BAPTISM OF THE LORD 2008 | Matthew 3:13-17
You might be a connoisseur of the finer things in life: fine cigars,
fine wines, great ales, the theater, what have you. Myself, I
appreciate one of life’s greatest pleasures, one that often goes
unsung and underappreciated: the bath. I’m not kidding here, I am
a SERIOUS bather. In searching for an apartment last month I turned
down two perfectly good apartments because they did not have a tub.
There is nothing more pleasurable than lighting a few candles, burning
some incense, putting on some soft piano music, drawing a really hot
bath and settling in with a good book. In fact, I have done 90% of all
of my college and grad school work in the tub. I like to say I have the
soggiest library on earth.
But aside from reading, a good bath does a lot for me—it relaxes
me, and as I’m soaking, I can just feel the stresses and ickiness
of the day dissolve and float away. It also puts me in an altered state
of consciousness where insight and creativity can flourish. Seriously,
whenever I am stumped for next week’s sermon, all I have to do is
hop into the tub and float for awhile—I invariably emerge with an
outline.
And sometimes, of course, I’m just too exhausted to read or
think. In a bath, I feel like I have permission to just BE that is hard
to find in any other context. Surrounded by the hot and buoyant water,
I can close my eyes and forget that I am even me. I feel at one with
everything, and peace and bliss come rushing in. Dude, Buddhist monks
got nothin’ on a good hot bath.
I’m not the first to discover the joys of fine bathing, of
course. I was going to write a book about it, until that rascal Stephen
Mitchell beat me to it. Curse you, Stephen! First the Tao Te Ching, and
now this! There’s nothing worse than having a more-famous
doppelganger.
But even in ancient times, baths were renown for their benefits.
Certain hot springs were famous for their healing powers, and crusty
old Heraclitus had some of his most productive think-sessions in the
tub. But religious bathing, ritual bathing is an almost universal
phenomenon. In the Jewish tradition, and in our Christian heritage, it
is known as baptism, and in both religions it is seen as a rite of
initiation.
But it is more than that, too. What struck me as significant this week
as I was contemplating this form of religious bathing—and
especially our Gospel story today of Jesus’ baptism—is that
it, too, served a number of functions. In fact, I was surprised to
discover that the rite of baptism speaks to all three stages of the
Ladder of Divine Ascent.
The Ladder goes back to the very early church, all the way to the
Desert Fathers and Mothers, but our old buddy Origen was one of the
first people to really expound upon it. Basically, the Ladder outlines
three stages of spiritual growth, or “perfections,” that
everyone who aspires to mystical communion with God goes through.
The first stage is Purgation—cleansing. The mystics said that in
order to progress spiritually we must be cleansed. We must be cleansed
from our sins, of course, but also we must be cleansed of our
misperceptions, our illusions, and our egoic ambitions. “Wash
away, waters, whatever sin is in me,” our Hindu scripture for
today reads, “what wrong I have done, what imprecation I have
uttered, and what untruth I have spoken.”
John was crying out to the people that they must come to the water to
make the crooked things straight, which often includes our thinking. We
must be disabused of the notion that we know who we are, who God is,
and what life is all about. In other words, everything we know is
wrong, and all those old ideas and ways of being must be washed away.
This cleansing metaphor is tailor-made for baptism—or perhaps
baptism is a tailor-made metaphor for this process. And it’s no
accident that this is the beginning of the journey, and baptism is the
rite of Christian initiation. It’s the most obvious symbol, and
easy to grasp for those just beginning the spiritual path.
But the next stage is also present in this story: Illumination. When
Jesus come up out of the water, he and John—and in some texts,
everyone around them—see a vision. They see the Spirit of God in
the form of a dove descending and alighting upon Jesus’ head.
This symbolizes the in-breaking of God’s Holy Wisdom, the
experience of gnosis, the flash of mystical insight that teaches us
what no books or teachers ever could, because it is ineffable. In the
Book of Acts, the Holy Spirit lights upon the apostles in the form of
tongues of fire, another powerful and apt metaphor.
Whereas Purgation is our step towards God, Illumination is God’s
step towards us. All we can do is empty the cup by purging ourselves in
body, mind, and spirit. Then we must wait, for it is up to God to fill
the cup, to pour out upon us the Illumination that can only come from
divinity. “Approach me, Agni, god of fire, with your
power,” says the Vedas, “and fill me, as I am, with
brilliance.”
When I am searching for inspiration, I think it is only because I have
been willing to purge myself of busy-ness that God gives those precious
gifts of creativity. I have to create the empty space so that God can
fill it. I have to be willing to make a place of quiet so that I can
hear God speak. This is increasingly difficult in our world today. With
the TV blaring, the people we live with chattering away, not to mention
the monkey mind yakking it up inside our own heads, it is impossible to
hear the still, small voice of the Spirit if we do not make an
intentional, concerted effort to do so.
But if we do, great things await us. For the third stage of the Ladder
is Union. If we can empty ourselves of sin, of illusion, of noise, of
business, when we actually hear and heed the whispered Wisdom of God,
we will discover yet another ineffable truth. The ultimate oneness of
all things, the unity of Creation, ourselves, and God. “Today I
have sought the waters,” says the Hindu sage, “ and we have
mingled with their essence.”
This is not something that can actually be described, of course. I can
talk about it until I’m blue in the face, but it’s just
more noise. Union with Divinity is not something you can talk about.
Any attempts to do so only create confusion and stack up metaphor upon
metaphor that ultimately need to be washed away or they, too, become
impediments. The Gnostics were adamant about this stage. No one can
express it, no one can achieve it on their own, there is no way around
it, not through service, or blind faith, or by the right beliefs. You
can’t know it until you know it for yourself.
No words can describe this experience. Of course, this doesn’t
stop the mystics from trying. Even in our story today, the voice that
boomed from the heavens only expressed what was true, it did not convey
the immediacy of the experience. It proclaimed the relationship between
God and Jesus, as Father and Son, united in mission and purpose, and,
as later theologians would insist, in substance and being.
For Catholic Christians, Baptism does effect a mystical union, for it
is in this act that the new believer is joined to the body of Christ,
the church, and thereby, to God. For many Protestants, it is an act
that symbolizes a union with divinity that has already taken place. In
either case, to borrow the metaphor of the Vedas, we “mingle with
the essence” of divinity.
In most Christian traditions, baptism is a sacrament or a sign that
occurs only once in a person’s life, but the Catholic tradition
has a neat little ritual that serves to remind us of our baptism
anytime it seems appropriate to do so. It’s called the Asperges,
the sprinkling with water. Okay, I know, it’s more like a shower
than a bath—not nearly as relaxing or pleasurable—but hey,
it’s symbolic and, frankly, more practical in large groups.
I’d like to end this sermon with the rite of asperges, to remind
us of our own baptism—or to give you a taste of baptism if you
have not been baptized—but before I do, I’d like us to take
two minutes of silence first. During this silence I invite you to enter
into God’s presence and to ask for what you most need this
morning. Is it Purgation? Is there something in your life you need to
let go of or be rid of? Is there some sin, some obsession, some false
idea or illusion that you need washed away? If so, bring that thing
before God and be prepared to let go of it when the water hits you.
Perhaps, though, you need Illumination. Perhaps you need insight into
some difficult question or discernment that you’ve been wrestling
with lately. If so, bring your question before God, and then let go of
it and all other thoughts. Simply sit with an empty and receptive mind
as the drops of water bless you.
Finally, perhaps it is Union you seek. This is the greatest, and most
difficult experience to summon, but the truth is that it is only our
own misconceptions and mental perambulations that trip us up. The truth
is that we are already one with God, with one another, with all of
being. But it is the EXPERIENCE of this unity that is the tricky and
elusive part. If this is what you need, then I invite you sit, again,
in silence, and recognize that when the water hits your face that there
is no water, there is no face, there are not two things that come
together, but one thing that has never been separate in all of
eternity.
Funny what a little water can do, huh? Purgation, Illumination, Union:
let us now enter into the divine presence for two minutes, and ask for
what we, each of us, most need this morning.
TWO MINUTES OF SILENCE
This water will be used to remind us
of the waters of the womb that bore us,
of the sweet waters of the earth that refresh us,
of the ritual waters of baptism that renew us.
Send thy Holy Spirit upon this water, O God,
that all those who are blessed with it
may obtain their hearts desire,
whether that desire is for cleansing,
or for enlightenment,
or for communion with thee.
In the name of the Holy One, Creator, Liberator, and Sustainer. Amen.