Jesus’ Baptism and Improvisations of Newness
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In our Sanctuary service this Sunday, we will be celebrating the baptism of Adrian Roozgar while we also remember the baptism of Jesus. The lectionary passage for this Sunday that churches like ours across the world will be following, reminds us of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan River.
This baptism event really stands as the clear beginning of his ministry. And it serves as a transformative moment in our religious history. Most of what Jesus will preach, teach and live out following this baptism would not be new information or new ideas or new initiatives. Jesus constantly referred to Jewish scriptures, participated in Jewish traditions and interacted with mostly Jewish people.
The difference had to do with interpretation, application and transformation. What we celebrate with the baptism of Jesus is the beginning of the old becoming new. His ministry in many ways, became an enthusiastic improvisation of newness. Even in the hard, oppressive times they were living through, the people following Jesus could sense a regeneration of rich traditions rebirthed into a context of joyful newness.
The same remains true now. Stale traditions, cynical perspectives, the well-heeled against the rest of us, the dissolute versus the resolute, and every other kind of dissected, divisive antagonisms that surround us … Jesus felt it, too, with very similar competing and oppositional world views.
Jesus’ ministry’s beginning recasts our own polarized time with new hope. His fusion of the old and the new interjects an eternal perspective that sheds new light on creative ways forward. We are not alone, nor need we be afraid. His actions, words and insights have weathered the battering storms of personal and societal dysfunctions miraculously well. Our frustrating times are not new. But Jesus continues to make all things, even old things, new.
Now may the ashes we share tomorrow night bind us together, remind us of our fragile mortality, and lift us with the echoing reminder of what we most truly share: “the steadfast love of the Lord, from everlasting unto everlasting.”
Thanks be to God.
David
David Jordan
Senior Pastor