River of Life

Revelation 22:1-17

by Daniel Harrell

Advent, meaning coming or arrival first appeared in church liturgies not as a Christmas ramp-up, but as a Judgment Day wake-up. By setting its sights on Jesus’ second coming instead of his first, Advent affirms that line in the Creed where Jesus “will come to judge the living and the dead.” Christ will come to right the wrongs of injustice and exalt the humble. Christ will come and make all things new. Advent counters the rampant despair and cynicism common to life in an unjust world, while at the same time fighting against any backsliding and backbiting common among Christians who’ve decided that Jesus isn’t really paying attention. “Keep awake,” he warned in the gospels, “for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. If the owner of a house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

Not that Jesus is coming back as a burglar—just unexpectedly like one. And he’s coming back soon, he said—three times in this chapter of Revelation alone. But given the delay, some 2000 years and counting, some prefer to translate Jesus as saying, “I am coming back quickly,” to emphasize the suddenness over the soonness. Any talk of Jesus coming back at all inevitably leads to Revelation, a book everyone says they want to read until they actually start reading it. You’re attracted to its vivid imagery, symbolism and predictions: Those crazy creatures that look like nothing found in nature—multi-faced animals with wings and eyes in places you’d never want them to be. There’s the numbers that don’t quite add up and funny looking angels with scrolls and lamps and bowls and horns that do battle against evil mythical enemies with bizarre names like Gog and Magog who end up cooked up into a final grim supper of burning flesh, the carrion of evil eaten by the victors. It can get pretty gruesome.

Nevertheless, Revelation has inspired countless sermons, works of art and musical compositions from the mighty Hallelujah Chorus to the tender strains of It Is Well With My Soul. It has also fueled social upheaval and sectarian religious movements which were founded and then foundered on what were thought to be surefire decipherments of Revelation’s secrets. Frenzied Biblical prophecy bloodhounds with rapture-ready sun roofs, eager not to be left behind, scrutinize every geopolitical development, technological advancement and social crisis for clues as to the exact time of Jesus’ arrival (this despite Jesus’ own insistence that nobody but God knows the date). Others, mocking these misguided efforts, display snarky bumper stickers such as: “In the event of rapture, can I have your car?” Confusion over Revelation’s meaning proves so exasperating that in the end, most people are all too happy to put it back on the shelf. Martin Luther thought that it shouldn’t even be in the Bible.

Of course taking Revelation out of the Bible doesn’t really remove it. Just about everything Revelation foretells first appears some place else. Turn to Isaiah or Ezekiel or Daniel in the Old Testament, or the gospels or Peter and Paul in the New, and there you’ll find practically all of Revelation’s themes. For instance, Jesus’ own glorious return finally fulfills Daniel 7, which is stocked full of bizarre animals and complex numbers and judgment thrones and plenty of fire. Daniel sees a son of man riding in on clouds who’s crowned King of kings and Lord of lords—as Jesus himself reiterates in the gospels. Revelation adds the “soon” part—which for those checking their watches is a problem. Given the delay, concerned timekeepers suggest “soon” to mean Jesus coming back in the crises of life or at the point of each individual’s death. But applying this to Revelation just complicates everything more. I think a better solution comes from St. Peter who insists how “with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” I like that God waits as long as it takes in order that all might believe.

However waiting for all to believe doesn’t mean that everyone will. Patience has its limits. Even at the end there remain those outside the Pearly Gates: “dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and lives lies;” that is, everyone who refused to take a bath in the blood of the Lamb. Jesus promises to “repay according to everyone’s work,” the evil and filthy as well as the holy and righteous. This is why Luther wanted to hit the delete button. Where’s the justification by faith alone? Do you show up at the Pearly Gates only to have Peter pull a fast one and ask for your resume? While you can do nothing to earn God’s grace, you still must do something to show you’ve received it. Jesus was clear that you can’t just call him Lord and then refuse to do what he says. You can tell a tree by its fruit, Jesus said. Your treatment of the poor and sick and hungry and imprisoned will show what you think of him. Right in line with the holidays, turns out that Jesus is making a list and checking it twice too.

Revelation labels his list “the Lamb’s Book of Life,” and its contents are those whose lives bear good fruit, by grace. The new covenant God promised in Jeremiah promised to write the law on your heart so you’d know what is right to do by heart. But since that might not be enough, God promised through Ezekiel to provide you with a new heart. What salvation demands, God provides. “Let everyone who is thirsty take the water of life as a gift,” says the Spirit, who is the Spirit of Jesus. As he said to the woman at the well, “Whoever drinks the water I give him never thirst. The water I give will become a spring of water within welling up to eternal life.” Water and spirit go together—what flows in must flow out. Eternal life is not just about getting your name in the book. Eternal life has to be lived. Jesus said, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart, out of your gut, shall flow rivers of living water.’”

We’ve talked a lot about water this fall, and here in Revelation all the streams converge. The sea—that satanic abode of chaos, disorder and darkness that appeared at creation—has swallowed up Satan and dried up itself. In its place there’s the river of life flowing from “the throne and the Lamb,” meaning from Jesus himself. Abundant fruit-bearing trees of life line the banks, reminiscent of Ezekiel’s miracle river flowing from the Temple of God modeled after heaven itself. It’s a Temple that never got built, you’ll recall, because in heaven there’s no need for a building to house God’s presence. There’s no need to shield his glory from sinners. God’s creatures no longer hide their faces in shame and seek refuge in the shadows. Instead, washed clean, we freely step into the light and look on God’s face. The Old Testament warned that nobody could see God’s face and live, a danger that mandated the high priest to identify himself with God’s name stamped on his forehead each year as he annually stepped into the Holy of Holies to make atonement. However in heaven there is no more atonement and no more fear. Everyone wears the name of God on their foreheads here.

The Lord makes everything new, so much so that we probably should call the end times the new times, or even better, thegood times, given what finally transpires. There’s no more death or mourning or crying or pain. No more terminal illnesses, no more incurable diseases, no more fatal accidents or funeral services. No more dysfunctional families or broken relationships. There’s no more problem of evil because there’s no more evil. God allows no more suffering because there is no more suffering to allow. There’s no need for sun and moon anymore because the glory of God provides all the light—a light that so shines in the darkness that darkness becomes as day.

It’s literally heaven on earth. Unlike popular depictions, we don’t die and go to heaven. A huge slice of heaven comes down to us. John writes how he “saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.” The new Jerusalem is both a place and a people, or more specifically, the redeemed of Christ are the place where God now dwells. So sure is this future that Revelation speaks of it as having already happened. John writes, “I saw the Holy City (past tense), coming down out of heaven from God.” Christ has already come by his spirit to live in us. Eternity has already started. You might say we’re in the final descent. All that awaits is a safe landing and that joyous, never-ending reunion.

I don’t know how many of you travel for the holidays. Living away from North Carolina as long as I have, I’ve flown home for Christmas countless times. I always love how folks gather at the security entrance to welcome their loved ones, arms outstretched with ear to ear smiles. Unfortunately, with security being what it is these days, it can take a while to get from the plane to those welcoming arms. Many of us will remember how they used to let people through security gates without a boarding pass. Family and friends could be there to greet you as soon as you appeared out of the tunnel. I loved the way you used to pop right out then right into those open arms. I loved it so much that it made me sad for people who had nobody waiting for them at the gate. So sad, in fact, that as a teenager (living as I did in a rather boring town), a bunch of us kids, for fun, would go out to the airport to greet lonely people as they came off their flights. We’d stand there with wide grins on our faces, waving and looking until we spotted someone who had nobody there to welcome them home. We’d walk up to these perfect strangers, our arms outstretched, and give them a big hello and a hug, telling them how happy we were that they had arrived safely, and how was their trip, and have a great day in our boring little town or wherever your final destination may be. They’d look at us all confused—“do I know you?”—and no doubt thought us crazy, and yet nobody refused the hug, overcome as they were by our spirited welcome. After their initial confusion, they’d usually hug back, say thank you and then leave the terminal with a shake of the head and smile on their faces—smiles I’d like to think they passed on to others.

OK, it was a weird thing for a bunch of kids to do (we’d probably get arrested for it these days), but it’s really no weirder than anything you read in Revelation. And it’s no weirder that anything you read about Christmas either. Sure, Mary and Joseph don’t have to deal with multi-headed animals and other crazy creatures, bowls and blazes and beasts and bad math, but there are plenty of angels and heavenly trumpets and shining stars. There’s Mary getting pregnant by the Holy Spirit—like anybody was going to believe that. And then there’s God showing up as a baby in a feed trough amidst poverty and scandal and threats from a homicidal, anti-Christ monarch. There’s dreams and forced holiday travel and side trips to Egypt, just so that prophecies can get fulfilled. And this is all without mentioning how the rest of the story turns out, what with a man walking on water and raising the dead before rising from the dead himself. Oh, and then promising he’ll fly back down someday soon to wipe out all the evil and death and despair and dysfunction and greed and sin that presses so hard against any peace on earth and goodwill among people. The only way to keep the weird stuff out of Christmas is to keep your Bible shut.

I was reading this past week about the ever-popular Charlie Brown Christmas Special that’s on TV every yuletide season. CBS commissioned the special in 1965, to be written by Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schultz, who included a scene where Linus reads from the gospel of Luke. Schultz was told that “You can’t have the Bible on television,” but he did it anyway, absolutely appalling the CBS executives. The special opened with Charlie Brown moaning about how Christmas was coming, “but I don’t feel happy.” What kid says that? It got worse. There was jazz music. And no laugh track. Wobbly kid’s voices. Charlie Brown constantly criticizing the crass commercialism of the Christmas season. And worst of all, Linus reading the Bible on an empty stage and proclaiming that’s what Christmas is all about? What would the sponsors think? The CBS execs declared it a flop and said they would air the film once (since they’d been promoting it for weeks sight unseen). But then they would consign it to then can, never to see the light of day again. Of course it was a huge hit. Almost half of the nation's television viewers watched in 1965. It won an Emmy. And we’ve been watching every year for  the past 46 years. Of course if you watched this year you’ll notice they shortened the special again—to make room for more commercials.

In the end, if you read the Bible, the final answer to reining in the greed that drives Christmas commercialization, or to redeeming the dysfunction that drives relationships apart this time of year, or to righting the wrongs of injustice and ending the evil that takes no break for the holidays—the final answer to life’s troubles and sin does not lie in better television or in our ability to make a better world, but in God’s power to make a new one. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Jesus says. “And I am coming soon, soon, soon.” To which the Spirit and the bride say, “Come on then.” And for all who weary and thirsty, including ourselves, we say it too: “Amen. Come Lord Jesus.”

Walk on Water

Mark 6:45-52

by Daniel Harrell

Advent means arrival, but it might as well mean to wait. Advent waits for sunlight to reemerge out of darkness and for Christ to be born once again. Historically speaking, however, Advent has always waited more for Christ’s second coming than for his first. Advent showed up on church calendars to point toward that day when God’s kingdom fully comes and all things are made new. In the meantime, with the resurrection providing the down payment, we occupy in-between spaces. Ours is a kingdom not yet. But it’s a kingdom already here too. Christ has come, and Christ will come again.

In the meantime, our waiting, while on the one hand joyful, it’s not always what you expect. You come to church looking for an Advent Wreath and get five candles in fishbowls instead (come to church and see it!). Waiting can be unexpected and uncomfortable. Ask any expectant mother. In-between space can be distressing too. Ask anybody who’s in-between jobs, or in-between relationships, or in-between treatments. Ask Jesus’ disciples here in Mark, stuck in-between shores in the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night, on a boat getting slammed by howling headwinds. Straining against their oars, all they could do was wait for the storm to subside, for the sun to rise, for land to appear. The last thing they expected was for Jesus to show up walking on water.

We’ve spent our Sundays this fall looking at water in the Bible—which is why the Advent fishbowls. We’ve looked at the chaotic waters of creation all the way to last week’s living water from the well of life. This Sunday’s amazing water story is so familiar that it no longer amazes much anymore. We simply take for granted that Jesus walked on water or he wouldn’t be Jesus. We take it for granted like drinking water out of a tap. Not that everybody can take drinking water for granted. Nearly one billion people still lack access to safe water. It’s estimated to cost only something like $20 billion dollars to make clean water available to everyone without it. I say “only 20 billion” because we Americans spend $450 billion dollars on Christmas every year. For a number of seasons a movement known as the Advent Conspiracy has challenged Christians to bypass a few useless Christmas gifts and give the money to relief organizations working to provide clean drinking water. Astronauts living in the International Space Station get plenty of fresh water—delivered by rocket ship, at a cost of $42 thousand dollars a gallon. If we can get drinking water into orbit, no thirsty human community is out of reach. Though I should mention that the water’s gotten a lot cheaper on the space station. Now on board is a recycling system that turns urine, and even sweat back into drinking water.

If such human ingenuity has the capacity to get clean water to all who thirst, maybe we can figure out how to walk on water too? I ran across out this video promoting a new sport based upon Jesus’ watery feat. It’s called Liquid Mountaineering. 

Before these blokes came along, the only living thing capable of running on water aside from water bugs and Jesus (who walked) was a basilisk, also known as the Jesus Lizard [show photo]. You’ll find them in rain forest rivers and streams. Two Harvard biologists calculated that in order to mimic this lizard, a person would need to run about 67 mph. Jamaican runner Usain Bolt, the fastest man on the planet currently, can only manage about 23 mph. How did these liquid mountaineers do it? They used a submerged dock. Some fancy camera work. That’s right, a shoe company faked the video to sell water repellent shoes.

You’re not surprised, but admit it, you’re a little disappointed. You wanted to believe but you knew it was too good to be real. The disciples knew it was too good to be real too. There was no fancy camera work or shoe companies to blame in the first century, so the only explanation was a ghostly one. It was the middle of the night in the middle of the ocean and in the middle of howling winds—what else but a ghost walks on water? The disciples screamed when they saw Jesus coming. Was this why Jesus intended to pass them by? So as not to scare them? Or had he simply grown annoyed by their faithlessness and wanted to teach them a lesson?

I asked my Wednesday night sermon study group what wasn’t familiar about this familiar story, and they said it was this last line of verse 48: “Jesus intended to pass them by.” How do you explain that? In the preceding verses, Jesus graciously (and miraculously) feeds five thousand hungry people, then sends his disciples ahead in a boat so he can have a few minutes to himself, sees that they’re in trouble at sea (which at night at that distance was some serious eyesight), immediately responds by miraculously stepping out onto the water, comes close enough to terrify them, only to then walk by them and leave them to drown? It hardly sounds like the Jesus we know.

Of course the good news is that Jesus doesn’t pass them by. He tells them, “Take heart, fear not, it is I.” You hear “fear not” a lot at Christmastime. In the Bible you hear it whenever God passes by. The verb isn’t about avoidance but about full disclosure. Jesus wanted to show his disciples his true identity. Mark throws out all sorts of clues. Jesus doesn’t go up to pray on just any mountain, but on the mountain—mountains were always the place God showed up in the Old Testament. Jesus says “it is I”, which is the same as saying “I AM,” the name God used for himself atop Mount Sinai. There’s wind and rough water, which as you should know by now is typically the setting for divine intervention. It was the wind of God over the rough waters of chaos that led to creation. It was the wind of God over the floodwaters of Noah that led to the ark’s rescue. It was the wind of God on the Red Sea breakwaters that led Israel to safety and doomed the Egyptian army. “To pass by” was what God did for Moses back in Exodus on a mountain in a storm so that Moses might catch a glimpse of God’s glory and believe.

In Mark 4, Jesus calmed his first storm, which also freaked out his disciples. He asked them why they were so afraid and did they still have no faith. They responded by asking each other, “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Jesus answers that question here in chapter 6. He passes by on water in a storm so that they might catch a glimpse of his glory and believe. But the disciples still don’t get it. Mark says its because “they didn’t understand about the loaves,” which refers back to feeding the 5000. What didn’t they understand? The only other time that so much bread appeared out of nowhere was when God fed his stranded people with manna in the desert. Wink, wink. But like their Israelite ancestors who could never get it either, the disciples’ hearts were too hard. Their skulls were too thick. People don’t walk on water. Jesus must be a ghost. He can’t be the Son of God.

Ironically, in Mark’s gospel, the only ones who ever recognize Jesus to be the Son of God were ghosts—evil spirits and demons. And in Mark’s gospel it’s a 1] Gentile 2] woman with a 3] demon-possessed daughter (three strikes in first century Jewish culture) who’s the first human to call Jesus “Lord”. There is something about being an outsider that makes it easier to see the real thing. I once read this book about a Christian and an atheist who went to church together. They met when the atheist auctioned his soul on eBay as sort of a joke, only to have the Christian buy it for 500 dollars. But rather than make the atheist convert (if indeed that were possible), the Christian made the atheist go to church and give some honest feedback.

The atheist observed how odd it was to go to churches and be asked to greet the people seated around you. “Why do you have to tell people to talk to each other?” he wondered. “Shouldn’t Christians naturally care about each other enough to greet one another without being told?” He went on to share the story of a buddy of his strung out on cocaine who came to Jesus and got clean. The buddy said all these Christians surrounded him and loved on him and really looked after him. But then when he relapsed six months later, he was too ashamed to tell his new Christian friends. Turns out he was afraid they might think him a hypocrite and kick him out of church—as if grace had a statute of limitations. I can empathize. I’ll hesitate to confess my own screw-ups sometimes because I’m not so sure that forgiveness is always out there. Or maybe I hesitate because I can be unforgiving myself. Even though God forgives me every time.

How much grace does it take to believe in Jesus? How many miracles does he have to do? Mark says the disciples “didn’t understand about the loaves.” So what did Jesus do? He miraculously fed 4000 more people one chapter later. He then gets back into a boat with them, but packs only one loaf of bread for the trip. Wink, wink. What did the disciples do? They argued over who forgot to bring enough bread. Seriously? They’d now seen Jesus feed over 9000 people with just a few slices and they’re worried about running out of bread? Some scholars suggest that the disciples didn’t want to impose on Jesus to fed them too because performing miracles seemed to irritate him so. But it’s not feeding hungry people that ever irritated Jesus. It’s their thick heads and hard hearts. He says to his disciples, “You have eyes—can’t you see? You have ears—can’t you hear? Don’t you remember anything at all? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?” “Twelve,” they replied. “And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?” “Seven,” they replied. And Jesus said to them, “Do you not yet understand?” Despite the exasperation, a ring of expectation appears. The disciples do not understand—not yet. But they will. Maybe Jesus’ question isn’t so much a rebuke as it is an invitation.

In Matthew’s take on the story, Peter accepts Jesus’ invitation to try walking on water himself. He does not yet understand—but he’s willing to try. Peter said, “Lord, if it is really you, command me to come to you on the water.” So Jesus said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he got scared and started to sink. He cried out, “Lord, save me!” And Jesus immediately reached out his hand and grabbed him, and said to Peter, “You have so little faith, why did you doubt?” Then they climbed back into the boat, and the wind ceased. This time, everybody in the boat worshiped Jesus, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Maybe the reason the disciples get it in Matthew and not in Mark is because Matthew was one of the disciples and didn’t want to look so bad. Why highlight your thick-headedness any more than you have to? Of course even the disciples’ faith at this point wasn’t enough to keep them from deserting Jesus once the crucifixion trouble started. It wouldn’t be until the Holy Spirit broke through their thick heads that they’d have enough faith. Jesus had to do that miracle too. But isn’t that how grace works? On the cross, Jesus gave himself for us that he might give himself to us—depositing his own spirit deep inside our thick heads and hard hearts—so that we can finally believe.

Body of Water

John 7:33-52
by Daniel Harrell

The Defense Department employs a group of analysts who specialize in scrutinizing religious language and behavior in order to authenticate terrorist communications. These Arabic and Islamic theology scholars recently recognized language in one terrorist screed to be subtly derived from the philosophy of a late 13^th century Syrian religious leader who declared jihad on fellow Muslims. This Syrian philosophy is the sort of thing Muslim insurgents might read to justify their own attacks on fellow Muslims in places like Iraq, Afghanistan or now in Syria itself. This helpful ability to understand ancient doctrine and its current implications has been labeled “forensic theology.” It’s been used to pinpoint groups or individuals who pose the greatest threats to national security.

In a way the Pharisees of Jesus’ day were forensic theologians. Experts in Hebrew theology and Mosaic law, they specialized in scrutinizing religious language and behavior. Not only did they adjudicate authentic conformity to the Law, they pinpointed those individuals and groups who posed the greatest threats to Israel’s national security. To them, Jesus was especially dangerous. His sacrilegious speech and rabble rousing warranted arrest. So they sent the Temple police out to pick him up. Yet Jesus cagily eluded their grasp—without actually going anywhere. He said: “I will be with you a little while longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will search for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.” The Jewish leaders could only scratch their heads.

If you’ve done much reading in John’s gospel, you know it to be loaded with irony. Here the Jewish leaders wondered where Jesus thinks he’s going that they would be unable to find him. They mockingly surmised about his going to teach Gentiles, an absurd notion for any rabbi claiming to be sent from Israel’s God. Jews don’t talk to Gentiles. But ironically the gospel did extend to Gentiles who embraced it in ways most Jews refused. Jesus also declared that his time was short. This would have been welcome news to the Pharisees who were so eager to be rid of him that they plotted his death. But killing Jesus only spelled their own demise. After rising from the dead and sending His Spirit, Jesus became more vitally and universally present than he ever was while walking the earth.

The Pharisee Nicodemus (of John 3:16 fame) shows up to ask whether legally they could judge Jesus without a hearing. Again irony is at work: Those who demanded strict adherence to the law were not themselves obeying it. The rest of the Pharisees cut Nicodemus off and accused him of “campaigning for that Galilean.” “Examine the evidence,” they demanded, “See if any prophet ever comes from Galilee!” But, of course Jesus was not from Galilee, as anybody’s who’s ever read the Christmas story knows. Not that the pretentious Pharisees would taken the time to check—they were so sure they were right.

I was out in Boston this week for a faith-science discussion that met at the Harvard Faculty Club. I have so say that Harvard does pretentiousness better than anybody. I miss it. Anyway, on my way back I stopped off in the Logan airport Men’s Room. A woman came barreling in behind me, her bags confidently slung on her shoulder. She looked at me and gave me this sly grin, then condescendingly asked, “Still having trouble telling an M from a W?” Naturally there was no need for me to respond. I only had to wait. 3, 2, 1… I’m so sure that the entire terminal heard her scream. Certainty can be a dangerous thing.

The commoners who heard Jesus speak were not so sure—though they all agreed Jesus was somebody special. Some hoped he might be the Moses-like-Prophet-to-come promised by God in Deuteronomy. Others hoped he was the King David-like-Messiah-to-come promised by Isaiah and Micah and others who would restore Israel’s political and national fortunes. Even the Temple police were inspired. “Never has anyone spoken like this!” they said. The forensic theologians berated them for coming back empty handed.  The temple police acted as naïve as the ignorant, unenlightened rabble whom Jesus also hoodwinked. Only fools believe. Which ironically, is also true. As the apostle Paul wrote, a former Pharisee himself, “God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.”

The context for all of this was the Jewish thanksgiving-like Feast of Tabernacles; so named for the tents or “tabernacles” built to commemorate ancient Israel’s trek across the desert on their way to the Promised Land. Jews, then as now, camp out in temporary shelters to remind themselves of God’s promise of a permanent housing in the face of fleeting earthly life. I remember an observant Jewish neighbor of mine in the city who would pitch her tent in the middle of a parking lot, abandoning the comfort of her condo in good Tabernacles tradition. Later I watched as a suburban gentleman erected a tabernacle on his back deck; only his opened up into a posh living room. I couldn’t help but feel that he was cheapening the intent of Tabernacles. I also couldn’t help but mention this out loud in his presence—in a joking way naturally. Knowing that I was a Christian, he came back at me with four simple words: “plastic blinking nativity scenes.” Good point.

Of course the main point of Tabernacles was not to remember Israel’s time in the desert (they didn’t spend forty years wandering around as a reward for good behavior). The main point of Tabernacles was to remind how in time God will usher his people into a new heaven and a new earth where He will abide with them forever. On second thought, maybe that tent on the deck did ­prove more apropos; inasmuch as it was connected to something better. Tabernacles envisions that day when all of our temporary, shabby shelters will be shed; a day when redeemed creation will thrive in sync with heaven.

Tabernacles coincided with the grape and olive harvests and included rituals geared to promote harvest success. Prayers for needed rain were prayed in grand liturgical fashion. On seven days of the eight day festival, and seven times on the seventh day, a priest would carry a golden flagon down to the pool of Siloam (where legend held that angels stirred the water). Then with a flagon full of water, the priest would lead a pomp-laden parade back up to the Temple complete with singing, palm-waving and trumpets. When the priest reached the altar, he’d circle it seven times and pour out the water as a sacramental entreaty.

Needless to say, these prayers inferred more than plain rain. As we have seen over and over this fall, water is more than water in the Bible. At Creation, water was the chaos over which God’s spirit spoke light and life into being. With Noah’s flood and the Red Sea, water was God’s justice against evil. In the desert, the water Moses drew from a rock proved God to be faithful even when his people weren’t. Ezekiel’s miracle river of life pouring out from the Temple into the Dead Sea forecast God’s redemption of all things. Here at the Feast of Tabernacles, water poured out in the Temple stirred memories of God’s faithfulness in those original tabernacle years which stirred hope for the future. “On that day,” Zechariah declares, “living water will flow out from Jerusalem…The LORD will be king over the whole earth. All nations … will go up to worship the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.”

Imagine the energy and excitement this feast inspired; especially for people currently oppressed under Roman occupation. If but for a moment, their minds were free to dream of that day when their suffering would be washed away, their storehouses filled, their joy complete and all their prayers answered. Picture being in the midst of all of this intense expectation, enraptured by the celebration, filled with passionate longing for God’s salvation. Add the promise of a new Moses who single-handedly saved an enslaved people from tyranny. Mix in an ardent thirst for a King David-like warrior in whose presence all nations would cower. Whip all of this up to a fervent pitch—only to have some homeless, working-class, dingy ex-carpenter stand up and shout: “It’s me! I’m the one you’ve been hoping for!”

Seriously. That’d be like somebody who’d prayed her whole life for prince charming, who’d packed a hope chest full of baby clothes, who’d for years wistfully waited for Mr. Right to appear, only to reach her Quarter Life crisis and have some homely, good for nothing Mama’s boy waltz up and announce, “Hi honey, I’m home. Your prayers are answered.”

But what if it turned out to be true? Wouldn’t that be ironic?

In good Gospel of John fashion, on the last and climatic day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said (referring to the Old Testament), ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” Jesus proclaimed himself to be Ezekiel’s river of life. He is the Exodus Rock from which water gushed for the parched. He is the Temple in whom God fully resides. Jesus embodied all of God’s great deeds of the past and his great promises for the future. He is the body of water poured out, who gives life to all who are thirsty, to any who will come to him and drink.

There is no life without water. Water participates in a incredible array of processes every minute of every day—you need it to make soup and clean computer chips, it drives the weather and shapes the face of the earth. The human body is more than 60 percent water; it holds our body temperatures at 98.6 degrees. Your body’s water-balance mechanisms are tuned with the precision of a digital chemistry lab, which is a bit of bad news.
You not only don’t need to drink eight glasses of water every day, you cannot in any way make your complexion more youthful by drinking water. As author Charles Fishman writes, you cannot possibly “hydrate” your skin from the inside by drinking an extra bottle or two of Perrier. All that does is make you have to go more—albeit it in French.

Clearly this is not what Jesus meant by rivers of living water flowing from inside you. His water flows from your heart—which John tells us has to do with the Holy Spirit. It’s a throwback to that John 3:16 conversation with Nicodemus where Jesus said no one can enter the kingdom of God without being reborn of water and spirit. Water and spirit go together at new creation just like they did at creation—just as they did at Jesus’ baptism, just like they do at our own baptisms. However “entering the kingdom of God” is not solely about securing a reservation for the Pearly Gates. Like in the rest of the Bible, genuine thirst-quenching faith reaps well-watered fruit of that faith. Not only will we drink in the Spirit of Jesus, but the spirit will pour out of us too.

What does it look like to have a river of life flowing out of your heart? No doubt it looks like love and joy and peace, patience and gentleness—virtues understood to be fruits of the Spirit. But I wonder if Jesus has another virtue in mind—especially given the contentiousness his Tabernacles declaration incited. To enter the Kingdom of God was to reject the kingdoms of the world. To declare yourself the fulfillment of Scripture, unless it was true, would be tantamount to blasphemy. It takes a lot of guts to say all of that. It takes a lot of guts to believe in somebody who says all of that. I mention it because the word Jesus uses to describe the source of living water in us is actually not the heart, but the belly. As the King James has Jesus saying it, “whoever believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”

Of course we can appreciate why Bibles go with heart instead of belly. “Heart” does work as a synonym since the Greek word itself is about motivation rather than anatomy. In ancient culture the seat of one’s motivations was often the stomach, but in our culture, to talk about anything flowing out of your belly can come off as a bit too, well, intestinal. And yet I wonder if the word heart has suffered from overuse—like when people say, “I mean it from the bottom of my heart.” To be frank, “I mean it from the bottom of my heart” is probably the last thing anybody would ever say who really does mean something from the bottom of his heart.

Unfortunately, Christians who say they follow Jesus with “all of their heart” are often those same Christians who when confronted by that hard line Jesus draws between money and God, will say, “You don’t seriously have to sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, just need to have a right attitude toward them. Jesus said we’d always have the poor with us.” Or when confronted by that hard line Jesus gives about loving your enemies, will insist that Jesus only said pray for them, he didn’t say speak to them ever again.

Maybe that river of life needs to flow out of our bellies. Out of our gut. It does take courage to truly follow Jesus. It takes guts to be honest about your faith, guts to endure ostracism from the skeptic and the socially careless, guts to speak honestly against injustice and cruelty when you’d rather keep quiet and not draw attention; it takes guts to renounce materialism and free up your resources for the poor, guts to bypass lucrative, personal fame in order to serve other people, guts to serve without being thanked for it. It takes guts to forgive those who’ve wronged you, guts to confess your sin to those you’ve wronged, guts to work on your marriage, to hold your tongue from gossip, to press on when troubles make God seem distant, it takes guts, it takes courage, to seriously take up a cross and follow Jesus with all of your heart.

British author and Christian GK Chesterton described it, ironically, like this: “Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. ‘He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,’ is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice … [Christians] seek life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; we desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.” Indeed. The water of life is ultimately wine of resurrection. It’s always served in a cross-shaped cup.

Bottled, Tap or Fermented?

John 2:1-11
by Daniel Harrell

Whenever I think back on the scores of weddings I’ve been privileged to participate in, the first memories that usually come to mind are all the bad things that happened. Things like the time the bride fainted to the floor during the vows (and none of us caught her). Or the outdoor wedding where it was 102 degrees and both the bride and groom took their vows with sweat dripping down their noses and through their clothes (and the guests left early to find air conditioning). Or the one where the couple hired a piano player to play jazz at the reception and he independently decided that it would be a better idea to bring an accordion. Or the one where the groomsmen thought it would be funny to kidnap the groom and paint him with the colors of his alma mater, indelible shoe polish, just before the wedding pictures. No matter that all of these couples ended up married and stayed married for more than 72 days. Looking back you still recall the weddings mostly as social disasters. Like you would recall a wedding reception that ran out of wine—now and back in Jesus’ day too. You don’t invite guests bearing gifts to a wedding banquet and then shortchange them on the food and drink.

We’re doing water stories in the Bible this fall, and today’s is a memorable one. Jesus saves a family’s social standing from total disaster by changing ordinary water into choice vintage wine. Hearing the story read, you get the sense that Jesus didn’t really want to do it. He says it’s none of his business. But Jesus’ mother presses him and apparently gets her way. John’s gospel doesn’t record the entire conversation, but with Mary being a good Jewish mother and all, I like to imagine her saying something to Jesus like, “So saving these sweet people from complete embarrassment is none of your business? That’s fine my son, to whom I gave birth in a cattle trough. Don’t worry that your father and I had to endure enormous disgrace and embarrassment to bring you into this world since no one would ever have believed I was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. This is not your problem. You just enjoy yourself.”

Last Sunday’s plunge into Biblical water had us at Jesus’ baptism—the most important water event of them all. Mark’s version brought forward all of the stories we’d explored thus far. At Jesus’ baptism there was the spirit hovering over water as at creation, a dove signaling safety as with Noah’s ark, the presence of a Jeremiah-like prophet in John the Baptist, and parallels between Elisha and Jesus—both of whom did miraculous signs and whose names both mean “God saves.” Jesus was baptized in the Jordan river, reminiscent of Ezekiel’s miracle river flowing out of the Temple (a Temple which Jesus will say is himself). And finally we had Jesus being driven by the Spirit into the desert to confront Satan—a reminder of Israel’s own desert sojourn. The Israelites ran out of water there only to have Moses rescue them by miraculously drawing water from a rock; a rock whom the apostle Paul recognized to be Christ.

Just as the wedding at Cana doesn’t appear in the other gospels, Jesus’ actual baptism doesn’t technically appear in John’s gospel. All we get is the testimony of John the Baptist. He identifies Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” and says he saw the Spirit descend like a dove and remain on Jesus, and that he heard the voice of God claim Jesus as his Son. But there’s no mention of Jesus ever getting wet—though we can probably assume it. There’s no mention of Jesus being driven into the desert to be tempted by Satan either—though there would be plenty to tempt him later. In this gospel, Jesus goes straight from John the Baptist’s testimony about him one day, to gathering a few disciples due to John’s testimony the next day, to then showing up at this wedding “on the third day.”

John’s gospel being what it is, it’s hard not to see something symbolic in whatever he writes. We know that Jesus rises from the dead on the third day as the “first fruits” of the best yet to come. We know that the new reality begun with Jesus’ resurrection works like a betrothal between heaven and earth, a pledge from God to be with his people forever. And we know that the Bible envisions this betrothal leading to an eventual marriage. Revelation reports a Holy City coming down from God “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” And “God himself will be with us; he will wipe every tear from our eyes, and death will be no more; nor crying nor pain.” So sure, for John to say, “on the third day there was a wedding” could be a huge hint.

Or it could just be that on a third day there was a wedding. After all, Jesus doesn’t seem especially thrilled to be here. While it’s clear that he was invited with his new disciples, we don’t why he was invited. Was this a family wedding? Did Jesus’ increasing popularity land him on the guest list? Or did his mother make him come because he hadn’t had a decent meal in days? Discussing this passage at last Wednesday night’s sermon group, we all agreed that Jesus does seem annoyed with his mother. When the wine runs out and Mary prods Jesus to do something, he curtly responds, “Woman—what concern is that to us?” The Message translation has Jesus saying, “Don’t push me.” It’s all pretty abrupt coming from the savior of the world. And all Mary wanted was for Jesus to save the party.

What did she expect him to do? Having been through all that we’ll celebrate at Christmas—the inexplicable conception and birth, all the angels and shepherds and wise men, the heavenly host praising God that Jesus is born as Christ the Lord—maybe Mary was simply eager for Jesus to do his first miracle. Like any proud mother, she wanted everybody to see what a special boy he was. But miracles aren’t that easy to do. Jesus only does seven of them in all of John’s gospel. According to the physics, to change water to wine would require the complete rearrangement of the bond between hydrogen and oxygen atoms, which in water is spectacularly stable. The fierce clinginess of water molecules supplies the glue that holds most of the natural world as we know it together. You can’t rearrange water molecules without emitting an explosion of energy capable of leveling most of Cana. For Jesus to do that meant he’d have to absorb quite an atomic blow.

But this wasn’t why he was hesitant. As creator of the world, he could manage molecular rearrangement. Jesus was hesitant, he says, because his “hour had not yet come.” In John’s gospel, Jesus’ “hour” refers to his crucifixion, when he would absorb a blow that puts nuclear fission to shame. The Lamb of God would take away the sin of the world by taking the sin of the world onto himself. Victory will be achieved through abject defeat. This was not how Saviors were supposed to save. In the desert, Satan mocked Jesus, tempting him to be a real Son of God and show some power. Call out your angelic army and do it right. Here at the wedding, Mary pushes Jesus to use power too, which may explain why Jesus was so abrupt. It’s bad enough when people we treat like gods act like people—you don’t have to be a Penn State grad to know that anger and grief. But when a person who is God doesn’t act like we think God should act? How can you not crucify him? The clock would start ticking once Jesus’ true identity went public. He knew his hour would come fast.

To Mary’s credit, she submits to her son as her Lord, telling the servants “to do whatever he tells you.” Her faith in her son sets his fate in motion. Jesus eyes six stone water jars used for Jewish purification rites. The Judaism of Jesus’ day, set up by the Pharisees, taught that everything having to do with eating and drinking had to be ceremonial washed for the sake of ritual purity. Jesus’ ongoing gripe with the Pharisees was their emphasis on externals. The Pharisees could behave as badly as they pleased as long as their hands were clean. Never mind that Scripture said you needed a pure heart too.

Granted, water does more than just ritually clean. Due to its sticky molecular structure, practically anything dissolves in water. It’s an amazing solvent. The computer giant IBM operates a semiconductor plant in Vermont where water is used to clean computer chips. The only catch is that given the small size of the chips, the water used can’t just come from the tap. While tap water is clean enough to drink, and quite refreshing in Vermont, it’s absolutely filthy from the perspective of a semiconductor. Minerals, ions, bacteria, viruses, and plain old bits of dirt too tiny to bother a person are microscopic boulders. You’d no more wash your computer chips in tap water than you’d ladle water from your toilet to make lemonade. Water is the only thing computer chips can be washed with, but it literally has to be pure water. H₂O and nothing else. What would happen if you drank this pure water yourself? No one really knows, but since absolute water is so sticky, it’d likely leach every mineral right out of your body. Sort of like Jesus would leach every impurity out of our souls. “I baptize with water,” John the Baptist had said, “but the one who is coming baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” You need more than tap water to get a clean heart.

Jesus takes the purification jars and has them filled to the brim. Then follows the nuclear reaction that blows everybody away: Jesus miraculously converts the water to wine. And not just any wine—but reserve wine. The chief steward gets a sip and immediately recognized its high quality. “You have saved the best for last!” he exclaimed—which was as much a statement about Jesus as it is about the vintage. And not only was it the best, but there was an abundance of it. Six water jars each holding twenty or so gallons filled to the brim: we’re talking wine enough to keep a wedding banquet joyfully flowing into eternity. The tap water of ceremonial cleansing had become the wine of new creation. Reality replaced ritual. Thy kingdom comes.

Verse 11 provides the punch lines. “Jesus did this… and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” In John’s gospel, “glory” is God’s purview alone. For Jesus to show glory says something unbelievable about him. And the disciples find faith to believe the unbelievable. They realize that God has shown up in person. The Word has become flesh. This was mostly good news, except when God’s glory showed itself on a cross. When Jesus’ hour finally arrives and the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world by dying, it took all the faith in the world to see the glory in that. But Mary was there, still full of faith in her son, the only other time she shows up in John’s gospel. And from the cross Jesus addressed her simply as “woman”, so she knew everything would turn out OK.

Then on “the third day,” which John calls the first day with a nod toward new creation, Jesus gloriously rises as the first fruit of what’s to come. He saved the best for last. The risen Jesus appeared to his disciples—whose faith had gotten a bit wobbly—and breathed the Holy Spirit on them, just like God breathed life on Adam in the beginning. It’s another nod toward new creation. Jesus converts their ordinary tap water lives into abundant fine wine. The wedding is on.

Of all the weddings I’ve been privileged to participate in, among the most memorable wasn’t much of a wedding at all. The couple each carried heavy crosses of personal hardship: hers an abusive family that caused her undue psychological stress and disorder; his an irregular heart that required surgery soon, but his insurance was reluctant to cover it and his job wasn’t enough to pay for it. These hardships drew them toward each other love each other, as hardships can do. They grew to love one another and wanted to get married, but presumed that they could never afford a church wedding. They could go to City Hall for a cheap civil service, but they believed in Jesus and deeply wanted their marriage vows to be grounded by their faith in him. Jesus was in the business of getting glory out of suffering. No problem, I said. We can get you married in church today, right now, if you like. I got the authority vested in me. Let’s do it. (They asked if it’d be OK if they went home and showered first. They wanted to change clothes.) But a few hours later they were back and scrubbed and ready. I escorted them into our spacious sanctuary, grabbing a member of our admin staff on the way as a witness. I then opened the marriage book and recited those familiar words, “Dearly beloved: We have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining together of this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony. The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation, and our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. It signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church.”

This mysterious union between Christ and his church is the marriage of God to his people, “a Holy City coming down from heaven “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” It is the word made flesh who dwells among us, full of grace and truth, the resurrection of the dead and all things made new. It is “light shining in darkness” and “every tear wiped from our eyes.” It is the glory of the Lord revealed, as of a father’s only son, for all nations to see. I saw plenty of glory in that simple wedding that day. They didn’t need a fancy reception or a truckload of gifts because they had Jesus, and he was enough. “I came that you may have life,” he promised, “and have it abundantly.” One successful heart surgery and two children later, Jesus remains enough, just as he promised. That’s the good thing about abundance. It’s always enough.

Purified Water

Mark 1:9-13

by Daniel Harrell

Our survey of water in the Bible this fall has finally landed us on the most important water event of them all: the baptism of Jesus. It’s distinct from the other water events we’ve looked at thus far, because baptism is actually one we get to dive into ourselves. Along with communion which we celebrate this morning, baptism is a central practice of our faith; it is our initiation into Christian community. Though unlike communion, baptism is a once in a lifetime experience. Baptism comes with gallons of theological significance, most of which we tend to take for granted. As Congregationalists living in Luther-land where infant baptism is the norm, most of us can’t even remember our own baptisms. The baptisms of children, while beautiful, are still treated more as ceremonial than momentous. Maybe that’s because there’s no heaven tearing open or thunderous voice booming at our baptisms—no spirit descending like a dove. Or maybe it’s because we use water instead of fire. We do take water for granted. As recently as 1955, rural Americans without running water in their homes used ten gallons a day per person to live (as compared to cows which used twenty gallons per day per cow). Today, with running water, a normal American uses a hundred gallons, and much of that, twenty gallons a day, is just for flushing the toilet.

Whenever a family brings their baby to be baptized, their major concern is not what baptism signifies, as much as whether their baby will cry. Parents go to great lengths to guard against this: plugging his mouth with a pacifier, sedating her with milk and rocking her into a sacramental stupor. Most of the times this works, but when it doesn’t, the ensuing shriek of terror at the unexpected splash can be enough to set an entire congregation on edge. It’s definitely enough to embarrass some parents into never returning to church again.

But I say let those babies scream! Screaming babies are onto something about baptism that most of us forget. More than a bath, baptism is a drowning. It’s is not so much about having your sinful self washed clean as it is about having your sinful self killed off. Jesus called his cross a baptism and the apostle Paul, writing to the Romans, asserted that to be baptized is to be crucified and buried with Christ, so that with Christ, you might be raised from the dead into newness of life.

Early Christians were very serious about their baptisms. According to the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, a presbyter and bishop in third century Rome, getting baptized required much more than professing faith and getting wet. You first underwent a severe examination of intent, which included being grilled as to the nature of your occupation. For instance, you could not join the church if you were a pimp (for obvious reasons), a sculptor or a painter (unless you swore never to create idols), a politician (again, for obvious reasons), someone who teaches children worldly knowledge, a gladiator, an actor, a soldier, an astrologer or anyone who, according to Hippolytus, “does that which may not be mentioned.”

Once your vocation passed theological muster, you’d be allowed to hear the gospel, followed by a three-year period of instruction during which you were expected to lead a virtuous life. At the end of this period, should you prove worthy, you underwent daily exorcisms to ensure purity and cleanliness from any evil spirit, leading up to a three-day fast on the Thursday before Easter. The night before Easter was spent in prayerful vigil. On Easter morning, as the first rays of the sun broke over the horizon, you were led naked into the baptismal water (typically held in a pool shaped like a coffin and always filled with cold water) where you would confess your faith and be pushed underneath. You would be held down long enough to “feel the death” after which you would emerge gasping for the air of new life. A fresh, official Christian, you were then clothed with a new white garment, anointed with oil and escorted into to the midst of the congregation where the bishop would bless you and offer you for the first time the bread and the wine of the Eucharist. Some of this we saw last week at Confirmation, which was tied more directly to baptism early on.

How does this apply to babies? Depending on your view of original sin, Christians haven’t always held that babies get a free pass. Sin has a sinister power all its own. On the other hand, infant baptism serves as the New Testament successor to Old Testament circumcision—expanded to include female and Gentile children. Baptism, like circumcision, is the signature of a community’s pledge to raise a child to be faithful to God. And because baptism is done with water that can drown you (just as circumcision was with a knife that can kill you), it’s a pledge made under the penalty of death. Jesus himself said that whoever causes a child to fall into sin would be better off having a millstone tied around his neck and thrown into the sea. So yeah, there should be crying at baptisms.

Mark’s version of Jesus’ baptism has an definite Old Testament look and feel. He starts his gospel with a citation from Isaiah that points to John the Baptist as “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord.” John’s own fashion statement—his camel’s hair clothing and leather belt, not to mention his diet of locusts and honey—brought to mind the great prophet Elijah who dressed and ate the same way. God’s last words in the Old Testament promised that Elijah would return “before the great and terrible day of the LORD.” Though he looked like Elijah, John sounded a lot like Jeremiah, warning of God’s justice and calling the people a brood of vipers. His baptizing paralleled a Jewish practice called “proselyte baptism” whereby an idol-loving Gentile pagan converting to Judaism first had to have his idol-loving paganism ceremonially rinsed off. Only here John baptizes chosen people instead of Gentiles, implying that the descendents of Abraham were no better than anybody else. They were sinners too.

In addition to the Old Testament language, Mark paints an Old Testament picture too. Here’s a rendition of Jesus’ baptism from the nineteenth century printmaker Currier and Ives, better known for nostalgic images associated with the holidays. Looking at this print, you’ll notice elements of all the water events we’ve gone over this fall. Let’s do a little review. In Genesis and the creation account, you’ll recall that “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” but already present was water over which swept a wind, or spirit, from God. In ancient creation myths, water was feared as the abode of chaos and evil. God the Father redeems peace and beauty out of the chaos and evil for the sake of creation; just as God the Son redeems life and righteousness out of death and sin for the sake of new creation.

Throw an ark in the water and you’re reminded of Noah, the floodwaters serving the sentence of God’s justice, the due consequence of taking God’s grace for granted. The New Testament writers all understood the flood to prefigure the baptismal waters. Later prophets, like Jeremiah, in whose stead John the Baptist follows, cautioned the people again. But because they insisted on doing God wrong, disasters came and practically wiped them out. But God’s anger against their sin and infidelity never rained down for the sake of destruction alone. His fury refines for the sake of redemption. Peter referred to Noah’s flood as water that destroyed the world in order to save it; the same water, he wrote, that now saves us. St. Augustine understood the wooden ark to foreshadow the wooden cross. God saves us through the waters of his justice by the cross of Jesus, which is our ark of grace. A dove gave the all clear sign to Noah, showing it was safe to disembark. At Jesus’ baptism, the dove signals that in Christ everybody’s safe.

Now there is no floating ax head at Jesus’ baptism, if you remember that sermon from 2 Kings. But there are parallels between Jesus and Elisha. The Bible refers to Elisha as not just any man, but as the man of God. Floating iron verified Elisha’s true identity. Elisha means “God is salvation,” and through Elisha God saved his people from a whole host of self-inflicted disasters. Jesus also means “God saves,” and through Christ God saves us too. Elijah anointed Elisha with a double portion of his spirit. John the Baptist—the New Testament Elijah—did the same for Jesus, anointing him with the fullness of the Holy Spirit and verified Jesus’ true identity. Elisha was the Man of God, Jesus is the beloved Son of God with whom the Father was well pleased.

Baptism’s ultimate trajectory is new life in God’s presence. In Ezekiel, which we looked at last Sunday, God’s presence was symbolized by a glorious new Temple out of which flowed a miracle river symbolizing new life. The Temple and the river turn out to be previews of heaven. The river shows up in the book of Revelation as the river of life, but by then it’s clear that the Temple is no longer a building but “the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” himself. God becomes so present to us that buildings are no longer necessary. His people are his dwelling place.

Jesus goes through the water of baptism and is confirmed to be God’s beloved son. He is anointed with the Spirit of power. He will make way a path to new life. But the first order of business for the Spirit is to lead Jesus into the desert to be tempted by Satan. So much for being God’s beloved Son. At our Wednesday night sermon group, someone pulled out that verse from Hebrews that reminds how Jesus needed to be temped like us in order to sympathize with us, and that he “learned obedience from what he suffered so that once made perfect, he could become the source of eternal salvation.” What? Was Jesus not perfect already? What did have to learn? It turns out that while the word “obedience” derives from the Hebrew verb “to hear,” it always comes tied to the verb “to do.” Jesus knew that obedience to God was a whole body proposition, but he didn’tlearn it until he did it.

This holds true for us too. Bob from our Wednesday night group told us about the birth of his daughter and how there were problems with her heart. She was rushed to the NICU where a chaplain soon showed up and asked if he’d like to have his daughter baptized. Far from a ceremonial gesture, this was every parent’s nightmare. Bob knew he believed in Jesus, but did he have faith enough to trust Jesus with his daughter? He didn’t learn it until he did it. Baptism demands all that we are. Bob gave his daughter to God. And God gave her back. This past Wednesday she started Confirmation.

Jesus went through the waters of God’s justice and into the desert of temptation just as Israel did with Moses. God saved his people and did his justice to Pharaoh’s army. God blessed his people with his spirit, who accompanied them day and night. And that led Israel into the desert where they had a chance to learn obedience too. And yet they failed over and over again. But where they failed, Jesus succeeded and became “the perfect source of eternal salvation” for all who follow him. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Our ancestors all passed through the sea, and were baptized in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.”

If you remember that sermon from Exodus, you’ll remember that though God led his people out into the desert to test them, they ended up testing him. They people ran out of water and complained to God, though the word used for complain was more like the verb to sue. It meant “to legally challenging somebody’s authority.” The people sued the Lord over their water rights! Moses responded, “Why do you test the Lord?” He then turned to God and asked, “What am I supposed to do?” What came next was truly remarkable. The Lord let his people take him to court. A rock served as the courtroom dock where the defendant stands. Moses staff was the executioner. And then God said to Moses, “I will be standing on the rock. I will be the defendant. Smite the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” So Moses’ smote the rock, in effect condemning God, and sprung forth water for the people. The Almighty Lord, Yahweh himself, pled guilty!

This is how Paul interpreted the rock in the desert as Christ. It was another foreshadow of the cross. In John’s gospel, as Jesus hung on the cross, a soldier pierced his side with a spear and water came out. The cross smote Christ, condemned God, and sprung forth living water for all people. As Paul would later explain, “God made him who knew no sin to be our sin, so that in him we might gain his righteousness.”

To be baptized into Christ makes his cross your cross. “To be baptized into Christ Jesus is to be baptized into his death.” But to be baptized into Christ’s death also makes his resurrection your resurrection. His life is now your life. So much so that God’s words to Jesus now apply to you: “You are my Son. You are my daughter. My beloved. With you I am well pleased.”

Waterfront Property

Ezekiel 47:1-12

by Daniel Harrell

It’s good to see everybody in church today. I was concerned folks might not be back after last Sunday’s water sermon from Jeremiah—we’ve been focusing on water in the Bible all fall. Granted, last Sunday was about a lack of water, a drought brought on by God himself in response to Israel’s unfaithfulness. Bad enough that God held back the rain. Worse that God held back from helping his people. He refused to answer their prayers due to their hardheartedness. But today is Reformation Sunday, so let’s reboot. Turn the page. Pick a different prophet. Make a change. This is what God does. No, the Lord doesn’t himself change—the God of the Old Testament is the same as the God of the New Testament. What God changes is his people. By the end of Jeremiah, and here in Ezekiel, the Lord gives them a new heart and a capacity for relationship—a new covenant not written in stone, but written inside their souls. Jesus speaks to this new covenant over the communion table—a covenant made possible by his own blood shed. In Christ, God “forgives our iniquity and remembers our sin no more.” Grace marks a new beginning, it is a reformation.

The Protestant Reformers stressed grace alone as the means of new birth. Salvation is all God’s doing. You can never do anything to earn it. And yet you still must do something to show you’ve received it. Jesus said that you can only tell a tree by its fruit. The apostle Paul said you have to run the race to win it. So run with perseverance, the Bible says, and fix your eyes on Jesus who not only makes sure that you run well, but that you always win.

Jesus describes a day when those racers having loved their neighbors, served the poor, told the truth and worked for justice are confirmed as “good and faithful.” Dressed in white and anointed with the oil of victory, Jesus says to them, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your prize, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” Call it Judgment Day, the Second Coming or the Finish Line, Christians have always affirmed, as we did today, that Jesus will return to do justice, reward the righteous and set the world right forever. It’s a hope that shows up in the Old Testament too. It’s the ultimate outcome of Jeremiah’s new covenant, a vivid watercolor painted here in the prophet Ezekiel.

Both Ezekiel and Jeremiah prophesied concerning Israel’s captivity to the Babylonians—a savage nation devoted to slaughter and conquest. God would have saved Israel from Babylon had they stayed faithful. He’d chosen Israel of all nations to be his beloved, had moved into their neighborhood and blessed off their sandals with prime real estate, national defense and guaranteed retirement. Yet despite being graced by God’s presence—symbolized by this magnificent Temple in which resided God’s glory—the Israelites behaved as if they were entitled to it. Like the prodigal son they took advantage of their father’s goodness and did as they pleased—browbeating the poor, defrauding their neighbor and engaging in an immorality so vile that even the surrounding pagan nations were appalled.

Unlike the parable of the Prodigal Son, here in Ezekiel, it’s the father who took off. Just as God’s presence had been a sign of His favor, his departure became a sign of His judgment. In response to his people’s shameless behavior, God packed his bags and declared lights out for the Temple, Jerusalem and the nation. He left in a glory-filled fury, abandoning Israel to its destruction. God’s exit cleared the way for Babylon to wipe them out.

But now, here in Ezekiel’s fourth and final vision, the father returns. God comes back. His judgment had been for the sake of their salvation. The Lord flips the lights back on so that “the glory of the Lord filled the house.” It’s a house, a new Temple, for which Ezekiel provides eight long, detailed, even tedious, chapters of plans. While God’s return was wonderful and exciting, reading through these house plans can be brutal: “The building whose door faced north was a hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide. Both in the section twenty cubits from the inner court and in the section opposite the pavement of the outer court, gallery faced gallery at the three levels. In front of the rooms was an inner passageway ten cubits wide and a hundred cubits long.” It makes you want to pick up Leviticus just for fun. If you’ve ever led a Bible study that felt like it was going nowhere but you felt guilty about ending it, pull out Ezekiel and you won’t have to worry about anybody ever coming back.

My Wednesday night sermon small group was concerned. Here in chapter 47, our passage for this morning, the emphasis shifts to the landscaping, and at first glance the tedium is still present: “Going on eastward with a cord in his hand, a man measured one thousand cubits, and the water was ankle-deep. Again he measured one thousand, and the water was knee-deep. Again he measured one thousand, and the water was up to the waist.” This stream of water spilled out from inside God’s new house, as if someone had left the shower running. What started as a trickle got so deep so fast that soon you could swim in it. And suddenly you’re like, wait a minute, any trickle that becomes a river in less than a mile and a half is a miracle trickle. Verdant trees with leaves that never turned brown bore fruit every month along each bank. And all of this lushness blooms in a dead desert near the Dead Sea, barren badlands where trees don’t grow and fresh water don’t flow. God transforms both uninhabitable desert and languid sea into a abundant garden. The Lord raises even the land from the dead.

For a people ravaged by war and exile brought on by their own shameful mutiny; severed from God with no hope of reunion or redemption; such an unexpected and underserved paradise ushered forth hymns of joy sung with tears of relief. Ezekiel paints their salvation with vivid images of abundance: limitless water, boundless fresh produce, medicine for healing, fish and animal life to enjoy. It’s actually sounds a lot like America—enough that I wonder whether Ezekiel’s vision has the power to stir us as it must have stirred our exiled Israelite forebears. Abundance is status quo in our country. Why yearn for Ezekiel’s paradise when you can get fresh fruit even in the winter, medicines at the pharmacy, beautiful scenery on any day at the lake and water no further than the twist of a spigot?

Of course such abundance is not the global status quo—talk to those who’ve recently returned from the Dominican Republic, just off of America’s southern coast. Many political scientists assert that coming world wars won’t be fought over who controls the oil, but over who controls the water. In India, about 170 million people drink water every day that has been carried home by foot, one out of six people in a country of 1 billion. That’s the number of people in the United States who live east of the Mississippi. It’s as if everyone from Maine to Key West, from New York to Chicago, from Memphis to Atlanta, relied on water that someone had walked to collect every day. In India, their space program made possible the discovery of water on the moon. But even the Indian scientists and engineers who oversaw the project don’t have running water at home. In the twenty-first century, it is estimated that as many as 100 million people worldwide are making the water walk every day, with hundreds of millions depending on water that has been carried, almost always on the head of a woman or girl.

My Wednesday night group was quick to remind me that living here in the land of abundance doesn’t mean you have access to it—especially in these difficult days as joblessness and poverty have intensified. He same was true for Israel. There was plenty of abundance available, but they had no access to it. And it was their own fault. Despite eight chapters of magnificent, if meticulous, plans, Ezekiel’s Temple never got built. Instead, what did get built once the Israelites returned from their Babylonian captivity was a comparably low-rent replacement. Moreover, according to the prophet Haggai (and later Jesus too), this lesser rendition didn’t house God’s glory the same way that the first one did. This was because the people soon started trashing the new Temple as badly as they’d trashed the first. The Lord said in Ezekiel that surely my people “will never again defile my holy name with their detestable practices and their loathsome abominations.” But they did. Divine judgment and near-total annihilation failed to induce any lasting reform. No sooner were they restored to their land than their willful and hypocritical disobedience resumed. Haggai and other prophets pick up denouncing the people where Jeremiah and Ezekiel left off.

Perhaps this is another reason why Ezekiel’s Temple was never built. God knew better than to try and live among people again. He knew that taking up residence in their midst would only lead to their total annihilation. Holiness cannot tolerate infidelity and injustice. So God kept his distance. Just “describe the temple to the people of Israel,” the Lord commanded Ezekiel. He never says build it. “Let them consider its appearance,” God said. He never commands them to purchase stone and lumber. “Just show them the plans,” he said,  “that they may be ashamed of their sins.”

How would a set of plans cause shame? Hope maybe. I had some good friends flooded out by a raging tropical storm in the South. The water rose waist high throughout their subdivision as they slept. Had not their 2-year-old awoke, seen the water rising around his bed and screamed, he probably would have drowned. As it was, they all awoke and scrambled for higher ground, salvaging a few personal belongings but basically losing everything else. Homeless, the four of them were shoe-horned into a small apartment when I stopped by to visit. They recounted the dismal days they’d spent pouring over lost mementos and treasures, lamenting labor now wasted remodeling their house on their limited budget, as well as time spent haggling with insurers and government relief agencies. But just as I was about to conclude that their plight was an inconsolable saga of sadness with no end in sight, they pulled out this long tube of paper and grinned. Giddy, they unrolled the source of their happiness. House plans. Blueprints. “This is going to be our new home,” they said.

Ezekiel’s house plans were Israel’s hope too. But how would God’s plans for a new Temple ever induce shame? As a kid I lived in a house my brickmason dad built himself. I remember the house plans and my brother and me getting to pick out our own room. We got to have real wood paneling and blue shag carpet, a red bean bag chair with peace signs and beads and a lava lamp (it was far out). Six weeks later, my parents were out to dinner and I was asleep in my room. I awoke to smoke encircling around my face. Our house was on fire. I was rescued by a heroic babysitter who yanked me out of my drowsy stupor and, along with my little brother, high-tailed it across the street to our neighbors’ just as the flames burst through the roof. All of my parents’ hard work and dreams literally went up in smoke.

But what made it worse was that it turned out to be my fault. I had mischievously  knocked over this basket of blankets my hard-working mom had folded downstairs. Goofing around, I jumped on them like a trampoline mashing them down into the hot coils of this electric heater. That night, while my parents were out, the blankets caught fire. What the fire didn’t get, the water from the fire truck hoses did. And unfortunately, insurance didn’t cover everything. Some of the damage would remain. My dad and the architect had to draw up a whole new set of plans, salvaging whatever they could for the reconstruction. Seeing that set of plans made me feel horrible. Ashamed. I knew that the replacement house would never be as good as the original. The stains that splotched my Dad’s beautiful stonework fireplace were permanent reminders of the way things weren’t going to be now because of me.

Maybe that’s the kind of shame the Israelites felt when they saw Ezekiel’s plans. That glorious Temple would never be built in their lifetime. The low-rent replacement they’d enter each Sabbath for worship would remind them of the way things weren’t going to be now because of them. In the parable of the prodigal son, it’s desperate shame that turns the ungrateful young boy’s life around. He’s no longer fit to be called his father’s son anymore—he returns to his father and asks to be treated like a slave. But his father would have none of it. Overjoyed that his son is alive, the father puts a white robe on his shoulders and lays out a spread fit for a prize-winning athlete. The hard love that beckoned the prodigal son to feel shame was the same love that brought him back, and presumably the same love that brought about some change in his life. We can do nothing to earn God’s grace, but we still must do something to show we’ve received it. Grace will change you. I don’t play with blankets anymore. And I’m still really careful when it comes to electric heaters. But that’s not why my parents let me live in their rebuilt house. They let me stay because they love me and they were overjoyed that I was alive.

The house my Dad rebuilt was never as good as the original—but it also wasn’t the last house. Many years later, they built another one out in the country among the Carolina pines. It overlooked a river where the fishing is good, as well as the verdant green of a beautiful golf course where the trees never turn brown. The sun sparkles every morning and it’s quiet and peaceful and better than that first dream house ever was. And I got to live there too. Ezekiel’s house plans are a preview of heaven, a final house being built not with lumber and stones, but with you and me as living stones, made righteous by Christ. Turn to last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation and there you find “the river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb,” and “the tree of life producing its fruit every month; and leaves for the healing of the nations.” There’s “no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be our light, and we will reign forever and ever,” overjoyed that everybody’s alive and that everybody’s home.