We are a people who live with water. Even if your primary experience of it is driving across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel and marveling at its vastness, water is pretty inescapable around here. We fish in it, we swim in it, we surf in it…some folks still work on the water, though that is getting harder to do.
Down at Bayford, Hooksie Walker has a boathouse right next to the landing and when I’m down there sometimes I like to look at the marks he’s made on the corner of the building. There’s a line with the name Donna next to it. And another that says Floyd. And the Ash Wednesday storm. Those marks are how high the water came up during each of those floods. It’s humbling to see what water can do.
Wind and water pushed most folks off of the barrier islands here. Cobb Island was pretty much done after the 1890s. Hog Island and the whole community of Broadwater disappeared in the 1930s. Big storms did the last of the damage…destroying buildings, overwashing the islands, killing the eel grass in the back bays that protected a lot of the commercial stock. Johnny Tankard took the youth out on a walk a couple of months ago to see the remains of Douglas Landing – a community that was also hit hard by the storms and that eventually moved on up to Willis Wharf where it was more protected.
Those big storms had some other effects, too, though. They brought change. Some things died out but some new things were born. New communities started. Some people think that things never change on the Eastern Shore but they are changing all the time. Every time the tide comes in, something new is being born.
Tohu wabohu. That’s how Genesis describes the earth in the opening chapter of the Bible. Tohu wabohu. It’s a Hebrew phrase that means totally confused and chaotic…a formless void. That’s a great phrase – one that you can use all the time. Instead of saying “That is just messed. Up.” You can say, “That is tohu wabohu.” You can go into your children’s rooms and say, “Are you going to clean this place up? It’s tohu wabohu in here.” Barack Obama should use it in his inaugural address next week: “Our economy is tohu wabohu.”
That’s how the opening chapter of Genesis describes things “in the beginning.” “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was tohu wabohu and darkness covered the surface of the watery deep. But the wind of God swept across the face of the waters.”
The wind of God. The Hebrew word for wind is ruach and it can mean wind but it can also mean breath or spirit. So think how this sounds if you have the Spirit of God sweeping across the waters. This is a restless spirit. There is energy and expectancy in this hovering that soon will be unleashed with creative force. Within a few verses there will be light, stars, planets and space. The Spirit works across a broad canvas and cannot be contained. God is going to keep doing do a new thing and change will come. The tohu wabohu will be transformed into something blessed.
In Mark we hear a different story. John the Baptist had headed out into the wilderness to prepare the way for Jesus. Like an Old Testament prophet he dressed in animal skins and ate locust and wild honey. Also like a prophet, John called on the people to repent of their sins, to turn back to God and to expect a new day.
Where did John choose to meet the people? By the water. At the river Jordan. He led the people through the water, baptizing them, but reminding them as well that there was a baptism yet to come. When Jesus came he would baptize them with that same Spirit that had been hovering over the waters at the very beginning of all things.
Then Jesus did come. Jesus who came from God but who was one of us. Jesus who had been born in a manger and about whom angels had testified and shepherds had given witness. Jesus who was now an adult ready to begin a public ministry that would lead him all the way to the cross. Jesus came and he also went under the waters to be baptized by John.
When he emerged from the waters things happened. The skies were ripped open. It was like the curtain in the Temple that was torn in two at Jesus’ crucifixion – opening the way for all humanity into the heart of God. The skies were ripped open and the Spirit – that restless, hovering, moving Spirit – descended like a dove. A voice called out from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well-pleased.”
Then Jesus was sent right out into the wilderness. There is no stopping now. Immediately, Mark says, immediately the Spirit drove him out. God was going to bring change to the earth once again. The world was tohu wabohu and there was work to be done to bring it back within God’s reign.
There is something astounding to me about the journeys that animals undertake in order to fulfill some biological imperative. The monarch butterflies who pass through here in the late fall – how do such fragile creatures make it all the way to Mexico? The birds that come through in great flocks on their way south or north. Or salmon that must return to their spawning grounds at the end of their lives after travelling miles in the vast ocean. How do they know to go home?
Their triggers are internal. Or maybe their senses are more attuned than ours to the changes around them that tell them that it is time to go. Human beings are not so in touch with themselves or with the world around them. We need someone calling us into the desert to tell us to get ready. We need something like skies torn open to help us see what was there all along. We need a savior who will walk before us and show us what it means to be human – leading us even to death to show us that life is more than we have ever imagined that it could be.
One of the places where Jesus led us is through that water. There was nothing extraordinary about the water. Sometimes people will bring back water from the Jordan River and put it in the baptismal font and it’s a nice connection but there’s nothing magic about the water. It’s meant to be ordinary. But what it becomes because of baptism – now that’s another thing altogether.
You know that in the United Methodist Church we baptize infants and children. It’s done in other traditions, too. And there are some Christian traditions like the Baptists where baptism is reserved for youth and adults who can answer for themselves. But we do baptize infants and it is one of the most powerful moments in the life of a church when that happens.
Baptism is a recognition that God claims us despite the fact that our lives are often tohu wabohu. Before we were able to claim it for ourselves, before we were born, God’s love surrounded us like the waters of a mother’s womb. And God took the risk of loving us. It was a risk and a foolish thing to do. I mean look what people do. They lie. They cheat. They hurt one another...fail one another. They mistreat each other. They even kill each other.
Baptism proclaims, though, that God knows what we can be. God knows that we can love. That we can heal. That we can work for justice. That we can envision a new land and a new day. With God’s love anything is possible – including an empty tomb.
So we baptize babies and adults because we believe that grace – another name for that love – is available to all or every age. And because we believe that we can never be fully ready, whatever our age, to understand what that grace can do. God’s love claims us and says, “You are my child, my beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Now you and I know that we do things from time to time with which God is definitely not well pleased. And baptism is no substitute for a life of discipline and holiness where we daily commit ourselves to loving God more fully and to serving God and our neighbors with our whole lives. That’s why baptism calls forth a response. And when it’s an infant at the baptismal font, the parents and the congregation take that vow for the child to raise her or him up in the faith. When it’s a youth at confirmation they take those vows on for themselves. When it’s an adult they say them, too. Grace calls for a response. But who starts the movement? God.
Two weeks ago I was back in my home church to baptize my new nephew, Carson Lee. I spoke with the children, as I do here, and told them that their job was to remember this day for Carson since he would not be able to remember it himself. But it had an extra layer of meaning for me that day because I was baptized in that church when I was an infant. I don’t know who the minister was. I don’t know the day. But I had been baptized there.
So when I go back and I hear folks, even with me now 45 years old, talking about me as “this young man” I know that I was born into a story that began a long time before I got there. And I was born into a community that had no idea how I would turn out. But they claimed me because God claimed me. And if God was going to love me anyway, they might as well, too.
That’s what happens in this water. God takes us faltering people who stumble our way into God’s story and washes us up, splits the heavens, and who says, “You are my child, my beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And we have to live up to that. We get to live up to that. We are alive because of that. Thanks be to God.
Down at Bayford, Hooksie Walker has a boathouse right next to the landing and when I’m down there sometimes I like to look at the marks he’s made on the corner of the building. There’s a line with the name Donna next to it. And another that says Floyd. And the Ash Wednesday storm. Those marks are how high the water came up during each of those floods. It’s humbling to see what water can do.
Wind and water pushed most folks off of the barrier islands here. Cobb Island was pretty much done after the 1890s. Hog Island and the whole community of Broadwater disappeared in the 1930s. Big storms did the last of the damage…destroying buildings, overwashing the islands, killing the eel grass in the back bays that protected a lot of the commercial stock. Johnny Tankard took the youth out on a walk a couple of months ago to see the remains of Douglas Landing – a community that was also hit hard by the storms and that eventually moved on up to Willis Wharf where it was more protected.
Those big storms had some other effects, too, though. They brought change. Some things died out but some new things were born. New communities started. Some people think that things never change on the Eastern Shore but they are changing all the time. Every time the tide comes in, something new is being born.
Tohu wabohu. That’s how Genesis describes the earth in the opening chapter of the Bible. Tohu wabohu. It’s a Hebrew phrase that means totally confused and chaotic…a formless void. That’s a great phrase – one that you can use all the time. Instead of saying “That is just messed. Up.” You can say, “That is tohu wabohu.” You can go into your children’s rooms and say, “Are you going to clean this place up? It’s tohu wabohu in here.” Barack Obama should use it in his inaugural address next week: “Our economy is tohu wabohu.”
That’s how the opening chapter of Genesis describes things “in the beginning.” “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was tohu wabohu and darkness covered the surface of the watery deep. But the wind of God swept across the face of the waters.”
The wind of God. The Hebrew word for wind is ruach and it can mean wind but it can also mean breath or spirit. So think how this sounds if you have the Spirit of God sweeping across the waters. This is a restless spirit. There is energy and expectancy in this hovering that soon will be unleashed with creative force. Within a few verses there will be light, stars, planets and space. The Spirit works across a broad canvas and cannot be contained. God is going to keep doing do a new thing and change will come. The tohu wabohu will be transformed into something blessed.
In Mark we hear a different story. John the Baptist had headed out into the wilderness to prepare the way for Jesus. Like an Old Testament prophet he dressed in animal skins and ate locust and wild honey. Also like a prophet, John called on the people to repent of their sins, to turn back to God and to expect a new day.
Where did John choose to meet the people? By the water. At the river Jordan. He led the people through the water, baptizing them, but reminding them as well that there was a baptism yet to come. When Jesus came he would baptize them with that same Spirit that had been hovering over the waters at the very beginning of all things.
Then Jesus did come. Jesus who came from God but who was one of us. Jesus who had been born in a manger and about whom angels had testified and shepherds had given witness. Jesus who was now an adult ready to begin a public ministry that would lead him all the way to the cross. Jesus came and he also went under the waters to be baptized by John.
When he emerged from the waters things happened. The skies were ripped open. It was like the curtain in the Temple that was torn in two at Jesus’ crucifixion – opening the way for all humanity into the heart of God. The skies were ripped open and the Spirit – that restless, hovering, moving Spirit – descended like a dove. A voice called out from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well-pleased.”
Then Jesus was sent right out into the wilderness. There is no stopping now. Immediately, Mark says, immediately the Spirit drove him out. God was going to bring change to the earth once again. The world was tohu wabohu and there was work to be done to bring it back within God’s reign.
There is something astounding to me about the journeys that animals undertake in order to fulfill some biological imperative. The monarch butterflies who pass through here in the late fall – how do such fragile creatures make it all the way to Mexico? The birds that come through in great flocks on their way south or north. Or salmon that must return to their spawning grounds at the end of their lives after travelling miles in the vast ocean. How do they know to go home?
Their triggers are internal. Or maybe their senses are more attuned than ours to the changes around them that tell them that it is time to go. Human beings are not so in touch with themselves or with the world around them. We need someone calling us into the desert to tell us to get ready. We need something like skies torn open to help us see what was there all along. We need a savior who will walk before us and show us what it means to be human – leading us even to death to show us that life is more than we have ever imagined that it could be.
One of the places where Jesus led us is through that water. There was nothing extraordinary about the water. Sometimes people will bring back water from the Jordan River and put it in the baptismal font and it’s a nice connection but there’s nothing magic about the water. It’s meant to be ordinary. But what it becomes because of baptism – now that’s another thing altogether.
You know that in the United Methodist Church we baptize infants and children. It’s done in other traditions, too. And there are some Christian traditions like the Baptists where baptism is reserved for youth and adults who can answer for themselves. But we do baptize infants and it is one of the most powerful moments in the life of a church when that happens.
Baptism is a recognition that God claims us despite the fact that our lives are often tohu wabohu. Before we were able to claim it for ourselves, before we were born, God’s love surrounded us like the waters of a mother’s womb. And God took the risk of loving us. It was a risk and a foolish thing to do. I mean look what people do. They lie. They cheat. They hurt one another...fail one another. They mistreat each other. They even kill each other.
Baptism proclaims, though, that God knows what we can be. God knows that we can love. That we can heal. That we can work for justice. That we can envision a new land and a new day. With God’s love anything is possible – including an empty tomb.
So we baptize babies and adults because we believe that grace – another name for that love – is available to all or every age. And because we believe that we can never be fully ready, whatever our age, to understand what that grace can do. God’s love claims us and says, “You are my child, my beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Now you and I know that we do things from time to time with which God is definitely not well pleased. And baptism is no substitute for a life of discipline and holiness where we daily commit ourselves to loving God more fully and to serving God and our neighbors with our whole lives. That’s why baptism calls forth a response. And when it’s an infant at the baptismal font, the parents and the congregation take that vow for the child to raise her or him up in the faith. When it’s a youth at confirmation they take those vows on for themselves. When it’s an adult they say them, too. Grace calls for a response. But who starts the movement? God.
Two weeks ago I was back in my home church to baptize my new nephew, Carson Lee. I spoke with the children, as I do here, and told them that their job was to remember this day for Carson since he would not be able to remember it himself. But it had an extra layer of meaning for me that day because I was baptized in that church when I was an infant. I don’t know who the minister was. I don’t know the day. But I had been baptized there.
So when I go back and I hear folks, even with me now 45 years old, talking about me as “this young man” I know that I was born into a story that began a long time before I got there. And I was born into a community that had no idea how I would turn out. But they claimed me because God claimed me. And if God was going to love me anyway, they might as well, too.
That’s what happens in this water. God takes us faltering people who stumble our way into God’s story and washes us up, splits the heavens, and who says, “You are my child, my beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And we have to live up to that. We get to live up to that. We are alive because of that. Thanks be to God.
Genesis 1:1-5 (NRSV)
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.
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