For a high school science project a few years ago, a student conducted a survey. In that survey the student asked people whether they thought dihydrogen monoxide ought to be outlawed. And before the people responded, the student provided them with some information. He pointed out that dihydrogen monoxide is a major component of acid rain; that it is a leading cause of soil erosion; that it decreases the effectiveness of automobile brakes; and that accidentally breathing in dihydrogen monoxide can kill you. Based on that information, nearly half of those surveyed said Yes, that in their opinion there ought to be a law against dihydrogen monoxide. Little did those people realize, though, that dihydrogen monoxide is actually the technical name for water, for H2O. The truth is that although we cannot live very long without water, water can be a dangerous thing.
Certainly no one would question the danger of fire. Watching this summer as acres and acres of woodlands were devastated by the rolling flames of forest fires in the west is testimony to the destruction and devastation that fire creates. Fire and water--these are the images of our lessons today. The words of Isaiah acknowledge, when you pass through the waters, when you walk through fire. John the Baptist proclaims to the crowd, I baptize you with water but the one who comes after me will baptize you with fire. Fire and water can be dangerous things.
That reality was never far from the experience of the people of Israel. For the Jewish exiles to whom the prophecy of Isaiah was addressed, water and fire were symbols of chaos and terror and death. Deep in their corporate consciousness the image of water meant chaos. For a landlocked people with no experience of the sea, the waters suggested the terror of the unknown. In the Genesis account of creation, the "waters covered the earth"--chaos covered the earth. Only as the land was separated from the waters did order come into the world. And early in their history it was the waters of the Red Sea which stood in their way to the Promised Land. And, as they saw it, it was God's miracle that the waters opened up for them to pass through and then closed in again to bring death to the armies of Pharaoh pursuing them. "When you pass through the waters I will be with you...they shall not overwhelm you."
And the fire. The image of fire suggested the fires, the burnings of war. You and I here in America are just plain lucky we have not experienced the devastations of war. But for the exiles, the fires of war were part of their immediate experience. They knew what the prophet was talking about: "When you walk through fire..." They had taken that desperate walk more than once. Even now their beloved Jerusalem lay in ruins. So-the waters and the fire speak with different accents to these people, the Israelites. Not only are fire and water life giving but they are frightening as well.
In the current best selling book The Poisonwood
Bible we get another glimpse of that accent, that fear. A
Baptist minister transplants his wife and four daughters to the
Congo in the 1950's. He is bound and determined to bring Christianity
to a small village. He preaches on many things "But in the
end," says his daughter Adah, "he got around to emphasizing
Baptism as usual. This was likely what disturbed Mama Tataba.
Our Father could not seem to accept what seemed clear enough even
to a child: when he showered the idea of-- baptiza--on
people here, it shrunk them away like water on a witch."
Mama Tataba helps the family around the house and it is her personal
assistance into the ways of African life that saves the family.
So it shocks the family when, "Afterward at home, when Mother
asked Mama Tataba to go put the soup on the stove, Mama Tataba
turned and walked smack dab out the front door in between the
words "Soup" and "stove". She went out and
gave my father a good talking to, shaking her finger at him across
a row of tomatoless tomato plants. Whatever it was that he had
done wrong in her opinion, it was really the last straw."
"What was mama Tataba so mad about just now? Daughter Leah
dares to ask. "A little girl. A girl from the village that
got killed last year. She got killed and eaten by a crocodile.
They don't let their children step foot in the river, ever. Not
even to be Washed in the Blood of the Lamb." Water can be
a dangerous thing.
So what about God in all this? In the waters and the fire? Most of us, I suspect, think of God as one whose job it is to extricate us from the waters and the fire. For what are God and the church for if not to provide an avenue of escape from the misery and destruction of water and fire? And what is prayer for if not to get God to save us from the waters and the fire? And if we have "faith enough, " as we say, will he not come to our rescue and get us out of the mess we're in? And the waters and the fire will disappear? But listen again to the words of the prophet: "When you pass through the waters...When you walk through fire...I will be with you." God is in the waters and the fire, not apart from them.
And so Jesus went to be baptized, not because he needed any sin to be washed away from him. No, Jesus went to stand with the other people in the water to let them know that it was all right. That because he was with them, the people did not have to be afraid of the water, or be afraid anything else. It's like the scene that you often see at a swimming pool in the summertime. Some small child will be standing at the edge of the pool, in tears, afraid to get in the water. So the parent will be standing waist deep there in the pool, waving for the reluctant child to jump in, saying, "It's OK. I'm right here." And that was what Jesus did at his baptism. He stood in the water and told us all that it is OK. That he is right there for us, so we don't have to be afraid. We know in our heads that God loves us. We know in our heads that really we don't have to be afraid. But even so, it just seems that at times we want to hold that hope in our hands, to remind ourselves that it's real. And that's what the sacraments are all about. When we take the water of baptism, and the bread and the cup of communion, those are things that Jesus has given to us to feel, to smell, to taste, to take hold of. To remind us of all the ways that God has loved and cared for his people across the ages. And to remind us that God loves and cares for us even today.
For as the chaotic waters threaten to submerge and overwhelm us, when we are immersed in the waters of Baptism we are submerged, overwhelmed by the very waters which symbolize God's presence. So Paul writes: "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death." If we are threatened by the waters of chaos, God takes those waters of chaos and submerges us--overwhelms us--with his love and grace in baptism in Christ. So too with the fire. God spoke to Moses through the fire, in a bush burning but not consumed. So Jeremiah knew that the burning in his bones was the burning presence of God seeking to speak and to be heard. So on the day of Pentecost tongues like as of fire came upon all who were present as evidence of God's immediate presence.
God provides no escape from the waters and the fire; he is present in them. So our Lord was tempted with the offer of "all the kingdoms of the world," the kingdoms, the principalities and powers that could conceivably spare him from the waters and the fire of death. But he chose to be present in the water and the fire with love and patience and sympathy so that not only would we not be alone in the water and the fire, but with the assurance that they would be overcome--through Christ our Lord.
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, you are mine.
Amen.