The Baptism of Jesus
9th January 2010
Preacher: The Rev'd Gillian Moses, Assistant Curate

Theme: Those were the days!

Ah, the good old biblical times! Those were the days! When God was God and people knew where they stood. When bushes burned, and manna fell from the heavens. When the skies opened and the voice of God was heard on earth, when stars appeared, and the blind were cured, and the dead brought back to life.

It’s not like that these days , is it? In fact it can be pretty hard to find traces of God at all , some times. Burning bushes mean bushfires in our Australian summers , and floods cause havoc and loss of life across the globe; people starve and food does not appear from the sky; the blind , more often than not , remain blind and the dead certainly do not come back to life. As our Archbishop asked in his Christmas sermon , where is God these days? What was different about biblical times that God seemed so involved , while now we appear to have been left to our own devices?

As humans have become cleverer , and have found more scientific explanations for events and for natural phenomena , the space left for God arguably has become smaller. When we rely medical discoveries to heal the blind and the lame , and when floods and fire can be explained by meteorology and climate change , rather than divine judgment , God’s core business has got a little harder to define. It’s little wonder that more and more people claim not to need God , or at least the God of flood and fire , of manna and miracle.

And if that were all God was , then I would agree that such a God is of little use to us. I would have little time for a magical and arbitrary God who chooses to intervene sometimes but not at others. Still , what are we to make of these biblical accounts , such as the baptism of Jesus and the accompanying theophany – the divine appearance as a bird and a voice? Or the prophesy from Isaiah about a God who saves God’s people from flood and fire? Are they only fairy tales and bedtime stories meant to soothe our fears and make us feel better? Where are our theophanies and rescues? Where is our Good News?

If we are looking for Good News in the form of a promise of protection from harm , and a free pass out of life’s troubles , then the truth is there is no good news. Jesus never promised us a rose garden. The Jesus story didn’t jump from Christmas to Easter , but passed through Good Friday. What is worth remembering , however , is that the story also did not jump from Christmas to Good Friday , but passed on to Easter. The good news was not that there was no pain , but that the pain was not the end of the story. That is the good news that still comes to us today.

According to Isaiah, the Lord says,
2When you pass through the waters , I will be with you;
    and through the rivers , they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned ,
    and the flame shall not consume you.

In other words , the flood and the fire remain , but do not dictate the outcome. What God promises God’s people is that when the fire and the flood come , we are not abandoned by God , and there will be life beyond the tragic event. It does not have to remain tragic. We need not be overwhelmed.

Cold comfort? Maybe – but I like to think it depends on what you are looking for. Recently I was speaking with a priest from one of the areas in Victoria that was devastated by bushfires on Black Saturday. She told me the story of the local Mothers’ Union branch , which had just distributed a large number of parcels to families who lost everything in the fires. The parcels contained Christmas decorations. Nine months after the fires , when public attention had shifted to something else , the ladies of MU were thinking about what it would be like for these families to approach Christmas and once again be hit with the realisation of all they had lost.. And so they did something about it.

Now a box of tinsel is by no means reparation for all that these families lost in the fires. It does not in any way take away from the pain and devastation people suffered as a result of the fires. I do believe , however , those boxes of decorations spoke quite powerfully of a sense of solidarity and compassion that the MU members felt for the survivors. Those decorations spoke of the sort of Good News that was to be found in spite of the devastation of Black Saturday. And according to my friend , the message was received loud and clear by the families who received the parcels with tears and gratitude.

For me, that is the kind of Good News that Jesus brought, and that Isaiah spoke of. Not the good news that protects us from any and all danger or trouble, but a much more profound Good News that teaches us a new way of looking at ourselves and each other, at life and all it entails. The Good News of Jesus speaks of the resurrection that follows Good Friday experiences – that transforms those times into something more than just pain and suffering. The Good News of Jesus teaches us to look for God not in the rainbows and happy times, but precisely in the darkest and most forsaken places of our lives.

The theological term for this is redemption, and that is what God promises. The tragedies of our lives are redeemed when we realise that we have options beyond pain. This is not a Pollyanna approach that elects only to see the good things in life, but an active choice to find life and growth in the very midst of pain, to find restored relationships in the midst of terminal illness, to find heroism and nobility in the midst of natural disaster, to find selflessness and generosity in the midst of famine. The God story teaches us to look for the resurrection and the meaning, and not just leave things as tragedy and disaster.

If we take up this approach to life, then something quite amazing happens. When we start to notice moments of redemption, then gradually we start to expect them. We start to look for those moments of grace, and, inevitably once we start to look for them, we find them. And when we start to live life in the expectation of those redemptive moments then our whole way of being changes fundamentally. We become people who see life with all its ups and downs, its hurts and celebrations, as something to be deeply grateful for.

Which brings us to the Eucharist, strangely enough. Eucharist means thanksgiving. When we make Eucharist we are giving thanks for the life we have been graced with. Interestingly, grace is also related to thanksgiving. It seems we can’t escape it! When we come to the altar it is to meet with God and to give thanks for all that we receive from God. We are not saying “thank God my life is so easy”; rather we say “thank God we are not alone in this.” Thank God for gathering us together. Thank God for the Good News which helps us to look at life with joy and expectation.

So when we come to the altar we bring out failed relationships and our tragic losses , and we ask God to help us see the signs of God’s presence among the ashes , in the love and comfort that others offer to us. We give thanks that we are not left with loss , but we are promised more than that.

In that act of communion God gathers us into a new community. It is not a community of good people who have got is all together. It is a community of people learning to say thank you. Isaiah tells us that God says ,
I will say to the north , ‘Give them up’ ,
and to the south , ‘Do not withhold;
bring my sons from far away
and my daughters from the ends of the earth –
everyone who is called by my name ,
whom I created for my glory ,
whom I formed and made.’

God is still doing this for us. God is still calling each of us to be gathered into the divine community. That is our good news. That is our theophany. That is our miracle. It seems that these are the days , after all.

In the name of God. Amen

 Gillian Moses , St Johns Cathedral Brisbane , Baptism of Jesus 2010.