Welcome to the start of the new year – I accept I am a bit late for some of you. First opportunity and the like… So with all talk of resolutions, gyms full to busting this time of year – don’t worry, not for long – what new you might be 2024? Is it a bit like the image of the cat, wonderful and amazing, or a bit more realistic. Time for a new chapter maybe, starting today.
In the Church year, we are focussing upon Mark’s Gospel – my favourite. One, it’s short; secondly, it’s the first Gospel we have – so scholars believe; and thirdly, it’s there, in your face, “immediate”. The author of Mark’s Gospel, they use the word immediate 41 times albeit it is only used 10 times in the whole of the New Testament. What does the Gospel say:
“In the Gospel of Mark the teaching, deeds, and life of Jesus reveal the intrusion of the good news into human experience.”
Paul Berg, Enter the Bible
Typically, within the church year, some might cry out “It’s Epiphany!”, a eureka moment.
Well, if Noel was the word for Christmas, meaning ‘natalis’ or birth, or even ‘new’;
then epiphany is on the road to revealing what is exactly new.
This passage Mark 1:4-11 has dual focus. It looks back to Isaiah and then looks forward to what will be, a promise to the future. What can you recall from your baptism? The only baptism I ever had the privilege to perform, I was minded not to soak the carpet – it was in the person’s front room. It is a pivotal moment of wonder. An inner acceptance of God in their life, and God undertaking what God has already promised, to be with them.
Where’s the relevance to baptism today?
Yes, we might recall the day we were baptised, possibly many moons ago now; however, as we read this passage from mark’s Gospel again today, how relevant is it to us?
Baptism is that pivotal moment in our life when our lives are transformed – that’s what is supposed to occur. Often it is a great time of celebration for the family and we, as a wee bain, were blissfully unaware of what was going on. Oh, other than we may have had to wear frilly baptismal clothing, have water poured onto us by someone we didn’t know in a cold building. I recall images of ministers using water pistols to baptise children during Covid – or was that my imagination?
For some of us, the days, months, years after baptism leads us onto continuing times of doubt, uncertainty and times of anxiety in our faith and life itself. Baptism is not a beginning nor an end but that moment that marks an individual’s choice to turn towards God. Jesus is baptised in the Jordan by his mate John. The fruit of Jesus’ life wasn’t really apparent until well after this event. Although John knew that Jesus was special, different, the one chosen by God, I wonder what difference John would have actually seen in Jesus’ outward appearance immediately after the baptism? The words describing the sacrament may well have been added later – 40 or so years if we are just focussing upon Mark’s Gospel – to give added credence to Jesus in the world of believers who were trying to get to grips with reality following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans.
So, if baptism is a long time ago, and we aren’t supposed to be baptised more than once, what about today?
We can get worn down by our expectations, these hopes which are located in the far distance of life. Can we achieve our life goals and what is happening to us if we aren’t particularly close at the moment? So, perhaps living one day at a time may be more appropriate for us. Seeing life within a short timescale can allow us to marvel at our world, not at the breathtaking speed of the online world, but at the pace we wish to travel in our own world.
Our hopes can be better managed, and realised. Rather than “world peace”, let’s look at making peace (having a word) with Maude at number 4. [Apologies with all Maude’s who live at number 4 – you are not all tyrants and ogres…] Rather than being overly concerned with our daily sin and the shame that might be within us, let’s look how we can change from within. I have spent many months now, it would seem, trying to find the real me: not the one that I have created to be – within the RAF, teacher and now the ministry; but the one that God created. It has meant removing layers of old protection and trying to see what makes me tick. It hasn’t all been plain sailing, often painful at times. We do so want to put on the armour to protect ourselves from the barbs of life, when that means what people experience is a false me. It has meant being honest with myself, but in that I can now try to move onwards.
One day at a time
You see, only then may we be able to see that each day is akin to our baptism: a fresh start, one in which we can walk with God in all that we do and are. We can start to write a new chapter in our life each and every day. A fresh chapter where we can awake knowing that we can be glad to have those near (or far) to us, that we are ok as we are (but there is room for some improvement), and that God is by our side. Perhaps even then we may see that Heaven isn’t where data is stored – in the clouds – but within us and with us, all around us – if we just dared to look.
Please make a comment below with what you think: have I relegated sin to insignificance or wilfully ignored it? How do you recall your baptism?
I love the dialogue