Sunday After Epiphany, 2018

The voice of the Lord is upon the waters;the God of glory thunders; *the Lord is upon the mighty waters. 
-Psalm 29:3

This past year’s diocesan convention was a big one. You could even say, it was a once in two-hundred year convention. Michael Curry who is the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church was there alongside our own bishops past and present. And at the convention Eucharist, in addition to the hundreds of clergy and delegates, we had a choir of hundreds of voices, a brass choir, and cohort of vergers, crucifers, and acolytes that would give St. Peter’s Basilica a run for their money. Those of you who were present for this event, know what an epic occasion it was. But like all grand ceremonial occasions, the diocesan convention Eucharist left plenty of room for confusion, error, and maybe a little chaos

Before the service commenced the master of ceremonies quickly said a few words describing how we - namely, the clergy - were to process in and take our seats our seats. And of course, most of us were engaged in our own conversations and for all intents and purposes, ignored every word that was said. I mean how hard could it be - you just follow the person in front of you! But of course, that only works, if the person in front of you knows what they’re doing where they’re going. And in this case, the reverend clergyman, like myself, had know idea what he was doing to where he was going. Mid way through the procession, I found myself in the midst of a clerical traffic jam with no one knowing what they were doing or where they were going. Luckily, someone - whose name I won’t mention - but whom many of you know - directed us, or rather dragged us by our collars, to where we needed to be seated during the service. Sometimes, even us clergy - or especially us clergy- need to be put in our place. Sometimes, the path we are on leads only to confusion and disorder and our course needs to be redirected. 

Jesus, in today’s lesson from Gospel of Mark, models the path we are to take on our journey toward heaven through the sanctification of our very lives. And that journey follows a path through the waters of baptism to the shore of the promised country of heaven and communion with God in Christ. 

Water, if you remember, plays a prominent role in the story of God’s people in the Hebrew Bible. It is out of the chaos of the churning seas that the Holy Spirit brings forth life at the time of the Earth’s Creation. Today’s lesson from Genesis speaks powerful of this reality. It is through the Red Sea waters that the children of Israel escape their slavery in the land of Egypt and armies of Pharaoh. It is through the Jordan River that Joshua crossed in journey to the promised land of Canaan. And it was in this same Jordan River that the prophet Elisha healed the leper Naaman. Water, in particular the water of the Jordan River, symbolizes the boundary between captivity and freedom and sickness and healing. Indeed, it symbolizes the boundary that all of us must cross in our journey of faith. 

And so Jesus, descends and rises from the waters of the Jordan River, showing us the path that we too are called to follow. We, like the countless gawkers and spectators who must have been present one the day of Jesus’ baptism, might be meandering on the river bank taking in the spectacle of it all. Some of  you may not know the way you are to go and might find yourselves in a traffic jam like the one at the Diocesan Convention I told you about. 
Listen and follow Jesus into the water of grace, and to that place where God is constantly telling us, “With you, my precious child, I am well pleased.” While most of us here have been baptized and have, in a sense, crossed the Jordan River into the life of grace that we call "being Christian" - all of us are called to renew our commitment to follow Jesus. 

We are called to leave our slavery behind us - whatever it might be - and to follow Jesus into the heavenly country that has been prepared for us. Today we renew our commitment to our baptismal covenant. We are reminded of what we have left behind on the river banks before we descended into the waters of grace. But we are also reminded of the gift of grace that has been bestowed upon as we emerged from those same waters. As we pray the words of the Baptismal covenant, we ought to be reminded of the magnitude of what we entered into when we became Christians. Our very lives have been changed. And in the midst of the tumult, the chaos, and confusion, God has made you new and has pioneered the path you are called to follow. And for that we can only be grateful. 
+Amen