Sitting with the Sacred

When setting up this blog, I chose one of the templates available in WordPress, and I kept the default cover photo associated with the theme called MistyLook. It’s a name that fits character of my spiritual experiences, most of our spiritual experiences this side of death, actually. Most of the time, we get only misty looks at God and at the path that lies before us, hence the misty photo with the winding path flanked by numerous trees that remind me of all those times I couldn’t see the proverbial forest through them.

But the readings for The Baptism of the Lord are not about those misty looks at God that we usually get. They’re about God working in human experience in bodily form and announcing that that’s what’s going on. Jesus comes to the Jordan to be baptized, just as all the other people waiting on the banks had been, and when he comes up from the water, the Holy Spirit came down “in bodily form, like a dove” and everyone present hears a voice that says, you are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (Luke 3:21-22). Many people on the banks and early readers of this account would recognize that “with whom I am pleased” is a phrase used in Isaiah to describe the Messiah, but it stands out to me that the voice says, “You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”[emphasis mine] (Isa. 42:1). This verse stands out because it doesn’t say what the voice says in the Transfiguration scene later in the Scriptures. It doesn’t say, “This is my chosen Son; Listen to him” (Luke 9: 35). The onlookers are privy to a declaration of love and approval from a parent to a child. There is intimacy in being present for such an affirmation, made concrete, not only through a voice, but through touch, the touch of a dove. Yes, the dove is a symbol of peace. The people of Jesus’ time and place would have known this too. But God could have just sent a rainbow to signal the same thing. Except Jesus wouldn’t feel it the way He would feel a dove landing on Him.

It’s a dove that prepares Jesus for what lies ahead and definitely points him out to the crowds on the banks, but is the affirmation meant only for him? More than one person more knowledgeable about theology and Scripture than I am says no, that this voice speaks to other children of God as well. Here’s an example of this understanding of the scene. The reflection I just linked to parallels the baptism of Jesus and the baptism of a follower of Jesus. Meanwhile, Pope Francis goes so far is to remind us that the love between the Father and the Son is “imprinted” on us the moment we come into existence. This meditation from Professor Heidi Russell includes a quotation from the pope about this subject. What I take away from these sources is that we don’t have to be baptized to be loved by God. We get baptized to receive the grace to love ourselves, other people, and indeed, all of creation the way God does.

With these insights in mind, it stands out to me that, unlike in the Transfiguration scene, even though everyone present seems meant to hear what the voice has to say, no direct instruction, no “Listen to Him” is included. This moment of baptism is all about affirming who Jesus is and who the onlookers — we— are.

What does Jesus do with the affirmation, and the “Holy Spirit and power” He receives from His baptism (Acts 10:38)? Acts tells us that “he went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil” (10: 38). “Doing good and healing.” These are active words that convey having a positive impact on the lives of people as they are at a given time, not just in a future context that the people can’t describe. These words also tell me that no one is his or her wounds or the ways he or she distorts the unique combination of positive qualities that he or she has the potential to reflect. These are the qualities of God, who, to paraphrase the Rev. Father Richard Rohr, is love as a verb, love as in “pour[ing]” into someone or something else.

No matter who we are or what we struggle with, we are created in the image of God (Gen. 1-26). I find it helpful to think of my struggles and of the ways I’ve fallen short of reflecting God as injuries and grime that may make it harder for me and for others to recognize the ways I reflect God. These grimy wounds need to be brought to God for washing and healing. Who knows how long the washing and healing will take? It is a process that I believe began when I was conceived and won’t be complete when my soul separates from my body. Over and over again, I will “forget” who I am, as the Rev. Father Terrence Klein writes, and I won’t— at least not as clearly as I would like—reflect the qualities of God that I have. This distortion of my true image, while beloved, will shape how people see me as will the imperfections they carry when they look at me, and over and over again, I’ll have to acknowledge how my frailty and choices have contributed to the distortion of my true image, and this acknowledgment will help me heal and grow more into the person I’m meant to be.

While I go through growing pains, I take comfort in having faith in a God who helped people carry wounds by living a human life, a life that included, we are told in the Gospels, taking part in a baptism of repentance that He didn’t need. That means that everything the people baptized before Him carried—sins and everything else—was in that water when he went into it. Everything the people would like to dispense with touched him, as it did throughout his life and would most violently on the cross. I know I’m not the first person to see this in his baptism, but I don’t remember where I encountered this insight first.

His humanness also meant that he didn’t heal everyone with his physical presence. That happening depended on a lot of factors — a person having the courage to approach him, to name just one factor. Some people had the opportunity to approach him; others didn’t. There were times when people wanted him to stay and help, but he moved on to the next town. (See Mark 1:35-39 for an example.) Because I’m a human being, who wants concrete solutions and would prefer to receive them now, I won’t pretend to fully understand and accept this response — even though I’m getting the message that His mission was to spread the spiritual wealth. Still, faith tells me that He always cared about the people he left “looking for” Him during his ministry (Mark 1:37). He always cares about whatever mars the beautiful images of his brothers and sisters, whatever makes it more difficult for them to feel connected to and by Love — so much so that he took upon himself —to the point of torture and death —everything that isn’t light, peace, community, and dignity. I believe that when he did so, he experienced in ways I cannot comprehend every form of human suffering, whether physical, mental, or spiritual.

But none of it could defeat him. And because it couldn’t, He is no longer limited by the confines of his human life and is able to accompany anyone of us who reach out to him, as generation after generation, new hands, and feet, and hearts heal and do good in heaven and on earth. I recognize and have gratitude for daily glimpses of beauty and love. Yet as I write this, more than one mass shooting, genocide, famine, and natural disaster comes to mind. I long for the world he saved from these, and I don’t know when salvation from these sufferings will come or precisely what it will look like. However, not knowing is better than not believing this kind of salvation will ever come. And while I journey down this misty and tree-obscured path of life, not knowing so much, I relish the “ordinary” gifts, and I trust that God, wounded by living all of our sufferings, is beside me, here and now.

Works cited (but not linked)

The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.