Epiphany 2A: 15 Jan. 2023
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park NY
Isaiah 49:1-7; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42
Adam D. McCoy, OHC
It is published on the Holy Cross Monastery sermon blog: https://ohclectionary.blogspot.com/
The recorded version can be found here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/129046/12045735
Today’s gospel gives us the evangelist John’s account of the Baptism of Jesus. I’ve always thought there is something a bit “off” about it. The accounts of Jesus’ baptism in the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, are all straightforward narratives of the baptism, differing somewhat in details but each telling what happened from an eyewitness point of view. But John is different: he gives us a curiously roundabout story, full of indirection. John the Baptist tells us the story. But he does not tell us the story of the baptism itself. Rather, he tells us what he saw: “the Spirit descended from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.” This is a very economical text, so even more curiously, in this very compact narrative, the Baptist tells us twice - twice! - “I myself did not know him”. “I myself did not know him”. A point is being made here, a point about knowing. He only knows who Jesus is because he saw the Spirit in the form of a dove.
In John’s gospel the action of the baptism isn’t actually told, but is referred to indirectly. John the Baptist did not know who Jesus was until he, John, saw the dove descending. And the next time he sees Jesus, it is at a distance, as Jesus is walking by, in an almost cinematic scene, the two great men passing but not actually meeting.
What can we make of all this narrative indirection?
John’s gospel begins with the famous line, en arche en ho logos, which every seminarian hopes will be on her or his Greek translation exam. In the beginning was the Word. So we ponder the Word, the Word which is the light that is coming into the world. The Logos itself absorbs our attention. But remember what happens when the Word, the light, comes into the world: “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” The gospel of John is talking about receiving, about recognizing, about knowing. The tragedy of the world is in not recognizing, not knowing the One who is its own creator, who is the Word on which its very existential order is based, and so not receiving Him.
The story of the baptism of Jesus by John in the Jordan is a real life example of what it means that the world – the world including all the best people in it, even John the Baptist, whom Jesus later calls the greatest of all the prophets – the whole world, including the righteous part of it – is simply not capable of knowing, of recognizing, the Word when it comes.
With this theme announced, John’s gospel immediately introduces John the Baptist, the herald of the coming One, whose prophetic sign is to be out in the desert, crying out in the wilderness. Preparing the way for His coming and baptizing God’s people into their new entrance into God’s promised land. Into a new life, a new beginning. And, embodying the prologue’s statement about not knowing, not recognizing, John the Baptist himself does not know who the Logos is when he comes. Twice - twice - the Baptist tells us, “I myself did not know him”. “I myself did not know him”. He knows him only because of the sign from heaven, and then they do not even meet. This telling, far from being straightforward, is a miracle of indirection. It is a description of the world we live in. It is a description of our existential reality, our not being capable of knowing, of recognizing, God’s presence among us without God’s intervention.
John’s account of the baptism of Jesus could be an illustration of the gospel’s insight into how the Logos enters into our world: How indirect it can be, how it is not immediately apparent even to those of us who are eagerly waiting for its appearing among us.
What can we make of this? Is it simply a narrative for us to puzzle over? Is it John the evangelist’s way of dealing with John the Baptist, famous in his own time when Jesus was hardly known? It is those, clearly. But there is something else here as well.
One of the things seriously observant religious people, and I hope that we here this morning qualify in this, do is to read and meditate on scripture. One form of that, of course, is lectio divina. We read the text as it is, try to understand it in its own context, and then let the text move us in meditation, contemplation and prayer. It is astonishing how often even passages that seem the least promising end up opening us to new light, new life, new beginnings, new entrances into God’s promised land for us.
What draws people to faith? I would venture that while people are searching for community, while they desire the simultaneously rational and emotional and ecstatic satisfactions of beauty, while they hope to build peace and justice, the primary thing they yearn for is assurance of God’s existence, assurance that the world we live in is God’s world, that our lives matter in an ultimate sense, that God is real and present to us. Please forgive me, in this I am speaking of my own experience and generalizing it to all of us, but when we find God in our own lives, that finding is usually far from a straightforward story. It is usually by indirection: the unexpected, or perhaps entirely ordinary, appearance of things in our lives that brings God’s presence to us. Jesus was apparently one of the undifferentiated crowd of people come out to the Jordan to be baptized. John the Baptist he did not know him - until the Spirit revealed Jesus to him.
I suspect there is a strategy in telling this story to us the way John’s gospel does. The Baptist and his disciples are standing in for all the people of God, all who are waiting for the Word, waiting for the light, to come among us. We are like John the Baptist. We want some sure sign that God is coming into the world. We hope and we pray for God’s coming, and for the fruit of God’s presence among us in a renewed community, in beauty, order, peace, justice, and in our ecstatic union with the divine. But it does not come on our schedule. It does not come in our expected categories. We don’t actually know what or who it will be, what form our encounter may take. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we may already be traveling with the Lord and do not know it until we invite him into our actual lives to share a simple meal. He may come to us as a thief in the night, completely unexpected. As in the parables, Jesus tells us that we will find God present in the ordinary. We need to open our eyes to see and our ears to hear what the Spirit is filling and transfiguring right here and right now. While we, like John the Baptist, may be ready, even eager, for the inbreaking of the Word, we have no idea what it will look like or how it may happen, or who may embody it.
So what to do? Well, as this story John tells suggests, there is a way.
Get ready. Go out into our own wilderness. Realize who we are: God’s people. Focus on God’s promise. Be honest about who we have become and heed the cry to change. Get down into the river. Wade in the water. Let it roll over us. Watch for the sign of God’s presence. We don’t know yet exactly how but we need to be ready, to be open to the unexpected. The Word will come. The light will shine in the darkness. And then, when we are called, follow.
