Sermon — January 7, 2024
The Rev. Greg Johnston
I apparently made it onto Santa’s nice list this year, and so for Christmas I received many books. Being the person I am, I sat down and immediately read about half of them, one after another.
Each of the stories I was given began in a completely different way. North Woods opens with an almost magical scene of a young couple in love fleeing Puritan Springfield to make their way to a new Promised Land of their own in the forests of New England. The Wager, which tells the story of the shipwreck of the 18th-century British warship HMS Wager, begins with two rafts filled with castaways showing up a year after their ship had disappeared, each accusing the other of murder and mutiny. Umberto Eco’s postmodern novel The Name of the Rose—a gift from my comp-lit-major wife—opens with an elaborate prologue in which the narrator (or perhaps the author?) tells the story of the discovery (or invention?) of a copy of a copy of a strange fourteenth-century manuscript that either never actually existed or is quoted in a 1930s Italian translation of a Georgian book translating the works of a 17th-century Latin theologian but which, in any case, the narrator chose to translate into Italian and now presents, as the rest of the book. Turns out to a murder mystery, for what it’s worth.
The way we begin our stories has the power to shape the way we experience the rest. I found myself mourning and rejoicing as the sylvan paradise of the young couple of North Woods is marred by violence, and later flourishes, and declines again. I felt disappointed by the anti-climactic letdown of the totally undramatic court martial at the end of the Wager, after that dramatic opening scene of mutual accusation. I was delighted and intrigued by Eco’s prologue: I mean, doesn’t it make you want to read a novel by an Italian postmodern philosopher and literary critic to know that it begins with a manuscript mystery, before continuing onto an actual mystery plot set among fourteenth century monks? (I’ll admit I haven’t finished that book yet.)
I remember when I was in middle school we learned to draw the plot of a story on a little graph, with the beginning, the rising action, the climax, the falling action, and the end. But beginnings are unique: the opening words of a story really shape how we hear the rest of it.
So let’s begin, as our morning began, with the beginning: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void…” (Gen. 1:1) The first words of the first book of the Bible begin the story of creation as a story of God coaxing order out of chaos. Genesis begins with a world that is tohu va-bohu, the Hebrew says, “wild and waste.” But the “Spirit of God hovers over the face of the waters,” and she’s poised for creation. And God speaks, and the Word of God reshapes the chaos. God says, “Let there be light,” and there is light, and God sees that it is good. These few sentences set you up for most of the themes of the whole Bible: There is one God who creates in unity and love, not pantheon of gods engaged in primordial struggle. God works through Word and Wind, through Speech and Spirit. And the world, this creation, is good, but chaos always lies right below the surface.
From this first beginning we fly forward in time two thousand years, to the decades after Jesus’ death, when the apostle Paul travels around the ancient Mediterranean spreading the good news. In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles, he arrives in Ephesus, on what’s now the western coast of Turkey, and we hear the beginning of another story. In this case, it’s the beginning of a new spiritual life of Christian discipleship. Paul finds “some disciples,” Acts tells us, but he seems to find them only half-formed. They’re missing half the story. These Ephesians share Paul’s conviction that Jesus was the Messiah, but when Paul asks them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit?” they answer him like a bunch of crusty old Episcopalians: “We didn’t even know there was a Holy Spirit!” We’ve only received the baptism of John, a baptism of repentance, they say. And Paul tells them that there’s so much more: not just repentance, but forgiveness; not just John’s fire and brimstone, but Jesus’ teachings of love. And, perhaps most importantly, there’s not just God the Father in heaven and Jesus the Messiah who walked the earth, but a Holy Spirit who’s moving among us right now. And the Book of Acts is really the story of the Holy Spirit, in the same way that the gospels are the story of Jesus. They’re followers of Jesus, but their spiritual life has not yet begun. And so Paul lays his hands on them, and the Holy Spirit fills them with power. And a new chapter in their lives begins.
The Spirit they receive in that moment is the same Spirit that descended on Jesus like a dove, out there by the Jordan River. It’s the same Spirit that immediately drove him out into the Judean wilderness. And this is how Mark chooses to begin his gospel. Now Mark, we’re pretty sure, was the first of the four gospels to be written. So the beginning of the beginning of the stories about Jesus is not the sweet baby lying in the manger, but the a grown man, baptized in a river, who rises and sees the heavens torn open above him and the Spirit of God flowing down out of them, who hears the Word of God declaring that he is the Beloved Son of God. And a new chapter in the Christian story, a new phase in the relationship between God and the people of God, begins.
In the church’s calendar, today we celebrate the Baptism of Christ, the first Sunday after the Epiphany. The season of Epiphany is a season of “manifestation,” a season when we remember and celebrate all the ways Jesus revealed God’s love to the world. And our readings today are almost a tale of three baptisms, each of which is its own manifestation of that love: the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River by John; the Ephesians receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit, as John had predicted; and in Genesis, the baptism of the whole world.
Each is a story of imperfection and love, of chaos and goodness. The disciples who’d received the baptism of repentance now receive the gift of the Spirit. God draws forth light from the murky chaos of the deep, and sees that it is good. God tears open the heavens and comes down, into the murky chaos of this world, to declare a message of love, to invite all those who have come to John the Baptizer for repentance to come to Jesus and follow in a way of love. These stories begin with imperfect people or an imperfect world—but none of them end there. And that’s the amazing thing about beginnings. Sometimes the beginning sets the perfect tone for the story. Sometimes it falls flat. Sometimes you’re still somewhere in the middle of the book, and sometimes a new chapter is beginning, even as the book draws toward its end.
So I wonder: What chapter of your story is beginning this year, and how can you baptize the start? Is there some chaotic water in your life, some formless void that needs the hovering wings of the Spirit to coax it into order and light? Is there some spiritual oomph that you need to transform the tedium of ordinary life with the power of the Holy Spirit? Is there something for which you need to repent, or some wrong you need to forgive? Do you need to see the heavens torn open to really believe that you, too, are the beloved child of God? Or do you just need someone to look at you, as God looks at all creation, and see that you are good?
Wherever the story of this year begins for you, may the God who sits enthroned above the flood give you the strength to know God’s love, and may the Holy Spirit give you and everyone around you the blessing of peace. Amen.