January 8, 2006 (Jimmie Johnson)

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.

Mark 1:4-11

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.”

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I watched her face express shock. She said, “We are believers in the Lord. But we just lost our miracle. We don’t know if there is a God anymore. Our miracle just slipped away. We don’t know what to believe anymore. We lost our miracle.” And then pointing to the church on the side of the mountain behind her, she said, “There are people in there, in that church, who have lost their faith.”

Sooner or later, life breaks everyone. Simply breaks you. Caves in on you. Traps you. It might be your own doing. It might be that you are perfectly innocent. But life breaks and traps you. And your faith, too, if it is based on validation by miracle.

There is such a beautiful verse in John’s Gospel. It is not in any Gospel but John’s. The verse goes, “You believe because you have seen me, but blessed are those who have not seen and yet who have come to believe.” [John 20:29] Those who do not see the miraculous are pronounced blessed, according to the words of Jesus in John’s Gospel.

Why? Why are those of us who don’t see the miraculous considered blessed? I suppose it is because, for us, their faith is not based on miracles. We believe without seeing, without validation. We believe with the awareness that our belief is always in dispute. We believe because Jesus himself underwent the experience of encountering the absurd with trembling. That is what his baptism was all about.

Sooner or later, all whose faith is based on the miraculous lose their miracle. Heaven no longer opens up. Heaven becomes silent.

Now you can participate in religious shell games that propose all kind of answers that enable you to pretend you still have your miracle. You can still pretend that you are seeing signs of heaven and hearing heaven speak. And you can always find a preacher and a congregation that will vouch for your miracle. But at what cost?

The grand, undisputable sign that there is a God and that life is worthwhile and makes sense and turns out always to be alright will disappear. In every life there comes a point at which all is lost. You find your faith at odds with itself, divided between the God who delivers the needy and the God who abandons the crucified. And this contradiction will stare you right in the face.

For me there is only one miracle: the miracle that we are loved. Loved by God specifically. When Jesus was baptized, wasn’t it an expression of this one true miracle?

Who knows all the reasons for the baptism of Jesus? For me, it is enough to believe that he was baptized to show his willingness to be fully drenched in human life. To show us that he, too, would live by faith, faith understood as trust, especially when the miracles disappeared and heaven was tight-lipped.

Jesus saw and heard that day of his baptism, according to Mark. Jesus saw and heard the sound of the heavens being torn open, the Spirit appearing somewhat like a dove, a voice declaring the pleasure of God. Jesus saw and heard and received validation.

But don’t forget that Jesus would be the same one who later in his life cried out to God, Why have I been abandoned? Why have you taken my miracle away?

I link the baptism of Jesus this morning to the commitment of God to internalize and experience in the flesh of his Son the excruciating contradiction of faith: that there are days in life when we see and hear the miracle of God’s presence and pleasure, and, as assuredly, there comes also the day when all is lost. And the authentic, genuine religious experience of that day is one of abandonment.

Because Jesus was baptized, that is, given no exemption, no free pass through the brokenness, I can say, I believe though I have not seen.

If someone had videotaped the baptism of Jesus, I believe that all that would be seen on the tape would be a human being joining with the rest of us. Participating in a public religious ceremony that anyone might say was silly and meaningless. But those of us who believe without seeing more, see more.

The next time we are in the contradiction of brokenness, all miracles gone, we will remember that there is Someone at our side, even one we are unable to see. I couldn’t trust in God if Jesus had not suffered and died. I can because he did. His baptism was his way of saying to us, I will not seek an exemption, nor privilege. I will forever be with you as one of you. That is the miracle for me.

Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Jimmie D. Johnson
Edited for publication by Georgia Brady