Lent | Ache for Meaning with the Holy One Who is with Us

 

Now into the wilderness.
+ The Ache for Meaning

The Ache for Meaning by Tommy Brown has been a wonder-filled book I am grateful to return to during the season of Lent.

Before I share some key questions that The Ache for Meaning highlights that are personal and universal, as well as ancient and fresh, here is a reminder about some of the background to Lent: 

We ought to approach Lent as an opportunity, not a requirement.

After all, Lent is meant to be the Church's springtime, a time when, out of the darkness of sin's winter, a repentant, empowered people emerges. No wonder one liturgy refers to it as "this joyful season." Put another way, Lent is the season in which we ought to be surprised by joy. Our self-sacrifices serve no purpose unless, by laying aside this or that desire, we are able to focus on our heart's deepest longing: unity with Christ. In Him—in His suffering and death, His resurrection and triumph—we find our truest joy.

+ Bread and Wine

A Whole New Way to See the World

The Ache for Meaning

I began to hear echoes from Jesus' wilderness temptations in conversations I was having, in challenges I was facing. As I returned to this story over and over, I also saw my questions with greater clarity.

Once you see, you can't unsee.

It's (been) a transformational journey, 

one of learning to walk in

contentment, fulfillment, and hope.

Some journeys are about destinations.

This journey is about invitations.

The point isn't to quickly a correct answer; the point is to experience transformation as you live with the questions in the foreground of your heart and mind.

Money couldn't buy 

the security I needed.

Success couldn't provide 

the approval I desired.

Power and control

corroded my soul.

When all the answers failed,

the questions guided me home.

The passage about Jesus' temptations, which doesn't contain even one question, revealed to me my questions, the places in my soul that longed to be noticed.

+ Will I have enough?

+ Am I enough?

+ Do I matter?

These are our questions —

they echo in every human soul.

And though we're all asking these three questions in different ways, we hardly — if ever — voice them. Because if we asked these questions, aloud, we'd risk vulnerability. 

Vulnerability opens us 

to the possibility of rejection.

Vulnerability also opens us

to the possibility of solidarity.

And solidarity means

we're not alone.

It means

you're not alone.

We can trust that we're all 

seeking the same things,

asking the same three questions

in one form or another.

The most personal desires

are the most universal,

and the most universal desires

are the most personal.

And the most ancient.

Author Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote of the wilderness temptations in his novel The Brothers Karamazov: For in these ... questions all of subsequent human history is as if brought together into a single whole and foretold ... 

In other words, the temptations Jesus faced represent every temptation you will face in life, every temptation humankind has ever faced. Thomas Keating identifies (our) basic, primal impulses as the following needs:

+ safety / security / survival

Will I have enough?

+ affection / esteem / approval

Am I enough?

+ power and control

Do I matter?

"All of these are legitimate human needs. The sin problem has to do with the fact that we have all developed unconscious ways of meeting these needs for ourselves on our own terms ... apart from God." + Ruth Haley Barton, spiritual director and teacher

What valid need — 

security, approval, or control 

 — am I trying to meet in

an unhealthy way and

on my own terms?

As you see Christ's wilderness temptations take shape in various forms in your daily life and interactions, you'll awaken to the reality that everywhere is wilderness, and we're all walking in it.

But we're not walking alone.

(And remember) you can't understand what happens in the wilderness unless you understand what transpired at the river.

Jesus' baptism — is the beginning of the temptation scene. Before he's driven by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested, he's baptized in the river and hears the Voice of God affirming him.

God the Father proclaimed

this reality,

"This is my beloved Son,

with whom I am well pleased,"

before Jesus faced his tests,

not because he passed them.

Jesus enters the wilderness 

to face his temptations

in full confidence

as his Father's beloved,

well-pleasing Son.

And he does this having 

not passed one test,

performed one miracle,

or preached one sermon.

Jesus' identity flows

from his Father's 

words of approval,

not for his Father's

words of approval.

This ability to 

receive,

embrace,

and live

from God-given

sense of identity

has profound implications

for our lives as well,

because ...

what God says about Jesus,

God says about you.

What God says about you

... is based in the 

unshakable,

unfathomable

love of God

for his children,

for all who believe

and receive him.

Now, into the wilderness.

+ Tommy Brown

The Ache for Meaning

pgs. 10-18, 24-26

Bonus: 

For a complement to The Ache for Meaning, Justin Brierley's

Why I'm Still a Christian: After Two Decades of Conversations with Skeptics and Atheists — The Reason I Believe explores how God provides good explanations for:

+ human existence

+ human value 

+ human purpose

And as the poet Audre Lorde said,

"There are no new ideas.

There are only new ways

of making them felt."

Links to other Lenten posts:

+ The Spirit's Work Is Wild

+ Memento Mori 

+ I Hope to Lose 

+ Facing Death

+ Re-Learning Prayer 

+ Remember Me

With anticipation and joy,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

Advent SOG | Christ with Shopping Bags or Generous Christ?

"Christ with Shopping Bags" by Banksy, 2004 A.D.

 

The god of Consumerism

or the Generous Christ?

For this time between Jesus' advents,

He has chosen to redeem a people

to live now in light

of His coming Kingdom. ...

But has our identity as Christians

been shaped by consumerism?

+ Teena Dare

This week as we continue in Advent (i.e. season of watching and waiting for the arrival of Jesus' coming), when the days are short, the nights are long, and the darkness lingers, I need to be called back again and again to the Word who is life, light, and love for me (John 1:4-5, 14). 

I need the Word of life that
creatively gives rather than consumes. 

I need the Word of light that
reveals hope rather than conceals fear. 

I need the Word of love that
dwells in the darkness
 rather than only comforts with ease.

Do I try to escape the darkness

by trying to consume more or
do I wait in the dark and receive
what can only be given by the Light
who enters the darkness
and the darkness cannot overcome?

The Surge School article, "Consumerism" in Quarter 2: Gospel Formation helped me consider the questions above. Teena Dare's article is a provocative and convicting piece about the god of consumerism's intersection with the story of God (especially in light of Advent). In continuing to learn about my own habits of consumption, along with desiring to see Emmaus City Church grow more into a contrast community in a consumer culture, Teena's words are a prophetic reminder. 

This week, would you consider pausing for a moment with me to take stock of where our minds, bodies, and hearts are running to right now, fully realizing the tension that Teena (and I) admit to:

When big drama and grand beauty

is given to us
from the comfort of our couches
without requiring anything from us,
it can feel tiresome
to want to engage
our hearts, minds and bodies
with God through His story
and in His world.

The generous Christ counters

the god of consumerism by inviting us into

a story of presence over mere presents.

Story of God: Creation, Crisis, Covenant Community, Christ, Church, Consummation

Creation

In the beginning (in Genesis 1-2) God created the world as very good. In Western circles, we have often started the story with the crisis in Genesis 3 and ended it with escape from this world. This dualistic theology that rejects God's love for creation provided a striking opportunity for the powers of consumerism to sing a more alluring song. When the gifts of creation are disconnected from the giver, our hearts grow cold towards God's generosity and we become critical consumers. When Christian doctrine treats the material world as evil or meaningless, we look elsewhere to make sense of our rich enjoyment of God's gifts. A biblical doctrine of creation returns things back to their rightful place. A right view of creation rejects the consumer story by inviting us to rejoice in the God who provides abundantly and confess our dependence on Him (1 Timothy 4:4, 6:17). It also reorients us as cultivators of the world rather than passive consumers (Genesis 1:27-28).

Crisis

The consumer story tells us that the problem with the world is that we need more. But the true story locates brokenness in our rebellious hearts. Our first ancestors divorced their will from the Father's and everything went off the rails. They began to look to the rest of the world to meet their needs because they chose not to be whole through complete dependence on their Maker. Where once they cultivated blessing freely for the sake of the world, now they began to fight for it. Not only did the earth rebel against humanity but humanity rebelled against their responsibility to love the Earth. Instead of developing the Earth in a sustainable way, we have forcibly extracted its rich resources at a rate that prohibits continuous replenishment and flourishing. The land wants rest but our appetites won't allow it. Our nation suffers from diseases related to overconsumption while other nations are dying from the lack of basic necessities. Many Americans may have an abundance of consumer goods but we are more depressed and anxious than ever before. And while the affluent certainly experience the destructive effects of consumerism, it is the most vulnerable that bear the brunt of overconsumption. It is always the poor, both locally and internationally, that feel the full effects of our consumer lifestyles. Whether it's their proximity to a landfill, diminishing natural resources in their country, erosion of integral landscapes, inaccessibility to clean water and healthy food, or the volatile global economy – the vulnerable disproportionately absorb the effects of our idolatry.

Covenant Community (Israel)

Throughout Israel's (i.e. God's people) story, God longs to form them as a just and generous people in the midst of nations that worshipped power and greed. Israel's law was meant to subvert the idolatrous ways of Egypt that had surely shaped them over 400 years ... In the same way, we need the wisdom of the Old Testament to help us live all of life in the midst of our idolatrous culture. What Ten Commandments might the god of consumerism give to his worshippers and how can Scripture form us in a distinct way?

Ten Commandments

of the god of Consumerism

| 1 | 

I am the god of consumerism. 

Serve me, and I'll bring you the profit 

your heart desires. 

(In contrast, in God's economy, good business is cultivating blessing from his world to love your neighbor.)

| 2 | 

Promote your products and services 

as the very things that bring wholeness, ultimate satisfaction, and identity.

| 3 | 

Use my name however you'd like. 

Remember, I exist to serve you as along as you continue to serve me.

| 4 | 

Technology has granted you power

to work around the clock, logging hours seven days (and nights) a week. Take advantage of this to get ahead of the competition. 

(In contrast, in a world exhausted and ravaged by a lack of rest, we are called to use our vocational power to protect Sabbath rest for every person, animal, and plot of land in our care. As we honor the rhythms of day and night, the boundaries of family and work life, and weekly Sabbath rest in Christ, we point to a countercultural reality: work is not the ultimate aim of life (Exodus 20:8-11).)

| 5 | 

Honor the new way of things

above the integrity of any principles your parents or previous generations taught. 

(In contrast, we need to listen intently to the wisdom of the generation before us and heed their critiques. Sometimes they can see the idols of our day better than we can (Proverbs 13:1).)

| 6 | 

Addictive substances work 

in your products help to ensure success and a little slander of your competitors is OK. 

(In contrast, we are called to honor the image-bearing dignity of our competitors, employees, and customers (James 3:9-10).)

| 7 | 

Sex sells. 

Advertising with overexposed skin draws people in. And sexual joking in the office is all in good fun.

| 8 | 

Don't worry about fair wages 

for your workers in distant lands. 

(In contrast, scripture perpetually calls on God's people to care for the poor. A fundamental way to do that is to ensure they receive adequate wages and are not taken advantage of.)

| 9 |
Fudging numbers is necessary
and hiding the less attractive aspects of your business is a necessity in today's world. White lies are harmless. 

(In contrast, transparency in your budget and use of materials are a great means of accountability (Proverbs 12:22).)

| 10 | 

Capitalize on discontentment 

bred into our society. Make sure your products give out in a few years. Make your customers long for the newest model, the next experience, the novel idea. Covet others' success, and motivate your employees with that same spirit of extreme competition. 

(In contrast, honor the integrity and beauty of God's creation in the products and services you provide. God doesn't make junk, and we shouldn't either. Let your work serve actual needs rather than invent new ones. And model contentment in Christ as you grow and develop your business for His glory.)

Christ
Sacrificial Love Required
in a Suffering World

We need a savior to restore us to the true glory of being human, revealed most fully in the suffering love of the cross. We cannot save ourselves from the problems we have created and perpetuated.  

If salvation is found in having "more," than we are the saviors. We save ourselves by securing the things we want and need. We save the poor by giving away our unwanted items or by stimulating the economy and assuming it'll find its way to the margins. We save our kids by ensuring that they have what we didn't. When we worship the wrong things, we look to the wrong savior.  

Jesus didn't look to material goods to save Himself, but was often homeless, hungry and humiliated by the pomp of the powerful. He personally felt the powerful temptation to turn to comfort and wealth to blunt the suffering that love requires in a broken world. We need this kind of savior to redeem us from our idolatry. 

We can't save ourselves and we can't save the world. We need Jesus to redeem all things from the ravages of our greed and restore the flourishing He intended for the world. We need Him to forgive us for the way our complacency and selfishness have made us passive – but willing – participants in this global consumer religion.

Church

We have been called and are being sanctified so that our lives can point to a different way. The world is longing for hope, to rediscover a life of purpose and mutuality. We have an incredible opportunity for us to embody lives of generosity, self-sacrifice, communal commitment, and creative stewardship to a world that needs a new way. This is what our salvation is for. The sad reality is that even our identity as Christians has been shaped by consumerism. We readily accept the privileges that we receive in Christ but shirk off the related responsibility. We often consider church attendance, spiritual disciplines, and communal life as Christian commodities that we can consume when it serves our needs. When it gets uncomfortable, inconvenient, or stops being novel or interesting, we start to notice these things drop off. Work takes center stage or the stresses and grief of life in a broken world lead us to seek easier comforts that seem to satisfy what life in Christ hasn't. Community is hard and sometimes our Christian community doesn't show up for us when we really need them. This is deeply painful and we've been trained to withdraw and find other ways to numb that pain. But the church is not simply the commodity of community that we can opt in and out of. It is the primary identity that God calls us into and empowers us to cultivate. He has formed a people who collectively reveal His coming Kingdom as we love each other sacrificially and invite others into this family of mutual care (John 13:35). There is no option for us to be faithful to our calling apart from playing our part in the body of Christ. We also desperately need each other if we want to live distinct lives in our pervasive consumer culture. Some members of our family may be creatively pursuing ways to lower their carbon footprint. Some are incredibly generous and radically hospitable to their neighbors even if they struggle to meet their own needs. And still others are working creatively to produce alternatives to our broken consumer systems. We need to learn and grow together and support each other as we play our part in being a witness to the watching world.

Consummation

When Jesus returns to make all things new, it will be unparalleled celebration with people across all cultures. There will be an intimate exchange of color, flavor, and friendship beyond what our imagination can bear. But many of us don't feel the longing for that day because we are satisfied with far too little and consumed with daily demands and comforts that blind us from what we're missing. Luke 14:15-24 tells a parable of a great banquet that echoes true. Who is ultimately invited to the banquet? It is the poor, the blind, the lame, and those from the margins of the city. This isn't because the host doesn't invite the wealthy or middle class, but they are too busy to accept the invitation. In the early church, it was simply accepted that poor Christians were exceptionally rich in faith. The rich looked to them for spiritual wealth. Our culture tells us to respect and associate with the affluent and influential, but we know we're at a Kingdom feast when the marginalized are given the places of honor. When we share a dinner table and love materializes in generosity and mutual pursuit of Christ, we learn where life is truly found. We have much to learn from the global church to this end. In more communal and less materialistic societies this way of Christ is uniquely on display. All of our lives culminate in a single moment. That day when we will meet our King, no accomplishment or affirmation or storehouse of wealth will rival the most precious words we all long to hear: "Well done, good and faithful servant." Let us be counted faithful by investing in the people and places that Jesus identified with during His life and ministry (Matthew 25:31-46).

Fasting

Counter-Spiritual Formation

Consumerism has formed us through daily, embodied practices that shape our hearts, minds, and appetites. Through these habits we have conformed our lives to the pattern of the age. 

The counter-formation of disciplines, like fasting, are helpful to form us into our true identity: beloved children of God who have died to sin (and must die daily to the powers of consumerism) and been made alive with Christ. Fasting reminds us of our baptismal identity. As Jesus fasted in the desert, feeling the pull of temptation, I imagine He closed His eyes and was right back at the Jordan. Remembering what it felt like to go under the water – cut off for a moment from the air that sustained his lungs – and emerged, surrounded by the perfect love of the Father and Spirit. That moment under the water pointed to the not so far off day when His breath would fail Him as He hung on the cross. In those final moments, He would again entrust Himself to the perfect love of the Father. That love must have been incredibly tangible in those forty days in the desert. Each day, as He died to His bodily desire for bread, the perfect communion of the Trinity sustained Him and transformed Him. The only love that is powerful enough to conquer death was forming Jesus into the full glory of humanity.  

To be fully human in a deeply broken world, we must be freed from the bondage of sin. In order to behold the glory of the risen Christ, we must join Him in His death. We fast to begin to sense the difference between real hunger and the endless cravings that have become inordinate in our lives. To repent of ways that we have made ourselves into people who fulfill every desire with everything but Christ. As we forgo our daily bread, we recognize our need to feast on the Bread of life (John 6:35). As we feel discomfort, we take notice of what our hearts look to for comfort and invite the Spirit to reform us to find satisfaction in Him. We die to our insatiable appetites and experience the joy of deeper communion with Jesus.

I encourage you to take time to plan and prepare for a 24-hour fast from food and spending. (Of course, if you are pregnant or nurturing infants or have medical conditions that preclude you from fasting from food, you can choose something else to abstain from.) As you fast, reflect and write down what God is revealing to you about where you find life and how He is calling you to repent and be renewed in Him.

+ Adapted excerpt from Surge School
Quarter 2: Gospel Formation article,
"Consumerism," by Teena Dare

Previous Post: 

Waiting is the Womb

Other Advent Posts: 

God Present with Us, for Us

The Bold 1st Advent Hymn

Arrival

Praying with Mary and Jesus

Making Room for Limits

Experience God-with-Us in Your Fears

Finish the Story as Alpha & Omega

Many blessings of peace and presence for you,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

Living Under Water | Baptism as Jesus' Way of Life for Us

The Cleansing by Edwin Lester

What if baptism

is designed to be

not an event

but the deepest part of our identity,

the central, guiding reality

that defines our lives?

Living Under Water: Baptism as a Way of Life ranks up there as one of my favorite spiritual reads of the past five years. Living Under Water is a wonderful resource in helping us focus on the meaning of our baptismal identity (i.e. who we are as the family of God sent to love, serve, and witness) that we get to live into each day. And complementing Living Under Water, Fr. Alexander Schmemann's modern classic, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy, is also included.

The meaning of our baptismal identity is as powerful as the exodus, as being recognized as part of a royal lineage. N.T. Wright captures the heart of this:

This is the new Exodus,
the ultimate release from slavery,

the moment when God says
of all of Jesus the Messiah’s people
that He said through Moses to Pharaoh:

“Israel is My son, My firstborn.”

What God said of Israel then,
He said of the coming

Davidic king
in Psalm 2:7 and 2 Samuel 7:14;

this national and royal title
was then spoken over

Jesus Himself
at His baptism (Mark 1:11 and parallels);

what God said of Israel,
the king, and then Jesus,

He now says of all
who belong in the messianic family …

All sons and daughters of God
in Messiah Jesus

Baptized into the Messiah,

Clothed with the Messiah,

All one in Messiah Jesus,

Belonging to the Messiah,

Therefore Abraham's seed
and promised heirs.

+ N.T. Wright
based on Galatians 3:36-4:7

Baptism joins one to many, and
the Lord’s Supper makes many into one.

+ B. Robin

For this post, below are some excerpts that stood out to me about baptism as the way of life with Jesus. I love the gift of baptism, and Living Under Water by Kevin Adams is full of beautiful stories, a bevy of historical and ecumenical highlights, and may be the best book I've read yet in unpacking this sacrament for all of us, young and old, seasoned and new to walking with Jesus. If this post intrigues you to engage more with the mystery, beauty, and power of baptism, you can read Living Under Water: Chapter 1: The Script for Our Truest Selves for free.

Living Under Water:

Baptism Brings Us

into the Biblical Script

Baptism brings us into a particular story by which we make sense of our lives and find meaning and joy for them. Anglican bishop N.T. Wright says about this script,

"The point of the Scripture narrative
is to say that baptism
draws together all those stories
about creation and Exodus,
about Jesus,
but also about the life
of His Church in the world.
When we baptize someone,
we are participating in that same narrative.
We are saying, 'We are on this journey,
this is our story,
and it is now your story as well.
And if you stick with us,
we will help you live
that story with us.'
That's what baptism is all about."

+ "Space, Time, and Sacraments"

Wright summarizes what Christians for centuries have understood: that baptism encapsulates the entire Bible, starting in Genesis with creation, when God's spirit "moves upon the waters," and ending with Revelation's closing image of the river of life flowing through the eternal and electric city of God. In between is a life-shaping thread of baptism stories: Noah and the ark (Gen. 6), Moses and the Israelites' escape through the Red Sea (Exod. 14), Joshua and the crossing of the Jordan River (Josh. 3), Jonah swallowed by a huge fish (Jon. 1-2), and the prophet Ezekiel sprinkling the people as they receive new hearts (Ezek. 36), to name a few. Jesus tells a religious outsider, a Samaritan woman, he can give her living water (John 4), and later promises that those who believe in him will have "rivers of living water ... flow from within them" (John 7). The early church believed that the saliva Jesus used to heal a blind man was a reference to baptism (John 9). Sometimes the connections between baptism and the biblical story are obvious. Acts tells us about a converted jailer and a businesswoman named Lydia, both baptized and dramatically switching scripts. But if you were to read through the Old Testament with early Christians, you'd see baptism stories everywhere (ex. take, for instance, the Old Testament story of Naaman in 2 Kings 5).

Living Under Water:

Living Out Our Baptism

Together as God's Family

William Willimon, former chaplain of Duke University and now a United Methodist bishop, remembers assisting with two baptisms one Sunday morning. The first was a three­-month-­old baby girl whose parents were active in that Methodist congre­gation. The pastor read the prescribed forms, asked the parents baptismal vows, and baptized her. Then he took the child in his arms and said, 

“Mary, we have baptized you and have received you into the Church. God loves you and has great plans for your life. But you will need the rest of us to tell you The Story and, from time to time, to remind you who you are and to keep you in God’s family. We are especially going to appoint some members to guide you and watch over you as you grow in faith. And all of us promise to adopt you as a sister in Christ.” 

Next, the minister baptized a thirty­-year­-old man who had recently converted to Christianity. After the man made prom­ises and received his baptism, he stood before the congregation alongside the minister, who said,

“Tom, we have baptized you and have received you into the Church. God loves you and has great plans for your life. But you will need the rest of us to tell you The Story and, from time to time, to remind you who you are and to keep you in God’s family. We are especially going to appoint some members to guide you and watch over you as you grow in faith. And all of us promise to adopt you as a brother in Christ.”

"Burden" Film Baptism Scene

Living Under Water:

Baptism Gives Us

Our Identity and Sets Us Free

What if baptism is designed to be not an event but the deepest part of our identity, the central, guiding reality that defines our lives? ... What does your baptism mean to you? What if you had not been baptized? What difference would that make? 

Baptism is a countercultural way of viewing race, sex, money, and everything we see. In a world with a hundred groups to join, a thousand songs to sing, and countless tantalizing stories promising the good life, baptism initiates Christians into an alternate story offering an inherited identity, a sense of belonging, and a set of lenses through which to see God at work in our sin-damaged world. 

For example, Father Silouan grew up Roman Catholic, rebelled against everything he learned at home, and then became a Hindu monk. One day, as he walked in Manhattan's Lower East Side, he picked a flyer off the ground inviting people to believe in the Virgin of Guadalupe. Somehow, in reading this simple tract, his heart turned a corner. It didn't just encourage him to faith; it started his life in a whole new direction. To him it signaled far more than a heartfelt love for the Virgin Mary and her divine son. In his deepest self, he sensed, "This is it." So he became a Roman Catholic parishioner, then an Orthodox monk, and eventually an abbot. As we walked, Father Silouan shared, "Baptism is about ontology. It's a state of being ... baptism is about our identity." He said all this as a gentle but clear admonishment, frequently turning to look at me, his eyes flashing for my acknowledgement. 

"If people in the early church talked about their identity, if they asked, 'Who am I?,' they would answer, 'I am a person who has died and risen with Christ.' ... To answer questions of identity with 'I am baptized' is a summary of that reality. Life, then, is about knowing who we are. ... 

When we are baptized into the church, we become part of it, a part of something bigger than us as individuals. In a sense, we don't exist on our own anymore. We are dead and have been raised with Christ. ... People tend to live in fear. We are afraid of losing our self, but we will all die, and we have already died in Christ, so we can let that fear go." 

Because of baptism, we can live in the kairos (Kairos is a Greek word that means "the right time" or "an opportune or decisive moment") ... in the present moment. 

Living Under Water:

Biblical Baptismal Images

Are Colossal

Baptism is washing.

Baptism is dying and rising.

Baptism is the start of a new life.

Baptism is joining a community
of fellow believers.

Baptism, braced by these life-altering images, is designed to be the central pivot of life, the hub through which every spoke of piety – praying, giving, fasting, selfless serving, communal living, mission – links to and works with the others. 

Baptism is the lens through which a believing person sees all the daily and weekly and lifelong rhythms of devotion more clearly. (We can) visualize baptism as an anchor for a lifetime of faithful living.

What if baptism were the fountain of a Christian life ... rather than one more spiritual episode among a thousand? 

What if baptism became not just an expression of faith but a source of deep reassurance in times of doubt or failure, a sign of God's abiding presence even when we stagger through the emotional chaos of grief or prayerlessness or overwhelming doubt? 

We receive life. In the same way, baptism begins a life of faith. Every subsequent act of Christian obedience depends on (i.e. is rooted in) and flows from this beginning. 

The baptized still struggle to be decent human beings. We are still tempted to be less than God created us to be. But in Jesus, God gives us spiritual power to choose a higher and better way. Because of our baptisms, we live inside the promise that we are loved and can live love. 

Every baptism is a renunciation. And it's an anointing, a call to live as prophet, priest, and king. Baptismal identity is a gift, a grace we receive. And it's also a gift we put into action as called people in the often tangled and thorny work of life. 

Baptismal living always includes a renunciation, an anointing, and a "putting on." We wear our baptism in a way that makes us new – including the way we speak and think and rearrange our finances and value people in a racially charged world, etc. 

Baptism redeems, sanctifies, purifies, loosens, forgives, illumines, renews, and heals. 

To live our baptism is live our truest, deepest, most life-giving selves. It is to push away temptations to do life as performance or show or theater. It is to live life as an unwarranted gift.

 

Baptism of the Christ by Daniel Bonnell

God has chosen through baptism 
to create a people who are
His Kingdom representatives
to the kingdoms of the world.
This is why Paul writes about
how those who are one in Christ
through baptism 
are now no longer Jew or Greek,
male or female, slave or free. 

Baptism sets apart a dynamic community
of people of all ages
that challenges and critiques
the social hierarchies of this world. 

Baptism makes Jesus' Church
a family of Kingdom servants
and ambassadors where
the age, ethnic, and class distinctions
of ancient Rome; or historic India or China;
or the modern U.S. no less; no longer matter. 

Bonus Reflection on Baptismal Water:

Baptism forms the real content,

the "existential" root of what

we now call "religious education."

(It) is the revelation of the

wonderful things that have "happened"

and happen to us in the divine gift

of the new life.

Water is the "prima materia,"

the basic element of the world.

It is the natural symbol of life,

for there is no life without water, but

it is also the symbol of destruction

and death, and finally, it is

the symbol of purification, for there is

no cleanliness without it.

Its blessing at the beginning of the

baptismal rite acquires thus a truly

cosmic and redemptive significance.

God created the world and blessed it

and gave it to man as his food and life,

as the means of communion with Him.

The blessing of water signifies the return

or redemption of matter to this initial

and essential meaning.

By accepting the baptism of John,

Christ sanctified the water – made it

the water of purification and

reconciliation with God.

As we stand before the water, the matter

given to us by God, it is an all-embracing

eucharistic movement which gives

the baptismal liturgy its true beginning.

Once more the world is proclaimed

to be what Christ revealed and made

it to be – the gift of God to man,

the means of man's communion

with God. This water is manifested

to us as "the grace of redemption,"

the remission of sins,

the remedy of infirmities. 

A sacrament is always a passage,

a transformation. Yet it is not a 

"passage" into "supernature,"

but into the Kingdom of God, 

the world to come,

into the very reality of this world

and its life as redeemed and

restored by Christ. ... 

The act of blessing may mean

the revelation of the true "nature" and

"destiny" of water, and thus of the world

 – it may be the epiphany and the fulfillment

of their "sacramentality." By being restored

through the blessing to its proper function,

the "holy water" is revealed as the true,

full, adequate water, and matter 

becomes again a means of

communion with God. ... 

A sacrament therefore is not a

"miracle" by which God breaks,

so to speak, the "laws of nature,"

but the manifestation of the

ultimate Truth about the world

and life, man and nature,

the Truth which is Christ.

+ Fr. Alexander Schmemann,

For the Life of the World,

pgs. 83, 88-89, 123, 156, 124

Bonus Songs:

Holy Water

We the Kingdom &
Tasha Cobbs Leonard,

2020 A.D.

God, I'm on my knees again,

God, I'm begging please again,

I need You, Oh, I need You.

Walking down these desert roads,

Water for my thirsty soul,

I need You,

Oh, I need You.

Your forgiveness

Is like sweet, sweet honey on my lips,

Like the sound of a symphony to my ears,

Like holy water on my skin.

Dead man walking, slave to sin,

I want to know about being born again,

I need You, Oh, God, I need You,

So, take me to the riverside,

Take me under, baptize,

I need You, Oh God, I need You.

(Chorus)

I don't want to abuse Your grace,

God, I need it every day,

It's the only thing that ever really 

Makes me want to change.

(Chorus)

Riverside 

Ike Ndolo, 2013 A.D.

My bones are weak in me 

And my eyes are closed

Because of what they've seen.

I'm stuck in smoke and fire 

And it's getting hard to breathe.

My spirit chokes in me 

And now I cannot stand,
I'm on my knees.

Hope is coming again!

Come on down to the riverside! 

Come on down and get baptized!

Come on down to the riverside 

'Cause we've got to die 

To make it out alive.

This water brings me life, 

Renews my soul

And returns my sight.

My heart was cold as ice 

But You made it beat again.

My days had turned to night 

But You called my name

And gave me back the light.

You're bringing hope back again!
(Chorus)

I've seen the sum of my tragedies, 

Cripple me, so come and set me free!

'Cause everyone needs a remedy 

Love can bring,

Let it wash us clean! 

(Chorus)

More on Baptism:

+ Celebrating Baptism 

+ The Water that Unites

With presence and peace,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

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