Relocating Gen. 1.1-5; Ps. 29; Acts 19.1-7; Mark 1.4-11 Wayne McLaughlin January 7, 2018 The Baptism of our Lord Sunday GENESIS 1.1-5 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, Let there be light ; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. PSALM 29 All of you angels in heaven, honor the glory and power of the Lord! Honor the wonderful name of the Lord, and worship the Lord most holy and glorious. The voice of the Lord is over the waters. The glorious Lord God thunders above the roar of the raging sea, and his voice is mighty and marvelous. The voice of the Lord destroys the cedar trees; the Lord shatters cedars on Mount Lebanon. God makes Mount Lebanon skip like a calf and Mount Hermon jump like a wild ox. The voice of the Lord makes lightning flash and the desert tremble. And because of the Lord, the desert shivers and shakes. 1
The voice of the Lord makes deer give birth before their time. Forests are stripped of leaves, and in his temple all say, Glory! The Lord rules on his throne, king of the flood forever. Pray that our Lord will make us strong and give us peace. ACTS 19.1-7 While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples. He said to them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers? They replied, No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. Then he said, Into what then were you baptized? They answered, Into John s baptism. Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus. On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied altogether there were about twelve of them. MARK 1.4-11 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. SERMON TEXT: You know what real estate agents say: Location, location, location. 2
Baptism is about location. Because we are baptized into something. Baptism relocates us. It puts us into a different place. INTO WHAT? In Acts 19 we read about Paul going into the city of Ephesus. He found that there were disciples of Jesus there. I don t know why he asked the question, but he did he said: Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers? And they said: Holy Spirit? What s that? That wasn t mentioned in our new members class. Now, it s possible that we re missing part of the conversation, because it doesn t exactly seem to flow from one topic to another. After they say, We don t know anything about this Holy Spirit, Paul asks another question: Into what then were you baptized? Into what? See there is the question about location. You were baptized. Okay. But where did that baptism relocate you to? Into what then were you baptized? To that question they answered, Into John s baptism. They are talking about John the Baptist. John was going around the countryside baptizing people. In fact, John baptized Jesus, didn t he? John had his own disciples before Jesus began his ministry. These men and women in Ephesus were disciples of John. They believed in the coming kingdom of God. But they hadn t taken the next step of transferring their allegiance from John to Jesus. 3
They were located in John. Paul tells them they need to take the next step and be relocated in Christ. They agree. So, Paul baptizes them into Christ. Through Christian baptism the Holy Spirit relocates them puts them into Christ. THEOLOGIANS Back in 1531 Martin Luther was lecturing on Galatians, and he said: Our theology is sure because it places us outside ourselves. 1 You hear what Martin Luther is saying? Faith in Christ places us outside ourselves that is, it relocates us. We no longer live in ourselves. We are taken out of ourselves and put into Christ. A contemporary theologian, David Congdon, makes a similar statement as he quotes the great 20 th century theologian Karl Barth: The grace of God that invades the world points them away from self, frightens them out of themselves, deprives them of any root or soil or country in themselves. We are thrust out of ourselves and into the hands of God, only to find ourselves commissioned for a new existence within the world. 2 Congdon also quotes the theologian 20 th century theologian Eberhard Jungel: Those who in faith know the mystery of Jesus Christ, who are thus placed outside of themselves, find their existential location in Christ (2 Cor. 5.17). 3 1 David W. Congdon, The God Who Saves (Eugene, OR, Cascade Books, 2016), 79. Emphasis added. 2 Ibid., 89. Emphasis added. 3 Ibid., 83. Emphasis added. His reference, 2 Cor. 5.17, says that if anyone is in Christ they are part of a new creation. 4
In baptism we are taken out of ourselves and put into Christ. We are relocated. And as the theologian says, we find our existential location in Christ. WHO ARE YOU? The movie Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premiered in New York City in 1942. It s the story of a cynical American expat, Rick Blaine, who runs a bar in Morocco s largest city during World War II. He s unexpectedly reunited with his former love, Ilsa, who is now married to a leader of the French Resistance. Will Rick get back together with his love? Unlike most movies, Casablanca was filmed in story order rather than out of sequence, because the screenplay was only half done by the time filming began. Ingrid Bergman wrote in her autobiography, My Story (1980): We were shooting off the cuff. Every day they were handing out dialogue and we were trying to make some sense of it. Every morning we would say, Well, who are we? What are we doing here? And [director] Michael Curtiz would say, We re not quite sure, but let s get through this scene today and we ll let you know tomorrow. She didn t know which man her character ended up with until the final scene was filmed. 4 Our lives are sort of like that, aren t they? Every day we get up and unconsciously ask ourselves, Who are we today? What are we doing here? Or to put it another way, Where are we located? We all live within some particular context. Where are we? We are in America. We are in the State of Alabama. We live in a particular community. We are of a certain age. We are located within a specific family. We are located within a specific job or profession or career or retirement. 4 https://writersalmanac.org/?utm_campaign=writers+almanac&utm_medium=email&utm _source=sfmc_&utm_content= 5
We are located within a certain fan base Auburn s or Alabama s. We are located within a network of relationships friends, colleagues, partners, etc. We are located within a religious tradition. We are located within a particular way of life. And if we have been baptized, we are located in Christ. Being in Christ gives us an identity; a set of values to live by; a set of priorities in life. It means we are related in a special way to all Christians all over the world. It means we are located within Love. We are located within Mercy. We are located within Hope. Baptism takes us out of ourselves in the sense that it s not all about us. Rather, we are called to serve others. When we are relocated into Christ, we are placed within his heart. Of course there is a proper self-love. We love ourselves first, so that we can love others just as we love ourselves. We love ourselves so that we can love others. THE QUESTION The very first question that God asks in the Bible is in Genesis, chapter three. After Adam and Eve have eaten of 6
the forbidden fruit, they are ashamed, and the hide from God. The story teller says that the Lord came walking in the garden in the cool of the evening. The Lord looked around, then asked the question: Where are you? It s the same question Paul asked in Ephesus: Into what were you baptized? Where are you? Where are you located? David, in Psalm 23, answers the question: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. We dwell in the house of the Lord. We live in Christ. Location, location, location. To get up each day and know where we are located is of utmost importance. 7