Worship Schedule
The Baptism of our Lord, January 11, 2009
“Crashing Waves, Dripping Icicles, and a (not so) Roaring Brook”
Pastor Geoff Sinibaldo
The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark, the first chapter (Mark 1:4-11 NRSV)
Glory to you O Lord.
4John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5And 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. 6Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7He 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. 8I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 9In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10And 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. 11And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O Christ.
Grace and peace to you on this day, from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen
Waves Crash all around us.
This is the constant of Baptism; as we are renewed by the water and the Word.
This is the constant of the brokenness of our lives –
As waves crash around us in our failures, the waves pound in our ineptitude, with the constant splashing of sin.
Icicles Drip, reminding us that from the constant cold of our lives,
Just as God called creation into being by a Word,
Bringing order to the chaos, bringing light to the darkness,
God makes something new and beautiful out of you and me.
A Brook Roars, (but not really).
It is more like the calming steady stream of repentance and forgiveness
that gives an ebb and flow to who we are,
and who we are made to be in Christ by faith alone.
I went to college at a place called Carthage. (Carthage College, www.carthage.edu)
Back in the 1960s, they built the college on the shores of Lake Michigan.
When my parents attended there, the beach defined the landscape,
But the college was built during a low cycle in the water table.
When the water table rose, and the land had been altered, terrible erosion took place.
And the waves crashed, constantly.
Even when I was a student thirty years later, occasionally the buildings would flood.
To remedy this problem, the college looked for something to act as a break against those raging waves.
On the West side of Kenosha, when Interstate 94 was being built, they tore down old Route 41.
The College purchased those concrete boulders and placed them strategically along the shoreline.
At freshman orientation (and Vicar Kate probably remembers this, since she went to Carthage years later),
We were told to stay off those concrete boulders, “Stay off the rocks,” we were told.
The rocks were dangerous.
You could slip on the rocks, and be hit by a crashing wave and get thrown into more rocks, causing injury.
You could slip and fall into the Lake, and since the erosion was so bad the undertow was strong,
You could be pulled out to the middle of the lake somewhere and be drown.
So naturally, we did what any intelligent young people would do. We went down to the rocks all the time!
I have great memories of sitting down by the rocks, listening to those crashing waves.
Some of them involve laughing with friends. Some involve consoling one another after a bad break-up.
But my favorite time to go down to the rocks was in solitude.
To sit in the daytime, and daydream, and contemplate the future.
The amazing contrast of blues, in the pockets eroded to reflect the light, are most beautiful I have ever seen.
(Lake Michigan)
The Gospel is like waves crashing upon us. The undertow of our brokenness presses upon us, even on the rocks.
Water crashes around us. Baptism reminds us that the rocks will not crush us or the undertow take us away,
But that we will be washed again and again in the promise of Christ to say, as Luther did,
Not that, “I was baptized,” but “I am baptized!”
But that is not the only image of Baptism, on a cold winter day like this one.
The Gospel, is also like Dripping Icicles.
We have some impressive icicles hanging off the side of the church.
My favorite icicles hang off the side of the Hall of the Evangelists.
(Icicles from a window in the Hall of the Evangelists at St. Matthew)
Icicles are amazing. There is a certain critical temperature for them to form.
If it is too cold, the snow will freeze upon the roof.
If it is too warm, the dripping will flow right off the roof to the ground.
But when it is just cold enough, that one drop of water will hang long enough to freeze,
And the next drop will come and hang on to it.
We live between hanging drops; growing, melting, freezing, revealing, and waiting for the thaw.
Where is that dripping in your life?
Where are you just hanging on?
Where are you waiting for a thaw?
Today the 33rd anniversary of my baptism. The first day I could say, “I am Baptized.”
It was a cold icy day, just like this one, and like today, the weather threatened the event.
My relatives were all there (many of whom have since entered eternal life).
I had a little white tuxedo my godmother got for me. My godfather and parents looked on in pride. The joy of that day at Christ Lutheran (and at all baptisms) reminds us in the ice of our lives comes a thaw.
Our Baptized lives grow from the ice that drips; and spreads to those around us.
Look for the dripping. See the icicles hanging. Gather at the river; even in the ice.
Mark’s Gospel begins with a call to repent and be baptized (Mark 1:4).
It ends with a call to proclaim Christ to others, that they may believe and be baptized (Mark 16:15-16). And here we see between this call, Christ’s own cal to those waters,
to emerge as the savior of the world (Mark 1:10-11).
See the Baptist and the Christ gathered by the river of life.
The call to believe breaks the ice to fresh water, where we to will be renewed.
Roaring Brookflows behind our house. It doesn’t roar. It does not flow either.
It is more like a little pond. It has been dammed upstream at Secret Lake.
The kids are drawn to it. They like to throw things in it. Our neighbor fell in it once, chasing his dog. The River Jordan calls us to it. We may think of it as a roaring brook, but it is calm and enticing.
(Roaring Brook in back of the parsonage)
Sometimes we must break through the ice to get to the water, especially on a day like this.
But there below, flows the river of life, refreshing and renewing by what is promised with that water.
Even in these days as the Holy Land is filled with the roaring of tanks and rockets and war,
The river calls us to it. We are drawn to it.
It calls even Christ to the waters.
And there standing in the waters is that strange baptizer named John.
John has been with us for some time now. Since the second week of Advent, a month ago,
He has prepared us for the way of the Lord, and here he is.
Jesus has come down to the river, to join those waters, to emerge as Christ for the sake of the world.
The voice of God brings his affection. The Spirit joins him, as we watch in amazement, included in the scene.
We need a John the Baptist in our lives.
Someone to point us in the right direction.
To call us to repentance. To remind us of the water.
To show us Christ again and again.
For Twenty-Five years Pastor Carter, has been John the Baptist for us at St. Matthew.
Calling us to faith. Pointing us to Christ. Reminding, and assuring us, of the promises of God.
(John pointing…weird picture, isn’t it?)
We point, but never to ourselves. We point to the one who sent us.
We point, but not to our own abilities, or to the failures of others, but to the savior of the world.
We point, but with one hand pointing to the water, and the other to the Christ,
There forming with our own hands, the cross in which we stand.
That is our lives in baptism: where waves crash, where icicles drip, and where brooks roar ever so gently.
For there we are given the promise of Christ.
Over the course of the last several weeks, I have had the great opportunity to receive your letters and cards
for the book we gave to Pastor Carter for this Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of his ministry in this place.
I confess I have gazed at a few of them…
I haven’t read them, but I could not help skim them as they were assembled.
Those letters and cards are full of the stories, of the times in your lives,
when you could have used a little pointing, and Pastor Carter was there to do just that.
I did read the ones from former interns.
As a member of that fraternity of people, I thought it was ok. (I was the intern 2000-2001.)
One letters stands out. It was from Pastor Doug Ogden, the first intern at St. Matthew in 1986.
In his letter he talked about how amazing this day was,
and how he celebrated the twentieth anniversary of his ordination this year.
Pastor Ogden reflected on the preaching. He mentioned his own, and how bad it was.
He talked about how it improved over the course of his year here (which is true for most interns).
But he remembered your (Pastor Carter’s) preaching most of all.
He said, “There was one about a stapler. There was one about olives. But there were all about Jesus.”
How many of Pastor’s sermons do you remember?
I remember one from Christmas Eve a few years ago, “Don’t push.”
I could probably recount most of it to you if you asked me.
I remember a sermon from Holy Thursday about a chalice that made it across the country.
Talking with a member, he recalled the first sermon he heard from Pastor Carter about Charlotte’s Web. Which ones do you recall?
They were all about something memorable that connected our faith to our lives.
All of them were about Jesus.
Waves crash, icicles drip, brooks roar even when they seem like they are standing still.
There is John the Baptist, pointing to the water.
There is Pastor Carter and all those in our lives that Point us to Christ.
Together the pointing of one hand and the other find themselves in the cross.
A cross given for you.
Come again where waves come crashing, icicle drip, and brooks roar.
Repent and believe.
For there you will emerge with Christ, and in Christ who callus us out of the waters.
The Father reminds us, “you are my beloved.”
By the Spirit we point to this dripping, roaring, crashing world,
Saying boldly, “I am Baptized!!!” Amen