Like a Dove
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.’
I spend a lot of time worrying. I spend a lot of time thinking about all that is wrong with the world, and therefore, most of my sermons are about what we can do, together, helping each other, in order to make things better. And I’m so excited, especially as we can begin gathering again, to talk about what waits for us in the coming year, in this next era—but we’re not there yet, oh boy are we not there yet. Sure, there’s brainstorming and planning to do for whatever next big projects await, but today isn’t that time for that. Church, despite what happened to this country on Wednesday (and I will address that later in this sermon), today is a day for gentleness.
In the passage we just read, we have John the Baptist, an eccentric prophet, clothed in scratchy camel hair, living in the wilderness, eating bugs, yelling about repentance, yelling about the coming great one, and dunking people in water. On the surface this is not a gentle passage. John is the type who, these days we would cross the street if we saw him walking towards us in our path. And even the word “repent” itself has gotten a bad rep. When I hear the word repent, I think of people yelling outside Planned Parenthoods, or the Westboro Baptist Church holding up vulgar signs, protesting military funerals. It has this intense connotation of scolding, with imagery of hellfire and eternal torment. At least it does for me—the word has been so perverted into such a malicious and scary thing.
But the Greek word for repent, translated more directly is really just “turning away from.” And I like thinking of this way, because it’s so much more gentle. For me, it means thinking of being baptized in order to turn away from old ways, makes me think of turning a new leaf—of acting differently with intention—of a new beginning. And Lord, do we need a new beginning.
This passage begins emphasizing the fact that John was living in the wilderness. This is of course a callback to the Jews wandering, exiled in the wilderness—it comes into play in the next passage, when Jesus goes into the wilderness and is tempted. But in this case, the wilderness isn’t a terrible uninhabitable place. When it comes to this specific passage, the wilderness is a place where John goes to preach of the coming of Jesus, and to be away from the distractions of the city, to be away from the distractions of the material world. While the camel hair and locust eating is surely not gentle, I think for John, it’s inferred that being out in the wilderness is the place where he could really be intentional about his preaching and his beliefs and his faith. It’s a different, more positive, more peaceful way of looking at the wilderness, and it’s a way I’d like to think we can all really appreciate here in the quiet Vermont wilderness, surrounded by so much stillness and natural beauty.
Now Christianity, as I see it, is very much a communal religion. This congregation is a perfect example of this—we all work together, as a loving, wonderful team, as a family, to bring about a better world. But as the old cliché goes, when the plane is going down, you have to put your own oxygen mask on before you can help anyone else. So in reading this passage today, I want us to read this version of wilderness where John the Baptist chose to live, as a quiet place away from the distractions of the material world, and I want us to be able to see that wilderness here. I want us to be able to take deep breaths, to take in God’s creation and center ourselves, and see what God is calling each of us, individually to, next.
And how appropriate for us to talk about these things during a time when we’re all trying to keep New Year’s resolutions, a time when we’re trying to change our ways, changing our behaviors for the better. But in this world we live in, sometimes it’s hard to prioritize things that are actually, truly life-giving for us. There’s so much pressure to lose weight, to start diets, to deprive ourselves of things that give us joy.
Now, I’m not saying we should all go east fast food for every meal because we enjoy it—what I am saying is that we live in a culture that has a tendency to be very shame-based. A culture that tries to make us feel bad for the handful of pounds we might have gained over the holidays, or even over the pandemic periods of lockdowns.
And it’s more than just body-shaming. I talked about this a little in my Blue Christmas reflection a few weeks back—there’s also this constant pressure to be productive in our society. Instead of the being told to take a deep breath and take things one step at a time when the lockdowns began, we were being bombarded with ideas for new hobbies, with figuring out how to bake the perfect sourdough, or learning a language. And if some of us were able to do these things and found them to be fulfilling, great! But those of us for whom some days, it was simply an accomplishment to get out of bed and put pants on—it could make us feel inadequate, like we weren’t doing enough—like we, ourselves weren’t enough.
With this in mind, when we think of turning away from sinful things, turning away from harmful things, I think sometimes taking a hard 180 is not the way to go. We need to be gentle with ourselves in the way we make these changes. We need to listen to our hearts, listen to our bodies, and feel the Holy Spirit moving through us. Because though this passage, with John yelling about repentance and the sky tearing open, doesn’t come across as the epitome of gentleness, I think it ultimately is.
“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.” Yes, the sky is being torn apart, but the Spirit descends like a dove. This is no accident. This is a terrifying, almost apocalyptic moment, taken from apocalyptic, prophetic texts of the Old Testament—a moment that by all accounts should be full of awe and fear. But the frightening moment is quickly subverted and instead of some kind of fatal deluge and the end of the world coming out of the opening sky, the holy spirit comes, like a dove.
This is what this baptism is all about—this is what Jesus is all about. It’s about changing everything we thought we knew. It’s about subverting norms and bringing about the unexpected. It’s about hope, it’s about new beginnings. It’s about expecting the unexpected. Now church, what happened in Washington DC on Wednesday—that, let’s be honest, was expected. And if it wasn’t, it should have been. After weeks, months of threats and encouraging violence, after weeks of lies and egging on, senseless violence erupted. I’m frankly sick of hearing “This is not who we are” because apparently, it is. We’ve heard that this is who we are for a long time, and we saw it in violent, ugly action this week. I count myself among the many who felt shocked at the time, but now I think, why? Why was I shocked? Because this is exactly what I should have expected. The skies opened up, and a violent storm came. The sky opened up, and it was just as bad as many of us quietly feared. This, church, is how I know that that was not the work of Jesus. Because Jesus takes what looks to be bad and makes it good. Jesus stands with those who are scared, those who uphold values of truth, love and peace.
This baptisms that John the Baptist was performing, it was about people turning a new leaf in order to uphold these values. It was about people turning away from the distractions and wealth and materialism and self-interest towards something with intention, towards something meaningful and life-giving for all people.
As I see it, it’s about a fresh start. And church, don’t we all need fresh starts right now? And I’m not talking about dieting or learning how to play the violin. And I’m certainly not talking about creating a fresh start with violence and chaos. For the time being, for right now, in this time of uncertainty and transition— I’m talking about finding some wilderness, finding some quiet, finding some stillness, and reconnecting. I’m talking about not just turning away from bad habits, but also turning away from the things that this society expects of us, and from the temptations of this society. Whether that be impossible beauty standards, burn-out levels of productivity, or whether they by acting out on despair or senseless anger that it’s so hard to not be consumed by these days—these types of modern societal pressures, this kind of unchecked frustration and anger, they can make it impossible to take a moment and to feel the gentleness of the Holy Spirit. These pressures and the tensions take away the clarity of commands that Jesus gives us. These pressures take away from feeling God’s gentle, parental love.
“You are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” How loving, how kind, how comforting. Now I want to point something out there—this story is told in the gospel of Matthew as well, in a very similar way, but the biggest difference is, in Matthew the voice of God says, “This is my son, with whom I am well pleased.” My understanding here, is that in this passage in Mark, this was a private, personal, deeply intimate moment between child and parent. This is a moment in which Jesus received such a powerful, but kind and gentle affirmation from his creator.
Jesus didn’t have to do this. Jesus is Jesus, after all—he’s perfect, he’s sinless—but he did this in order to show others the peace that can come from a new beginning. He did this to set an example, to show how moving and transformative a simple ritual can be. And because of this, God was well pleased, and Jesus has this beautiful moment of love and pride and acceptance.
Now, in the UCC, we generally don’t do second baptisms, whenever you got your first one, regardless of what denomination it was in, that’s plenty. So I don’t think any of us need to get re-baptized. But we certainly need a new beginning. And we definitely need to feel some of this safety and comfort that Jesus receives from God in this moment. I definitely feel a little unmoored after the events of the past week. I feel uneasy and nervous, I won’t lie. But on Friday, I did a pretty simple thing that helped. I went out in the wilderness. I took a long walk in the woods, trekked through untouched snow and did my best to settle and reconnect and recharge. It was simple, and it didn’t solve all my anxieties, but it helped a lot. Because in order to work together to help to fix this utterly broken world, we need to make sure we can feel that peace of that dove descending from the open skies. We need to answer this challenge with an unexpected peace.
As I talked about last week, Jesus came to this world as the great revealer, revealing evils along with the righteousness. This week, Jesus is revealing the peace and gentleness that comes from finding our own relationship, our own experience with the divine. And thanks to feeling some semblance of that peace, we are more prepared than ever to meet whatever storms are coming as a dove, more deceptively powerful than any of the societal pressures, more powerful than any evil or violence of this world.
So find some wilderness, find your wilderness. Recharge, center yourself, find some stillness. Be gentle with yourselves. And know that the Holy Spirit is always with us, guiding us to turn away from the storms, the violence of this world, and, like a dove, leading the way towards truth. Amen.
