Jesus Baptism

by Peter Lockhart

(My last sermon with Kairos Uniting Church: Clayfield Hamilton Congregation)

It is entirely appropriate that on this last occasion that I preach here that my last words to you are about the eternal Word. The baptism of Jesus, the eternal word of God, focuses our attention on what is important for this day just as it has been through my 8 years here, Jesus. And so, this is also a sermon about beginnings, not endings, for the baptism of Jesus signalled the beginning of his ministry and so reveals God’s purposes in him.

I think I will be eternally grateful to my systematic theology teacher Gordon Watson who encouraged me to write a paper about Jesus called “Christ, the Spirit & Worship”. Although, it’s subtitle has more bearing on what I will be saying today: “The accommodation of the Spirit in Christ's obedience with reference to the relationship to doxology, as understood in John 17:19.”

Now whilst this may sound like another language to some of your ears this phrase for me heralds us into the presence of the mystery of the idea that God became a human being and the doctrine of the Trinity: the incarnation. On one level there is nothing that may appear practical about this theology yet for me it is the heart of our faith.

The concepts to which I am referring can be explored in Mark’s description of Jesus baptism.

If we were to stop and think for a moment the whole notion of Jesus baptism by John should jar against our senses. The Baptist was in the wilderness baptising people with a baptism of repentance and of forgiveness of sins. The word repentance means “turning back to God” – it as if we are facing away from God and the act of repentance is changing our position from having our backs to turned, to looking towards the one who made us.

The offence of Jesus baptism by John is that here is one who Mark has already described as the Son of God acting as if he is out of step with God – facing away.

Anyone reading this story must wonder where this story is going. How incomprehensible is it that Jesus, who is God’s Son and therefore must be facing God, needed a baptism of repentance?
The answer purely and simply must be that Jesus did not need such a baptism for himself but through his actions was symbolising the divine action that was occurring in and through his life.

Jesus presence in the world, the presence of God’s eternal Word enfleshed, involves the full identification of God with what it means to be human. God in himself is offering his own life to us by sharing in our life.

Jesus baptism of repentance is not a baptism for his sake but for ours, on our behalf, for our sake. Jesus does need to turn back to God, we do, and because as Paul later wrote, our lives are hidden in Christ’s, it his repentance not ours that opens up eternal life and right relationship with God and each other.

This is why our own baptisms as Christian people are so important: because they signify that our lives are drawn into Jesus own baptism and our lives are now shaped by being baptised people – people who in Christ and by God’s grace are turned back to God, not through our action of turning towards God but Jesus.

The mystery of Jesus baptism is further convoluted by the descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus. For those who understood Jesus to be the Son of God in Mark’s era the idea that Jesus did not already have the Spirit of God upon would have been strange. And, later hearers of the scripture, who had come to a Trinitarian understanding of God’s life, would think that this was even more bizarre.

Jesus the eternal Word of God had existed eternally with the Father and the Spirit and this unity of the Godhead, Father, Son and Spirit could not logically cease through the incarnation – the inviolable unity of the Trinity must have remained. So why does the Spirit appear?

Once again it is not for Jesus own sake that the Spirit is seen descending like a dove but for those who witnessed the event and ultimately for God’s purposes in salvation. The Holy Spirit shares in the life of the incarnate Word as Jesus the Christ accommodates the Spirit into his fleshly life. It is in the sharing of this life that the Spirit of God is then poured out after Jesus’ death into his disciples and then among all peoples in order that people might be drawn in Jesus and by the Spirit into sharing in God’s own life.

What is occurring in and through Jesus is no less than the re-creation of the world! This morning we heard the beginning of the creation story from Genesis and so just as the Spirit hovered over the waters at the moment of creation so too the Spirit hovered over Mary’s womb and now at the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry – his baptism.

This is the heart of the Christian story – a story not about my repentance or yours, a story not about mysterious encounters with the divine, a story not about my personal relationship with Jesus or decision to follow him. It is the story of God’s decision and action in and through Jesus Christ to renew the creation. It is a story bigger than any of personal stories and experiences of God yet compassionate and aware enough to draw our personal stories into that grand narrative of God’s love for the world.

In this sense I have no words to give other than to reaffirm Jesus, the eternal Word made flesh. He is God’s gift to the world and to know God means to know Jesus and to know Jesus means to know God. In him we see God in the world and we know and have our hope fulfilled that God loves, God gives, God makes new, God forgives, God heals, ultimately that God is!

Jesus baptism and descent of the Holy Spirit point at this reality of God. It is a sign and symbol of God’s intention not simply for those witnessed that gathered and saw John baptise Jesus but for we and the whole creation.

The act of Jesus baptism is a symbol of God’s love and grace, and so also is it that which it symbolises. In the same way that Jesus baptism is a symbol of God’s love and action in the world so too is our gathering as baptised people here today.

In a world which continues to join lustily in the refrain that “God is dead” our gathering and the gathering of congregations everywhere declare Jesus repentance and celebrate in hope a promise for all creation. Everything will be made new! Our feast at the table reminds us that we are people of this new creation as we have a foretaste of the banquet of all nations at peace with Gdo and one another.

In this, the church is that which it signifies, it is the beginning of the new creation. We do not make the new creation; we cannot offer any word to the world; nor any other salvation to the world, other than one already given in Jesus life, death, resurrection and ascension. We are to be a light to the nations not because we behave or live as people turned back to God but because we live acknowledging the one who turned back to God on our behalf and in whose life we share by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Our purpose in being the church is none other this to point away from ourselves and at the author of our salvation who has made us to a light among the nations, just as the Israelites were to be a light among the nations. We exist as the church not for our own ends, not to make nice social gatherings, or little Holy clubs but to remind the world that God is and God has a future for the whole creation even when all we can see is death and despair.
So my last word to you in my preaching here is I believe as it should be simply the Word: Jesus. He is the only message that the church really has because in him God has redeemed the world and has begun a new creation which by grace and through the Holy Spirit you and I already have encountered. May God bless you all with wisdom and the Spirit to continue to share and celebrate this message in your lives.

Epiphany: "Look to a Star Rising"

by Peter Lockhart

To celebrate the birth of Jesus in the way that we do contradicts at some innate level the core of what the story is about and how it is told in the scriptures.

Jesus is born into a violent world, the son of an unmarried Jewish couple, who became refugees fleeing a brutal persecution. He grew up as part of an occupied nation and oppressed community proclaiming peace, declaring God’s reign and bringing healing to the lives of many. And, as we know, he died betrayed by his own people to foreign rulers.

All of these factors point directly at the confrontation that occurs between God’s will and way for humanity and the way we actually live. The world Jesus was born into was a pretty messed up place and if we can look beyond the limited yet fragile security of our own little ecosystems we know that it is still pretty messed up.

As we herald in a new year we know Europe has descended into economic chaos and stands on the brink of total catastrophe; environmental issues largely caused by over consumption are destroying ecosystems everywhere and some argue threaten our very planet; natural disasters continue to unfold; shifts in political power and influence in various countries are raising all kinds of other security concerns. It is far easier to simply look to our own lives and concerns and hope we win the cricket than consider such matters.

As Christians we can only celebrate Jesus birth in the way that we do in Australia if we keep Jesus a cute child in the manger and fail to take him seriously from that point on. The moment we move beyond the pasteurized and homogenized nativities that have kept Jesus “mostly harmless” we find ourselves confronted by a deeper and more disturbing story of God present with us in the world.

The story which Matthew tells of a group of magi, or wise men, travelling from the East to see Jesus, is a story which should lead us away from the security blanket of our own blinkered and naive self-assuredness, into the reality of the problems within the creation and ultimately into the arms of the gracious God who has come to us in Jesus.

Matthew tells his tale of the magi against the backdrop of, for us, a difficult to swallow astrological event and the neurosis of a King installed by the Romans, Herod the Great.

As modern minded people the notion of a star rising at the birth of anyone important appears to be completely ludicrous. However, for the people for whom Matthew was writing his story the idea of a star was an essential sign of divine activity and prophesied greatness.

I wonder whether our reticence to accept the whole star thing is the idea that we are sold in the Western World, that we can be anything we want to be. In ancient times people had a much stronger sense that people were born with a place and destiny in the world, a notion that many of us would want to reject. Our education system encourages the belief that we can be anything we want to be – so our destiny is in our own hands. This mythology of our modern age refutes notions of natal stars heralding greatness because we have bought the lie any of us can be great – we just have to work hard enough to get there.

So here is our first and foremost confrontation as modern readers of this story. Do we believe that there are limitations on individuals to make their own destiny? Or is each of us in control of who we are and where we are going in our lives? If we believe the latter we then have no place for the baby that the wise men are going to see and the God we believe he is.

It is this very confrontation with who is in control which is also at issue for Herod the Great. Herod came to power around the year 47 B.C. He was an inspiring leader during his mid twenties suppressing rebellion, collecting taxes for Rome and proving himself an able commander to the point at which Caesar Augustus recognised his rule on behalf of Rome.

Herod’s kingship was particularly prosperous in the years between 25 and 12 B.C. after which time he was beset by a range of domestic problems particularly caused by issues concerning who his successor would be. Herod the Great had 10 wives and those with whom he had children vied for the right of their child to be his successor.

Without going into too much detail there was particular competition between the son of his first wife Doris, Antipater, and Herod’s favoured sons through his fourth with Malthace, who was incidentally a Samaritan, Alexander and Aristobulus. These favoured sons were hated by Herod’s sister Salome because she wanted her son to follow Herod. Thrown into this mix was the son of his third wife Mariamne the second, Philip. So mixed up was this situation, that over the years leading up to his death Herod wrote 6 wills to designate his successor.

This convoluted contest for power, which could provide more seditious behaviour and plotline for Days of our Lives, was all coming to a head when Herod encountered the magi bearing news of a child who they said was born as the king of the Jews.

Herod by now was quite ill and believed that he had his succession plans in place, or at least almost in place and then, all of a sudden, magi from the East travelling to see the birth a new king! By this stage Herod is not defending his own reign but his successors into which he had put so much planning.

Matthew tells us that Herod was frightened and all Jerusalem alongside him. Herod’s own rise to power and been pock marked with violence and intrigue and his own son Antipater, eager for the throne, had tried to poison him. Herod had good reason to have fears as did the people of Jerusalem. Instability in leadership led to wars.

Even without Jesus appearance on the scene things were in a state of flux. Power relationships with Rome based in the personal relationship between Emperor Augustus and Herod the Great were at stake. Herod’s sons and their mothers jockeying for position and power was unsettling. The known world was a troubled place despite the control Herod had sought to stamp on his little patch.

It is at this moment in history that God becomes human and magi come seeking a king. It is the confrontation between the powers of this world, and those who seek to make their own destiny, and the God who made all things.

The question of who is in control is being asked and asked in a most palpable way. Herod’s plan to control the situation is brutal and devastating – he kills all the male children less than 2 years of age in the area that the new king was supposed to be born. Joseph and Mary become refugees as they flee to Egypt and carry with them the vulnerability of God with us, Jesus.

Now the machinations of the Herodian dynasty may seem far removed from our 21st century world but the question of who is in control is not.

Looking into 2012 a new power emerges in North Korean replacing the almost mythical figure of Kim Jong Il. The European economic crisis continues to loom large and the distinct possibility of the collapses of nations in over their heads threatens political stability. In China new leadership will be established in the strongest economy in the world. Refugees continue to bleed out of oppression into other countries. Afghanistan remains unsettled. The Middle East continues to exude instability. World leaders shy away from questions of climate change. Children still starve to death.

The flight of Joseph and Mary carries with them the hope of the world, not just Herod’s world but ours. It is a hope which believes that God reaches out to supersede our fears and suspicions and to draw us home into relationship with each other and with God. It is a hope that says that the jockeying for power and the dispossession of the helpless is not the last word. It is a hope that looks into the face of death and says no.

Keeping Jesus a cute baby in the manger does not give honour to the turbulent world into which he was born or the children killed by Herod. Sentimentalising the story of Jesus birth discredits the cross.

As we begin 2012 the question which lies before each of us who is in control? And, where will I place my energy? As for myself I look to a star rising, heralding hope and new life; a star which flies in the face of contemporary logic and control; a star whose news is not reported in the Courier Mail or the Australian. A star which heralds the birth long ago of God with us and is told again and again in the lives of people who follow Jesus faithfully looking for the coming of a new kingdom, worshipping God, and eating and drinking bread and wine as food for their journey through exile home to God.

Photo: Creative Commons Robin_24

Critiquing Christmas!

Peter Lockhart

I can clearly remember my very first sermon on the theme of Christmas beginning with the words “Bah humbug!” In many ways the season really has become the “silly” season. Greed and gluttony have been easy targets over the years as I have sought to lead people into a deeper contemplation of the meaning of Jesus birth – the incarnation.

This year as I reflected on this well worn path of critiquing Christmas, a path shared by many a nominal Christian and agnostic as well, I was struck by the danger of suggesting another approach to celebrating Christmas as if it too would be free from misunderstandings and idolatrous behaviour.

There are various movements around like the Advent conspiracy and Reclaim Christmas for which I have much sympathy. Movements which ask us to stop and reflect about how we are celebrating Christmas and whether there might be another way, a better way. I have no doubt there is but let’s not get confused about what we are doing when we shift the focus.

The mystery and promise of the incarnation is that God’s presence in the world has cosmic implications. God gives new life; God makes way for a new creation. It is this that we celebrate – God acting in human history to alter the possibilities of who we are in relationship with God and each other.

Altering our celebrations will not necessarily wind up making us any holier or changing the world into all that it has been made by God to be. Yet maybe altering what we do can express more clearly our faith and belief in God who come among us in Jesus and gives hope to the entire world.

May God bless you in your celebrations of the birth of Jesus and may you have a sense of Christ’s presence which gives us hope and can guide us day by day to live more closely to the one who made us and all things.

Peace be with you

Rev Peter

Led By Hope

Terry Stanyer

‘Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world.’ - Archimedes
There is little doubt that Advent is about looking forward to the Birth of Jesus and the fulfilment of a long-held hope that the Messiah would be a descendant of King David. It is also about being prepared for Christ’s coming again the Second Advent.
The thrust of today’s scriptures is about surprise and then joy for both Elizabeth and Mary. They are also about a reality that we cannot do everything. It is God’s will which is done. The plan of Salvation has had many steps to this point. Samuel tells that there will be a Temple, but it is not David’s task to build it. That will be something which Solomon will undertake. By extension, then, each of us will have a task which is ours and ours alone.
While we are thinking about Advent and Christmas we also have an eye on the Second Advent. While the preparations may take us to Christmas, the greater preparation is to welcome Christ on his return.
This thought is a challenge to the Church to sustain its mission. The birth of Jesus and his exemplary life and his death and resurrection is world-changing. To take forward Archimedes thought - Those of us who stand with Christ have been given a lever to move the world. It is the Gospel of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. It is a Gospel which surprises too. We have a vision for the future as bright as the Star which is drawing the wise men to Bethlehem and as alive as the Angel Chorus.

Annunciation: How can this be?

by Peter Lockhart

Over 60 years after Jesus birth a doctor and follower of Jesus known as Luke wrote down a story which portrayed an intimate scene between Mary and an angel called Gabriel. No one else was present and no one else wrote the story down in the same way. In fact the only other version we have of the birth narrative of Jesus is found in Matthew’s gospel and it is quite a bit different.

To quote from Luke himself concerning this particular situation it would be easy to be “much perplexed by his words”. Or maybe we might want to ask with Mary “How can this be?”

The kind of conundrum which is presented to us in this classic Biblical story known as the annunciation is a conundrum which leads me into speaking about something which is foundational in my faith – how I read the Bible.

It is quite fanciful to think that Luke’s fly on the wall account of this miraculous event has any real sense of absolute historical truth about it. Even if there was a tradition handed on, a story about what had occurred, the idea that it would have remained accurate and intact for 60 years in naive at best.

So what do we do with this story? How do we understand it? Does it have any real authority for us?

My answer is, “Of course.”

The notion that we only read the Biblical text as some kind of accurate and literal account of events has only really been around for about 100 years or so. Narrow literalist readings of the scripture seem to be reaction by many in the church to the liberal theology of the nineteenth century. A theology which, for example, had no real trouble accepting Charles Darwin’s theories expressed in his ground breaking book “The Origins of Species”.

But, just as there are problems with literalist readings of the scriptures which seek to enshrine the words of the text in a way which I believe is idolatrous, so too I have great difficulty with those who would disregard the text because it does not make scientific and historic sense to them.

Many of the so called liberal theologians would say that there is no evidence for what the scripture is saying or that it is inconsistent, and more than that the church has indoctrinated us to have naive beliefs about the scriptures.

To both literalist and liberal I would want to say Luke was not writing history and nor was he writing science – Luke was writing theology.

The purpose of Luke’s story is not to make a claim about the encounter between the angel and Mary which may or may not have actually happened in the way that he described. Nor is it to provide a scientific explanation concerning the notion of a virginal conception.

Luke’s task is theology: to explain who God is and how this God relates to human beings and how human beings relate to God. This is where the authority of the scriptures lie and it is how they should be read.

To do theology, to think about who God is and who we are before this God, is to stand on the precipice of a vast mystery. It is as if we are looking into the far reaches of the ever expanding universe seeing the glimmer of billions of stars yet not comprehending what is really out there.

As Luke fashions his story of the encounter between Gabriel and Mary what he is seeking to do is to convey some basic theological truths as had been revealed to him, truths which may have some historical grounding in an encounter which Mary may have described to others.

Not surprisingly one of the key truths that Luke explores, not just in this story but throughout his gospel, is the incomprehension and incredulity of people when they encounter the divine. To push the miracle of this story a little further I would argue that what is occurring here is a theophany, which literally means an appearance of God.

When Mary encounters the divine she is perplexed, she ponders his words, she even doubts by asking “How can this be?” My sense of Mary’s response “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” is not of humble faithfulness that we can extol in any way but a simple acceptance of what she has come to realise is fait accompli.

This is part of Mary’s story and it is part of our story too. In the years I have spent at Clayfield and Hamilton many of you have shared with me your encounters with the divine: visions, feelings, angelic appearances, dreams, words of wisdom and insights. These are intimate stories of witness, which we seem so often reticent to share in our scientific and ordered world, and they have been a gift to me. I would continue to encourage you to take the confidence to share these intimate moments of your faith, your divine and miraculous encounters, with each other far more freely and so I believe to be surprised at just how common they are.

I find it fascinating that Mary moves from a place of questioning, into obedient response and then when she visits Elizabeth into praise and thanksgiving to God.

It was in the sharing of her story that Luke depicts Mary as praising God openly. A praise possibly born out of the joy of knowing that her story had been heard and her witness had meaning for Elizabeth, but not only for Elizabeth but the millions of Christians who have treasured Luke’s narrative since that time.

Luke is telling us that even Mary who bore Jesus in her womb found it difficult to comprehend and accept what God might be doing and that the reality is that any encounter with God can lead us into confusion and questioning, “How can this be?”

This leads me into making a comment on another of Luke’s key theological points in this passage – the incarnation.

I remember a few years back making the comment in a sermon on this same passage that Luke’s point is not to get us to believe that Mary was a virgin but that Jesus was God’s Son. When I made this statement I was leaving room for those who might struggle with the science of a virginal conception and other historical anomalies which lie around this story. The question I asked at the time was it more believable that May was a virgin or Jesus was God’s Son. At worst Luke is telling a stock standard story for his era to get his point across – if Jesus is to accepted as divine including the story of a virginal birth was really nothing new.

I would say however after years of contemplation on the issue I have come to the conclusion that the idea that Mary was a virgin is not such a difficult leap after all and in fact has theological significance in itself.

What Luke conveys to us is that God chose in God’s own mysterious way to reach into Mary and create within her a new life. Psalm 139 describes the mystery of our embryonic life with these wonderful words: “you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb”.

When God knit Jesus’ life together in Mary’s womb he did so in a new way. In the womb of this woman Mary, who was a child of Adam and Eve, God did something new in the creation. This is the miracle of the incarnation, the eternal Word of God being made flesh.

For so many Christians the cross is the focal point of our faith and rightly so. Great theologians such as Martin Luther and Karl Barth and Jurgen Moltmann have pointed us to the cross to understand God. Yet the cross is given its meaning so profoundly because of who it is we believe is hanging there in Jesus – God incarnate.

This is why Luke’s story is so important because he describes for us a theological truth which has us standing with mouths agape just as Mary did, “How can this be? How can God become a human being?”

You see the incarnation stands us something which is completely unique about our faith. The story of a God who as John puts it pitches his tent among us.

It is his presence in the world that alters the reality of all existence. This means that for me Christianity is never about telling you how to live or what you need to do to get into heaven or what kind of morals you should have. These may be side effects of the good news but the heart of our faith, its essence, is about what God is up to in Jesus.

It would be far simpler for me over the years to have taken the well worn route of preaching moral truths telling you how to behave or what to do but this to me would lack the truth of our faith and of eternal life, which is described be Jesus in John “as knowing him and the Father who sent him”.

As I approach the end of 8 years of ministry in this place it is my prayer, and my hope, that you have not found anything of value in knowing me beyond that you have come to know God more deeply, for this is the task for which I believe I was sent. To point away from myself and at God incarnate who is Jesus, and him crucified and risen for the life of the world.

To return to where I began, Luke’s purpose was theology. The story of the annunciation is our story – the story of our confusion and disbelief when God appears. Yet it is also the story of God’s faithfulness and immeasurable love revealed in the Good news, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.”

Is it any wonder that when Mary began to really comprehend this she extolled God before Elizabeth saying,

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.”

Amen.