, forgiven and called to service in the kingdom. God’s grace is given to us in Baptism and this is why it’s so important to remember our baptism daily; to bring to mind all God has done for us in Christ. So with Thoreau’s words ringing in our ears, what are we doing out there?
Amen