2024 02
18 LENT 1 B
Genesis 9:8-17
• Psalm 25:1-10 • 1
Peter 3:18-22 • Mark 1:9-15
Noah’s Ark and Jesus’ baptism. There is something in the water! We are told that through the flood 8 people
were saved and this prefigured Baptism.
It was an extremely evil time.
Just prior to the story of Noah’s Ark, we read in Genesis 6:5 “Then the
Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every
intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Then a little later when God speaks to Noah,
he says the world is full of violence.
God was grieved, but Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives were
saved. Can you imagine what living in
that evil and violent community must have been like? This flood, that both destroys evil and
brings forth life anew, prefigures our baptism.
Baptism wasn’t actually something new or unique to the
Christian church. John the Baptist
wasn’t the first person to be baptising people, but the idea of a ritual full
emersion was a common part of life for the Jewish people.
Times of ritual immersion appear in the story about Naaman,
sent by the prophet Elisha, to dip in the Jordon river 7 times for his healing
of leprosy. When Jesus healed a leper,
Jesus instructed him to present himself to the priest and offer what was
required for cleansing. One of the
requirements would have been a ritual dip in 40 seahs of living or natural
water. The people mostly referred to
this ritual as a Mikvah.
Baptism is a Greek word, but tevilah is the Hebrew
equivalent, meaning emersion, and Mikvah is the place for the tevilah to take
place – a gathering of water. The word
first appears in scripture in Genesis 1:10 when God gathered the water and
called it Sea. Mikvah’s had some very
specific and interestingly symbolic instructions, and Mikvah’s were used in a
number of different circumstances to prepare a person for sacred functions,
rendering them ritually clean and ready for significant events.
Some of the events requiring a Mikvah included; the
priest in preparation for his role in the temple, a woman after giving birth etc..,
a bride preparing for marriage, and also - much like our baptism, for those who
were converted to Judaism. The Mikvah
made them ritually clean. It
emotionally, mentally and spiritually prepared them for the venture upon which
they were embarking.
The Mikvah was filled with 40 seahs of water – a
particular ancient measurement, with the most important significant aspect
being the amount in the numbering of 40.
The number 40 signifies the 40 days of rain at the time of Noah. The number 40 is a number for preparation
and significant change and new creation.
The person emerging from the Mikvah, much like Noah and his family, leave
behind – or die to - the old… it is gone, and emerge to a new life with the
promise of God’s covenant and love.
Upon research I discovered that many Jewish people
choose to begin their holy time of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) with the
emersion ceremony of the Mikvah. Rosh
Hashanah marks the start of the Jewish High Holy Days leading up to Yom Kippur.
It marks the beginning of the 10 “Days of Awe,” in which Jews focus their
attentions on repentance and reflection leading up to Yom Kippur, the Day of
Atonement, considered to be holiest day of the Jewish year. (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/09/18/rosh-hashanah-yom-kippur-jewish-holidays/5643430002/ )
Today we celebrate our first Sunday in Lent. Today we embark on that 40day journey from
today to Good Friday (the cross). A
time when our attention is on repentance and reflection leading up to our most
holy day, Good Friday, when Christ made atonement for the sin of the
world. I kind of wish we had a big pool of water so
that we could mark the journey in the same way that these ancient people did… and
as some Jews still do, making a deliberate and conscious entering into this
season of repentance and reflection with renewed commitment…. and this is why
some churches have holy water upon entering and exiting the church, and people
bless themselves with the sign of the cross – it is a remembrance of our
Baptism and an acknowledgement of our continued commitment to our new and
eternal life in Christ Jesus.
Today we begin this journey into Lent, by reflecting
on what has gone before us in this journey of faith, so that we can understand
where we are going. We read about God’s
covenant to Noah. Noah is not just some
unrelated character who the Israelite people claim as an ancestor. The whole world was flooded and all was
destroyed, except for Noah and his family.
The bible tells us that from these came all the nations of the
world. For the matter of our faith and
to properly understand God’s story, and indeed OUR story, we need to accept that
Noah is our ancestor also. Why is this
important? Because we need to understand
that the covenant that God made to Noah and his family, is the covenant that
God has made with all of us and with all creatures. -And in this we also understand that we are
all essentially one family, united under the rainbow covenant.
Eight people came off that boat and 8 is also
considered a number of new beginning. We
can rejoice that we are part of that new creation, the family of Noah and under
that glorious rainbow covenant, but what about all those others who were
disobedient in the time of Noah? Did God
not care? They were completely evil and
violent. Did God just forget about them?
We read something truly intriguing in 1 Peter; That
Jesus went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison who in former times
did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah. This tells me something about God’s
compassion and care, and that he forgets NO ONE. Also, in Matthew 10:15 we read, “Truly, I
say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of
Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.”
At the time that Jesus spoke these words, Sodom and Gomorrah had been long
time destroyed. Destroyed in the
physical, but never forgotten and always on God’s mind. AND existing somewhere in the spiritual. We need to know this one important thing; No
one is ever forgotten, cast aside, rejected and disregarded by God. His love is beyond time and His wisdom is
beyond our understanding.
The other thing that we know is that there will be
a day of Judgment for all of us. Should
we be afraid? If we are like those who
were rebellious in the time of Noah, we might have something to fear. If we are trusting in our own goodness… our
own righteousness, we might be acutely aware of how fallible we are and might
be afraid. But if that is you, I need to
declare to you the Good News so that you can rejoice…. We have been saved by
our faith in the completed sacrifice of Jesus.
What’s more, If God cared for and couldn’t forget those who were
disobedient in the time of Noah, who were evil all the time, you can be assured
that he completely and passionately loves and cares for you and he doesn’t want
you to fear. In fact, God is completely
aware of our fallibility that is why he has already made the way to reassure
us…. He has made atonement for us, once and for all on the cross.
Baptism is the outward sign of an inner reality. That inner reality is that we have
spiritually died in the waters of baptism and we live now through Christ… we
say that we are clothed in Christ, which means that we have taken on Christs
identity as our own – AND Christ is sinless.
Spiritually we are also, sinless because our identity is in him. Our baptism requires that we turn away from
sin, in the physical - but the reality is, that while we are in this earthly
body we will continue to fall. We aim
to do better out of love for God, and we rejoice that God loves and accepts us
through our union with Jesus.
Jesus does not fall… Jesus did not sin. Jesus came to be baptised by John, but he did
not need to repent. He, no doubt
affirmed that he turned away from sin and the proof was in what followed when
he was tempted in the desert. But Jesus’
baptism, like a holy Mikvah, was his preparation for the ministry that God had
laid out for him before the foundation of the world…. That he would die to make
atonement for us all… and to bring us into unity in relationship with the
father.
If Jesus, after making a commitment to follow through
with his holy ministry in this baptism, was then sorely tested by Satan, you
can bet that we will be tested also as we commit ourselves to God. And we need to remember, even if we fail, God
accepts us as holy and pure through the sacrifice of his son, who didn’t
fail.
Today, as we start on our Lenten journey, we remember
the rainbow covenant. We connect with that baptism of Jesus – Let us wash away ALL
that keeps us from God – areas of sin – and our feelings of unworthiness. Let us not wallow in grief when we fail, but
confessing and repenting, (which means turning away from that sin), we thank
God that he sent us Jesus and thank Jesus that he loved us enough to be that
sacrifice for us. We have been those
spirits in prison, but we are no more.
We are set free to be all that God calls us to be, without fear of
condemnation – because scripture tells us there is NO condemnation for those
who are in Christ Jesus.
Remember that in baptism we are clothed in Christ and
we receive HIS Holy Spirit. The Holy
Spirit is the life, the power and goodness of God. And God is with us. Nothing need hinder us from enjoying a
relationship with God- except ourselves.
We sometimes might feel, like we are not someone that God would bother
with. We might feel, very aware of just
how we fail. As we enter this season,
what do we need to wash away so that we can be set free to be the person that
God has called us to be? Let us wash
away those feelings of unworthiness and failure. God loves us and died for us to bring us his
abundant life. Let us make every effort to enter into all he calls us to be. After all, we are children of God’s Rainbow
Covenant.
No comments:
Post a Comment