Holy Waters

Homily for Sunday, February 26, 2012

1st Sunday in Lent

Lessons:
Genesis 9:8-17
Psalm 25
1st Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:9-15

Today is the first Sunday in Lent, the season of the church year specifically set aside for self-examination and penitence. Lent asks us consciously to join Christ on his journey to Jerusalem and to his crucifixion, to reflect on our own Christian path as we consider his last forty days. Lent is a season that calls for quietness, seriousness, confession, and sacrifice.

And yet the very name Lent is derived from an old English word (Lenten) that described the lengthening of days at this time of year. Spring approaches and it is hard to keep one’s heart from lifting with joy as the light increases and the days grow longer.

I think today’s scriptures beautifully reflect that paradox. In the lesson from Genesis, we get the end of the story of Noah, when God promises Noah and his family that God will never again destroy the earth and all its inhabitants with water. The rainbow God places in the sky is a symbol of his covenant, a binding promise. The rainbow reminds us of God’s mercy and opens the door for penitence and forgiveness, a new idea for humankind.

Since the time of Noah, these verses tell us, we humans have been given a choice. We can choose to follow our own will, to live our lives in selfishness and sin, never considering how our choice affects others or disappoints God. Or, we can choose to be fully aware of our words and actions, considering how our behavior may be detrimental or even harmful to others or ourselves. We can take the time, as this Lenten season calls us to do, to acknowledge our mistakes to God and to others and to ask for forgiveness. This second choice is the path of repentance.

Yet the rainbow reminds us of something else. Even if we choose the first path of willfulness and selfishness, as all of us do from time to time, God’s mercy is still with us. We are granted an entire lifetime to repent and turn toward God. God will continue to seek us out and call to us, even as we look the other way, for as long as we live. Remember those one-hundred sheep Jesus tells us about? Ninety-nine of them were behaving appropriately, safely enclosed in their fold. But the good Shepherd did not forget the lost one and did not give up until she was found and brought home. Although we always have the choice to join the ninety-nine or wander off on our own path, we can count on the shepherd’s love to find us.

The psalmist, King David as we are told, himself once a reliable shepherd, has a good understanding of the fullness of God’s mercy. In verses 5 and 6 of Psalm 25, he says, “Remember, O Lord, your compassion and love, for they are from everlasting. Remember not the sins of my youth and my transgressions; remember me according to your love and for the sake of your goodness, O Lord.” These words are written in complete assurance that God will forgive and forget our trespasses. True repentance offers us a completely new beginning with God. So does baptism.

In his first letter, St. Peter makes a connection between the waters of the great flood and the water of baptism. He tells us that during the time Noah built the ark, God was waiting with hope that others would repent and be saved. Although that didn’t happen, God remembered the righteousness of Noah and saved him and seven members of his family from the destruction of the flood. Peter says that Noah and his family were saved through water as we are saved through baptism. Peter tells us that our baptism is not a removal of dirt from the body but an “appeal to God for a good conscience.” Our baptism is the sign that we belong to God, that we are at least willing to do our part to meet God halfway. Our willingness is all the Lord needs. Our Lord Jesus Christ meets us more than halfway, as Peter tells us: “Christ suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God.”

These words from Peter and Genesis and Psalm 25 remind me of the young woman from Piedmont Episcopal Church who wanted to be baptized a second time. As a young child, she had been baptized into one denomination. At the age of eighteen, and now an Episcopalian, she asked Rev. Brad Jackson to baptize her again. She felt a new consciousness of her life as a Christian, a new, fuller awareness of how she had been called by Jesus. Of course Brad explained to her that the church believes one baptism is all that is necessary—or required. But something in her heartfelt need caused Brad to consider a different approach. He allowed her to hear the words of the baptismal sacrament, spoken by her family and friends who surrounded her, as her own father poured handfuls of water over her head. This lovely ceremony took place on a beautiful late summer afternoon, two and a half years ago, in September of 2009, right down from this chapel in the Kinsey Run. I bet if you were there you will never forget it. Just as the waters washed over her, a strong wind came up and hurled itself through the valley, as if the Holy Spirit spoke approval.

The Spirit descended like a dove on Jesus as he stepped from the waters of the Jordan after his baptism by John. His father’s voice spoke from heaven to say, “You are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Those words of hope and love and gracious mercy are spoken to us as well. As jonquils bloom and maple trees are adorned with red buds, as the days lengthen and the sun grows warmer, let us think of Christ and of all he sacrificed in dying for us. Let us remember also that the sole purpose of his death was for us to have life and have it abundantly. Amen.