Getting Ready for Sunday (A Look at the Lessons for January 11, 2009)

[Each week, I try to present a few thoughts on the Bible lessons for the upcoming Sunday. I do this, in part, to help myself prepare my sermons, but also for the benefit of the people of the congregation I serve as pastor, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio. Because we use lessons from the Revised Common Lectionary, I hope that others will find what I write helpful as well.]

The Baptism of Our Lord
(The First Sunday after the Epiphany)
January 11, 2009

The Bible Lessons:
Genesis 1:1-5
Psalm 29
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11

The Prayer of the Day:
Holy God, creator of light and giver of goodness, your voice moves over the waters. Immerse us in your grace, and transform us by your Spirit, that we may follow after your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

General Comments:
1. January 6, Epiphany Day, kicks off the season of the Church Year called Epiphany. As pointed out before, the word epiphany literally means to shine upon. It has the idea of making something clear.

The theme of the Gospel lessons appointed for the Epiphany season is the many ways in which Jesus was revealed to be not only fully human, but also fully God. The other lessons, including those drawn from the Old Testament, also help us more fully see Christ as "the Word made flesh."

2. Light is often associated with the Epiphany season. This is related to more than the star which led the magi to the baby Jesus. It also relates to how Jesus reveals the nature, character, will, presence, and intent of God, among other things. In Jesus, we see God.

3. Another theme of the Epiphany season is the call to be witnesses who point to Jesus as God, Lord, and Savior. This is precisely what Peter, a devout Jew who comes to see that through Christ, God is reaching out the entire world, does in our second lesson. Followers of Jesus are called to reveal the truth about Jesus, so that the whole world can come to be His followers and so, live with God forever.

4. This Sunday's Gospel lesson, as is always the case on this Sunday of the Church Year, is about the Baptism of the Lord. Unlike the birth of Jesus or even the Last Supper, the baptism of Jesus is recounted in all four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). This underscores its importance. We'll talk about that a bit more in the next pass at these lessons.

5. Psalm 29: This psalm echoes our first lesson, a portion of the first of two creation accounts in Genesis. "The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders...The voice of the Lord is a powerful voice; the voice of the Lord is a voice of splendor." God speaks; life happens!

6. Acts 19:1-7: Acts is the second volume of Luke's writings found in the New Testament. Our lesson finds us deep into Luke's account of Paul's ministry in the mid-first century AD. Ancient Corinth was a wealthy seaport city where Paul founded a church. He wrote at least two letters to the congregation there which appear in the New Testament as First and Second Corinthians.

According to Luke, when Paul arrived at Corinth, he met people who, through the teaching of John the Baptizer that had somehow been shared with them, were awaiting the coming of a Savior. They reported that they had been baptized. But they told Paul that they had only undergone John's baptism. All baptized in the baptism instituted by Jesus receive the Holy Spirit, the power of God to believe in Christ and to live with God. That was happened to the believers at Corinth.

(Of course, if you're familiar with First or Second Corinthians, you also know that the Corinthian Christians were a dysfunctional lot who became obsessed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, particularly tongues. Many among them were convinced that they were spiritually superior because they possessed this gift. One reason for Paul's letters to them was to straighten them out on that score.)

7. Mark 1:4-11: Some of these verses appeared in one of our Gospel lessons for the recent Advent Season. Go here to see comments on Mark 1:1-8.

Here is my sermon from The Baptism of Our Lord Sunday in 2008. It's based on Matthew's account of Jesus' Baptism, which differs in some and amplifies what's seen in Mark's account. In the sermon, I deal a bit with the question of why Jesus, sinless, underwent a baptism of repentance.

It's important to keep in mind that John the Baptizer's baptism was for repentance. It was a symbolic act of commitment to God on the part of the person being baptized.

That is completely different from the Baptism instituted by Jesus, which is an act of God, not of the baptized. In Baptism instituted by Jesus, Christian Baptism, God's Spirit creates new life (John 3:3) in the same way that God's Spirit moved over the waters to create life in Genesis 1:1-5.

Verse-by-Verse Comments: Genesis 1:1-5
v.1: God created: In the Hebrew of the Old Testament, bara (he created) is only ever used of God. Human beings might form, fashion, or make things, but they never create them. That's the domain of God alone.

v.2: formless void: In Hebrew, the words used here convey confusion and emptiness.

the deep: Here, Genesis says that there was a chaos--picture a churning, roiling, out-of-control sea--before God created anything. This would have been a powerful image for the ancient Hebrews to whom this book was first addressed. Israel was a nation with no major seaports. For them, the sea was a frightening place, filled with sea monsters. (This also added special power to the Old Testament book of Jonah, where a giant fish would become the unlikely vehicle by which God saved a rebel Israelite.) God's creative activity brings order and peace to the chaos.

a wind swept over the face of the waters: The Hebrew word ruach can be rendered as wind, breath, or spirit. The same word is used in the second creation account in Genesis to describe God breathing life into the first man. Here, God, the only living being, omnipotent, is imparting life to His creation.

v.3: "Let there be...": God speaks and life happens.

"...light...": This is not the sun, moon, or stars. That will come later, in vv.14-19. God creates light. God creates the phemenon of light, the reality of light, the concept. The sun is just the sun. Stars are just stars. They wouldn't be possible without the phenomenon of light.

God, of course, is often described as "light." Jesus is called "the light of the world." But God is uncreated light, Whose being stands in contrast to the darkness of "the deep" and "the darkness" of sin which human beings prefer, according to Jesus in the Gospel of John.

Here, God seems to impart something of His character and nature to what He creates, in the same way that an author or a composer or a carpenter put something of themselves in their work. You wouldn't say that the things they created were actually pieces of the people, the way some religions insist that everything and everybody is part of God. But you would say that authors, composers, or carpenters invested their minds, hearts, bodies, and souls in what they make. (Of course, in the person of Jesus, God would come to actually invest Himself in us.)

This is what I believe: God, uncreated light, created light whereby His creation could come into being. In a strange, darkened room, light brings clarity and order. So maybe the light God created, reflecting His own internal order, functionality, and fullness, brought those things to the stormy chaos.

God is still doing that in our Baptism.

v.4: saw that the light was good: The idea of looking at His creative activity and declaring it good (tov, in the Hebrew) recurs throughout Genesis 1. God delights in His creation. (He delights especially in the pinnacle of His creative ventures, human beings. After creating the first humans, God declares the creation to be "very good," tov tov!)