Tag: baptism of christ

The Baptism of Jesus – Year A 2017

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The Baptism of Jesus – Year A, 2017

Acts 10:34-43
Matthew 3:13-17

“All the prophets testify about him, that everyone who believe in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” Acts 10:43

The Baptism of Jesus is a bit of a puzzle for us. The custom in many church’s on this Sunday – one which we have observed here in the past, is to use it to remind ourselves of our own baptism. Now that is a good thing to do, and of course in Catholic churches a small stoop of water is provided at the entrance to the church that you might take a little to remind yourself of Baptism before coming to participate in the Eucharist. But it we are not careful we do what we always have a tendency to do, to make this all about us. So we say the point of the Baptism is Jesus identifying with us – but that’s not strictly correct.

Jesus’ baptism is the Baptism of John and has a very clear meaning. It is the baptism of repentance of God’s people who are called to turn back to God in preparation for the coming of the Servant of the Lord as prophesied by Isaiah. It is very much a Jewish rite – indeed it had a special meaning in that it was the rite of purification for those wanting to become Jews – for proselytise – that is those seeking to convert The Odd thing about the Baptism of John was that it was Jewish people who were coming to be baptised. As John told the Pharisees ‘Do not presume to say to yourselves, “we have Abraham as our Ancestor”’ Put another way, “don’t go relying on your Jewish heritage” God is looking for a response, that of Repentance for the Kingdom of heaven has come near.

But the baptism of Jesus was a bit of a puzzle for John also. He protests to Jesus “I need to be baptised by you, and do you come to me?” John who declares Jesus to be “The Lamb of God – who takes away the Sin of the world” doesn’t understand why Jesus has come for baptism. Clearly what is happening here is something to which we Gentiles are outsiders (a theme which Matthew comes back to later on in his gospel.)

Yet there is an identification going on here and a very significant one. Jesus replies to John’s amazement with the words “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness” Such powerful words which we can discern even more clearly breaking it down phrase by phrase “Let it be .  .” Like the words of Mary – there is here a submission to GOd’s good purposes – Let it be to me according to your word.
“Let it be so now!” In other words in the Baptism of Jesus we are witnessing a special Time – that which Jesus announces as ‘The Day of Salvation’ In this moment of human History, something Special is happening – “Let it be so now” – “for, it is proper for us” Note how Jesus draws John in into this moment. Remember a few weeks ago how we heard in Advent that passage from Matthew – and Jesus asks the crowds ‘What did you go out in the wilderness to look at?’ The one about whom it is written, ‘Behold! I am sending my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way before you’.

“Let it be so now! For, it is proper for us” Jesus is saying to his cousin, This is Our moment. From this point on John the forerunner withdraws, becoming less as Jesus comes to fill our vision – but now – it is proper for us  in this way (that is through John Baptising Jesus). You John are going to play your Key part Today by baptising me – “to fulfil all righteousness.”

To fulfil – You don’t have to spend long in Matthew’s gospel before you hear what is a several times repeated word – ‘fulfilment’. We have already encountered it once, in our reading just before Christmas – where in Joseph’s dream – he is told by the angel ‘you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel” which means, God is with us’

All this was to fulfil . . . we’ll come back to this in a moment. Then Joseph takes the infant Jesus and Mary to Egypt – ’to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet – “Out of Egypt I have called my son” and then twice more – ‘to fulfil, to fulfil – before now – ‘this is proper to fulfil all righteousness’. Put another way, the other fulfilment seem to be coming to this point – “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.”

Jesus doesn’t merely do things to fulfil God’s plans and purposes, He IS the fulfilment of those purposes. And this is revealed in this moment. The purposes of God for his people which he has been patiently working out through the history of Israel. As Jesus comes up out of the waters of the Jordan – ‘suddenly the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending upon him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased”

Throughout the Old Testament story of God’s people – over and over again through the prophets God refers to Israel as ‘My Son’ So the ‘the people of Judea and all Jerusalem and all the region along the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptised by John in the Jordan.’ and finally – the fulfilment – The Son of God. The fulfilment of God’s purposes for His people – baptised and  affirmed as God’s beloved Son . . . and the question is – ‘What happened next?’

If we are to fully understand the baptism of Jesus, we need to see it in its context and that it is ‘Jesus, who will save his people from their sins’ The context is of God’s people preparing themselves for His coming – They are with John, in the wilderness – they are on the far side of the Jordan – they are outside of the place of promise – and we do not know but we may assume that after their baptism they go home . . . except one . . . Jesus comes from Galilee – like all the rest he has to cross the Jordan to meet John – he has to leave the land of promise but he doesn’t re-enter . . .What happened next? He is sent out back into the wilderness. to save his people from their sins.

All three gospels which specifically mention the baptism of Jesus, next have Jesus’ being led, or as St Mark has it – driven out into the wilderness . . . what is going on here? If we see the baptism as it were a renewal of the story of going into the promised land, Jesus would go back across the Jordan, but no – he is led by the Spirit out into the wilderness . . .

As I said last week as we considered the name of Jesus – Emmanuel, God with us, to save his people from their sins. The Name of Jesus, the one who Is the fulfilment of God’s desire to save his people from their sins, the name Jesus – Joshua – ‘The Lord Saves’. John Baptises Jesus to fulfil all righteousness and then he is led back away from the Land and back into the Wilderness. All the others crossed the Jordan, were baptised and went back in – Jesus ‘to fulfil all righteousness goes into the wilderness’

At the heart of God’s work to save his people from their sins was under the Old Covenant through The Day of Atonement – And on this most Holy Day in the Calendar of God’s people two goats were selected . . . one was offered as a sacrifice and its blood was spread on the atonement seat, the cover of the ark of the covenant. The other? The Priest laid hands on the Goat and placed the sin of the people on the goat and it was driven out into the wilderness. After the waters have washed away the sins of all the people from Jerusalem and Judea and along the Jordan – Jesus finally, the sinless one steps into those same waters – and the sins of all the people are laid on him by John  who is of the priestly line of Abijah (‘My father is The LORD) — and he is driven out into the wilderness.

Now there is much more to all of this story – but remember ‘it is to fulfil ALL Righteousness’ In the Old Covenant – this was tied explicitly to the Day of Atonement. So Jesus is sent out as the Scapegoat – bearing the sins. It is interesting to note that at times of course the goat didn’t particularly want to disappear into the wilderness, and so to stop as it were a reinfection, it was thrown off a cliff . . . have you ever wonder why St Luke – after the baptism and the time in the wilderness notes that on his return to Nazareth – when he has declared the salvation of God in the synagogue – records ‘They got up drove him out of the town and led him to the brow of the hill . . .so that they might throw him off the cliff . . .’

Well as we know – this isn’t the whole story – for there is a second goat – the one whose blood is scattered on the mercy seat – the atonement cover of the Ark of the Covenant – for Jesus is the One who will fulfil ALL Righteousness – the entirety of the work of atonement foreshadowed in the Old Covenant – is to be found in Jesus, the one who will save his people from their sins.

But this now does become about us – for in our baptism we are included in Jesus Baptism – so that all that was effected through him – the removal of Sin and its final destruction upon the cross – we are included in

St Paul sums this up wonderfully in his second letter to the Corinthians – “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Every part of the Life of Jesus reveals who Jesus is – the one who will save us from our sins. He who IS the righteousness of God – who does what he is ‘to fulfil all righteousness’ – bears the Sin of the World, that we might become the righteousness of God. He is baptised and carries away our Sin so that when we are baptised we might know how righteousness. And so . . . when we are baptised we join with the crowds from all across Judea, and now indeed all across the world, an untold multitude – that we might go, not back to the wilderness, but forward into he land of God’s promise in and through Jesus. For ever praised.

Amen

(I am very grateful for an article by Alistair Roberts
which helped tremendously with this reading of Jesus baptism)

Sermon for the Baptism of Christ – Year A – 2014

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baptism-of-christ-1483

Sermon for The Baptism of Christ – Sunday January 12th, 2014 – Year A

Isa 42:1-9
Acts 10:34-43
Matthew 3:13-17

The Baptism of Christ, and The Church

And so the ‘House of Pain’ is all but gone. Carisbrook Stadium reduced to rubble, with a bright new shiny stadium in its place. But it isn’t the same . . . Although I never watched a game of rugby at Carisbrook, I knew something similar. Whilst still at school I managed to obtain tickets for the Calcutta Cup match at the Old Murrayfield stadium in Edinburgh, before it too went the way of the bulldozers. Stood on open terracing amongst thousands and thousands of others, prey to the elements – Edinburgh’s weather is often a match for its namesake, Dunedin – it was my first powerful experience of being part of something which was much bigger than myself. We shouted ourselves hoarse, as what were to me in those days legendary names in British rugby put on a grand show.

To stay with the rugby reminiscences for a moment, and indeed who wouldn’t at the memory of that great Liverpool winger Mike Sleman putting the Scots defence metaphorically to the sword, I was fortunate to have been there that day – Tickets were like Gold Dust and The Scottish Nationalists were on patrol, trying to eject from the ground English supporters with a Union flag. Fortunately for me, my school was affiliated to the Rugby Football Union and I’d ‘borrowed’ my  church’s St George’s flag especially for the occasion (being head choir boy had its perks 🙂 ). [Of course at this stage I was not as powerfully aware of my Scottish heritage as I am today! :-)]

Those  themes of ‘Identity’ and ‘being part of something much bigger than ourselves’ find their true home in our baptisms. However in our times, the way in which they do has changed to the point where their true meaning is in effect denied. With regard to Identity, it’s meaning has become the opposite of that which Classical Christianity taught, and as a result there is little or no sense of our baptism being about being caught up into something much larger than ourselves. And like at Murrayfield on that Saturday in 1980, Entry has become a contentious matter. Particularly as for so many, blinded by the modern World, Baptism is no longer seen as Costly Privilege, Costly Grace, but as yet one more choice.

Child of the modern world as I am, I remember for many years wastefully wrestling with the issue of Adult vs Infant Baptism, not least at theological college where some of our classes were shared with Baptists and one or two of my fellow Ordination candidates revealed themselves to be more Baptist than Anglican in their thinking! If for the sake of this sermon I pretend that modern ways of thinking are helpful [Let the reader understand!!] I might say ‘There are of course arguments to be made both ways, but there are two powerful arguments which support the baptism of infants, arguments which are of particular import in this culture.’

Firstly that we believe it to be true that the Grace of God s far bigger than anything we can imagine and is far more important than Our decision or indeed the faith we bring as individuals to Baptism. It is Not Our Choice which is Sovereign, it is the Merciful Grace of God. And a young child cannot be anything other than a Recipient – this is not a matter of their own ‘responsible Self determination’. Indeed it is not unreasonable to suggest that the Right to Choose for ourselves whether or not we are baptised is in itself willfully sinful. For God in his Mercy Welcomes us to a feast of Life and we stand there and wonder whether or not we shall Deign to oblige Him with our presence . . .

Our forerunners in faith, the faithful Root of the Jewish people from which Jesus sprung forth, did Not choose to be God’s people. They were Chosen, and that wonderful passage from Ephesians we heard last week said the same of us – that we were chosen before the foundation of the world.

But this is so very hard for us to swallow in our contemporary culture where that perverse caricature of the human, the Self determining and Self actualising Individual, who in his or her pride surveys the choices before them . . . note this is the way we’re pretty much all brought up . . . and decides out of THEIR grace to become a follower of Christ.

So, to follow secondly, that Baptism is Not Primarily about You! Or to put it more inclusively, Baptism is Not primarily about Us and Our Salvation – and the theologically alert amongst us will not doubt be wondering if I haven’t fallen right into the trap of suggesting that it is. For today, the first Sunday in the season of Epiphany is the Feast of the Baptism of Christ! And here I am speaking about our baptisms . . . and I will come back to that, but it is not primary, indeed in the light of the Baptism of Christ it would seem utterly self aggrandising to think it is even secondary.

We consider the Baptism of Christ, because THAT is the only lens though which we can begin to consider what it means for us to be a baptised people . . .  not the meaning of your or my baptism, no, what it means to be a baptised people . . . for I suggest that to spend time at all considering, and indeed agonising over our own individual baptisms is to attempt to undo what God has done in Jesus – to Undo Salvation, to break apart. To try and justify ourselves!

Jesus first public appearance in all four gospels – slightly nuanced in John, is at his baptism. And Matthews account contains the discussion between Jesus and his cousin at the Jordan

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

John has come preaching a Baptism of Repentance towards God – and many were being baptised Confessing their sins and being baptised. However there is something John cannot yet see in Baptism – for he has not seen the Cross – he has not known the Resurrection. The true meaning of Baptism is Only revealed in the Baptism of Jesus, the Crucified and Risen one, the One who Is the Truth. Apart from Jesus we cannot know the Truth. The True significance of Baptism is revealed in the Baptism of Jesus. And that is the self offering of faithful Israel to God, the revealing of the Servant of the Lord. Necessary to fulfil all righteousness.

And that self offering is Answered! In the Baptism of Jesus there is a dual move – down into the waters of Baptism as self offering to God, and God the Father’s response, the annointing of the Holy Spirit, God’s self offering to Man.

So too the Cross and Resurrection, down into the waters of death, and raised to new life.

And that is necessary for Us – for in our baptism we are included in Christ’s work upon the Cross – we die and are raised to new life – His Life. We die, We are Raised – We are included in HIs Baptism. The Baptism of Jesus is the Baptism of faithful Israel both those who have gone before and those who will follow . . . Follow Me says the annointed one – come after Me. Jesus Is faithful Israel, and We are His Body also. And this is why this isn’t about you! Or I 🙂 It is about Christ, and it is about Us.

When we are baptised we are included in Christ’s baptism – indeed at a Baptism in the Orthodox Church the priest prays “That the Lord our God will send down the blessing of the Jordan and sanctify these waters . . .” That the waters of the Baptism of every new Christian Are at once the waters of the Jordan – for there is only One Baptism. When we think of second baptisms we tend to think of rebaptism – not our own!!!

So We are included in Christ’s Baptism, HIs Righteousness, His Life His Death, His Resurrection. And so we are made One with the children of God. This is Our identity. As we cannot understand our Baptism Apart from that of Christ, so also we cannot understand it apart from the other members of the church. We become through baptism as St Paul says, ‘Members one of another’ – to be a child of God can only be understood in terms of our paricipation in the life of the body of Christ. That our Identity, who we now are is known only in our shared life in Christ. That who I am, and who you are is now a secondary characteristic as our primary identity as members together of Christ. Just a moments reflection reveals how radically we have reversed this and indeed how our sense of self is assaulted at the thought that this might possibly be true, but it is.

Our shared life is primary, and that our ‘individual’ life of faith is derivative of this. Put another way, one might say “ I am a Christian by virtue of being baptised into the Body of Christ. Here I think that the parallels with God’s ancient people the Jews are significant. Identity was GIft, and resided in being part of the whole. So one might say I am Jewish because I am part of the Chosen people. And we might say, I am Christian because I am made part of the Church through Baptism. To use Paul’s analogy of the body – you may be a part of the body, a finger or a knee, but that means nothing apart from the body.

This it must be said is the complete opposite to what in effect our Individualistic culture has taught us about what it means to be a Christian, in which belonging to the body is secondary to our identities as Christian. And it is for the Church a fatal error. In a sense because in our arguments over baptism and in many other ways we have tried to be gatekeepers for the grace of God, we have sidelined the significance of the Church – the centrality of the body of Christ, and thus unwittingly have displaced Christ, who we are foolish to believe we can comprehend in isolation from the church, from the centre of our faith, replacing him with a weak reflection of ourselves, as many critics of Christians see only too clearly.

This is very hard for us to accept because of the hyper individualism of the age, with is the air we breathe and of which we have only the merest grasp of how it has infected our Lives. It is also why in many regards the future of the church looks uncertain humanly speaking for more than ever it is composed of ‘Individuals’, that is who understand their own life and faith as primary and ‘membership’ of the church and its life and worship as in a sense subservient to it.

So we might ask whether Church ‘serves my needs’. We may look for a church to my liking – thus we remain at the centre. ‘Is my participation in the body of Christ helpful to my personal faith?’ is not only a modern question which our forebears of the Classical era would not have understood, it is also a blasphemous question for it denies that we are joined one to another In Christ. In truth it is the question of one who is outside of Christ.
As we consider further our life together here at St John’s, and that is on my mind and heart my every waking moment – it is this aspect which is the most challenging, for it is this that the World would have us deny under the guise of ‘faith’: that it is in our Life together that Christ is known; in shared worship that we are most truthfully ourselves; in praying together that we truly pray – for then the body of Christ prays, for then the body worships – that our Common life is our Christian life and that wherever we are, we are in our essence and by virtue of our baptism part of the body.

As I said, being part of the rugby crowd was this experience of being part of something much bigger than myself. An Experience in which I was present, but at the same time lost. I was a necessary part of it – but it was only because we were joined together that I experienced what I did. My ‘I’ was only known in the context of the greater whole. I could not have known that ‘something greater than me of which I was part’ in isolation. In a sense this is precisely how church Is. It is just that we are trained  from the moment of our birth in the modern world to seeing things so much on our own terms we miss this. We are too ready I think to be as it were standing apart – judging the body of which through baptism we are an integral part.

Of course the other big debate about baptism was about the method – immersion or sprinkling – well again I don’t offer a conclusive answer – but we DO need to be immersed in our common life, and an occasional sprinkle does not do justice to who we are and our inclusion in something far greater than ourselves – that in Christ, as part of His body we are part of something Far bigger than ourselves. Indeed we become participants in God’s Salvation of the World in and through Christ. We were taught that Baptism was all about us – it’s not, it is about Something far far greater, in which our lived find their true meaning and purpose, caught up as members together of Christ in the Life of Christ, to the Glory of God the Father.

Amen

Sermon for Epiphany 2 – Baptism of Christ

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Epiphany 2 BAPTISM OF CHRIST

LINK TO SERMON RECORDING BAPTISM OF CHRIST 2013

Acts 8:14-17
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror,  are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another;
for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

Last week we celebrated the Epiphany of Christ, and we are now in the season of the Epiphany which extends until the first Sunday in February when we shall celebrate Candlemas – the feast of the Presentation, albeit a day late, for that feast, falls on Saturday February 2nd.

This habit we have in the church of shifting festivals to the nearest Sunday is a symptom of something which I fear in the end will do us no good. Of making faith fit our lives, rather than making our lives fit our faith. Christmas is unusual, to an extent in that we still come to church on that day irrespective of whether or not it is Sunday, and some folk still come to worship through Holy week, but on the whole we have given up on the celebration of major festivals on the day they fall. We either transfer them to an adjoining Sunday, or ignore them altogether. When, I wonder was the last time we celebrated The Feast of the Transfiguration?  It strikes me that such a festival, with its theme of the Glory of Christ, falling as it does in August . . .??? Does anyone know the date? Well it is August 6th – a time when here in New Zealand we are stuck in the darkness of winter. What a wonderful idea to come to church in the darkness and find it ablaze with candles as we celebrate that feast.

Taking time out to worship according to the calendar might not seem much, but it is a simple discipline of ordering our lives to faith – and it is in the accumulation of such small things that our distinct Christian identity becomes more manifest – as we are conformed to the Life of the risen Christ in the church. The gift of the whole season of Epiphany is about the manifestation of the Glory of Christ. Four weeks to contemplate Him. Actually the church gives us half the year to contemplate Christ. From Advent, through Christmas and Epiphany, with perhaps a brief break, then into Lent, and then Easter, Pentecost and Trinity – the subject of our attention is not ‘how to live the Christian life – how to be relevant in the world – how to do mission’ – no. for half the year we are called to attend to the person and work of Christ and that is very necessary.
The crying problem of the church today is not the irrelevance of the church to the world – that church doesn’t fit the world we live in – it is not fitting our faith to our lives – no. It is that so often church does not fit the life of God revealed to us in Christ, and that I suggest is in no small part because we give insufficient time to the contemplation of his glory.
Epiphany especially is given to us for that contemplation. The Glory of Christ is revealed to us – the traditional readings are his revealing to us in the visit of the magi, in the changing of water of wine at Cana where he reveals his glory, the presentation at the temple where Simeon cries out ‘I have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared in the face of all people’, how he is revealed as the Servant of The Lord, the fulfillment of Scripture at Nazareth = and today – in his baptism – he is revealed as the Son of God – and Uniquely baptised with the Spirit. He is Clothed with the Spirit of God. The Spirit that had departed the Temple and caused the people to cry in dismay ‘Ichabod’ – the Glory has departed. He is clothed as were Adam and Eve at first, not in animal skins, but in the Glory of God. Having taken their life in their own hands, the glory departed.
Perhaps we do not notice this, because unlike the Israelites of old, like those first disciples at Cana, we have not seen his Glory – we do not see how our lives are so small in comparison with the Glorious majesty of God revealed in Christ – we seek too readily to move away from contemplation of his glory – his beauty, his majesty. We want something Practical – some hints and tips for Our everyday lives, not realising that he seeks to utterly transform the essential nature of those lives.

A few weeks ago I saw a rather sad Facebook post – it said ‘Of course if it had been three wise women who came to the tomb, they would have brought something Far more practical, like a supply of nappies and a blanket!’ And it struck me as very sad that someone would use what is a story of immense mystery – something which Mary ponders in her heart – was used to make cheap political gain from. I wanted to say “can you not see?” Can we not see His glory? Have we not been held captive by it? That these gifts tell us here is a child like no other . . . like no other. He comes to be one with us – but he is like no other. He embraces fully our humanity . . . but he is like no other

Jesus comes with the crowds – they are All coming for baptism – he is in the crowds that are all asking if John the Baptist is the Messiah – their Messiah stands among them – they do not see his glory. They do not recognise their Messiah. They look as anyone else would look – John in his own way is impressive – he stands out, certainly! ‘Perhaps he Is the one’, they are all thinking. But they are wrong. They do not See.

So Jesus comes to be baptised . . . and his baptism sets him apart. 21Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” His baptism is like no other – he alone is baptised with the Holy Spirit. He alone is declared to be the beloved of God. Just this week I was reading about perhaps the cardinal sin – that of Envy. It is said that Jesus was crucified because of the Envy of the Pharisees – he was like no other – there was something about him that set him apart. He was a tall poppy – and we know what we do with tall poppies! The Life of God is Too Big for us – let’s cut him down to size.

And we also try to cut him down to size. ‘Let’s think on something practical – lets not contemplate the mystery, the gold of kingship, the frankincense of the one who ever lives to intercede for us – the Myrrh – his death’. A death foreshadowed in his humbly going down into the water of baptism.  How readily we turn from thinking about Christ to thinking about ourselves. How often do we think of our baptism, how infrequently, even on this Sunday, about His.

This setting apart of Christ at his baptism is I suggest an offense to our modern predilection for not wanting to know of anything more beyond the scope of Our lives. As I meditated upon this earlier in the week, I was reminded of a story – a story with which this ‘cutting down the tall poppy’ was thrown into a horrible irony and contrast.

It is said there was an old woman, who was in hell. The angels of God as they are wont to do sought desperately to find a way to bring her out of hell, and discovered that Once in her life, she had committed a kind act. A passing stranger had asked her for food, and the woman had thrown him an onion. Well it wasn’t a Huge thing – but the angels saw in that a hint of goodness and thought that this might draw her out of hell. So they lowered an onion on a long stalk down into hell and called on the woman to take hold. And as she did – they began to draw her out of the lake of fire. But others seeing that she was being drawn out clung to her clothes, and miraculously many people were being drawn out of hell – until the woman realised what was happening and spat and screamed at them – get off! this is My onion!! and at once the onion stalk broke and they all fell back into the fire.

Well, what we might ask is the parallel between that sad story and our thoughts on Jesus – on our discomfort with him being set apart – like no other . . . well it is simply this – that it is precisely because he is not like us, that He is able to draw us out, to draw us upwards – to draw us into His life – and our cutting him down is like the cutting of the onion stalk. We are saying to Him – don’t be different!! We can’t attain to you – stay down here with us. But he says, why would you stay down there – no you cannot attain to me – so I will come down – to draw you up.

Christ does not come to us to leave us where we are. All our attempts to deny his otherness – that he is like no other – prevent him from doing what he comes to do – to draw us up into the fulness of his life. A life for which we have very little feeling because I suggest we have given little time to contemplating his glory – we are not thirsty for the Life he brings.

Until His Life is released into the world at Pentecost He alone is baptised of the Spirit – perhaps those who had not yet received the Holy Spirit in our reading from Acts were those whom Jesus disciples had baptised before his Passion as John recounts in his gospel. He passes through death, to be raised to new Life – so that we might follow him – so that we might ourselves follow that path – so that we might know His Life, as he baptises us with the Holy Spirit – with His Life.

As I said last week – our faith is not a set of ideas – a moral scheme for living better – a set of ideologies – it is not even About Jesus – it is Christ – His Life is our Faith The more our lives are turned to him, shaped around him, the more we will find the Life he offers us – and to go back to that story of the sad woman – the more, seeing that we are being drawn up to Life in him, others will want to hang onto our coat tails and be drawn up also.

So let us not be quick to turn from the contemplation of his glory, for as St Paul tells us that is key to the transformation of our lives, as we ‘contemplating the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another;’

Amen