Genesis 1:1-5
Psalm 29
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11
So, the new year has begun, and it's an awful lot like the old year, isn't it? I know we're only a week into it, but it seems like 2006 is looking a lot like 2005, don't you think? Other than new pictures on the calendar, and the new date in the chequebook, everything seems pretty much the same. The things that were piling up at work before the new year are still piling up, the chores around the house that needed to be done still need to be done, the frenzied pace of our lives is still frenzied.
It's kind of disappointing. I mean, the whole idea of the New Year makes us think that the year will be, well, new. That it will be different - the slate wiped clean to start over, wrongs magically erased. The new year would be great if we woke up on January 1st and saw that while we were asleep, our lives had been tidied up and made new again, the things we had put off were completed, the new year's resolutions that we had made were already accomplished. Heck, I'd be happy if the new year meant that the Christmas tree in my living room had been magically taken down and put away already. That's the way to start the new year. With things actually being new.
It would be nice, wouldn't it? After all, we all have a desire - some more than others - for things to be orderly, to be tidied up. We all have a desire for our lives to be tidied up - for our mistakes to disappear, for a chance to start over again - at work, in our relationships, with God. But as it turns out, things are the same old mess they were last year. The mistakes we made in 2005 haven't disappeared with the change in the calendar. The chaos that we've managed to create in our lives hasn't magically resolved into orderliness at the stroke of midnight. The darkness and hurt that we've brought to the world through our wrongdoings haven't just vanished because it's a new year. As much as we might wish it were otherwise, all of that mess is still there, even if it is now 2006.
It was the mess of life and the desire for newness that drove people to John the Baptizer, out in the wilderness. They wanted to repent of their mistakes, their sins, and John promised them that doing that, and being baptized, would wipe the slate clean. Their sins would be forgiven, washed away by the river Jordan. They would have their own personal spiritual new year the minute they came up out of the waters - they could clean up their lives with one pious immersion. It's an appealing idea, so naturally, a lot of people went down to see John - the whole countryside, according to Mark. And one of those people was Jesus.
Now this is where things get a bit confusing. First of all, what is Jesus doing down there being baptized? We have the story of Jesus' baptism in all four gospels, and nowhere does it get explained why Jesus is being baptized. It's not like he needs his sins forgiven - according to tradition, Jesus was sinless. Nothing to be forgiven for, nothing to repent of. He doesn't need a new year like we do - he doesn't have to clean up his act, or make resolutions to be a better person. So what's Jesus doing down in that mess of humanity, getting all mixed up in other people's sins and mistakes and chaos? That's all mixed up - he's not supposed to come down into our messy world and get baptized and cleansed of sins he didn't even commit and hang around with us in our muckiness. It's supposed to be the other way around. We're supposed to get baptized and cleansed and leave our messiness and go to be with him in his cleanliness and pureness and orderliness, right? Why would he come down to be in our old year when we're so desperately trying to get into his new year?
Well, it turns out that the thing about Jesus is that he's not interested in waiting around for us to get our lives cleaned up before coming to him. He'd rather come to us and help us get the cleaning done right where we are. The point of Christmas a few weeks ago is that God came into the midst of humanity as the baby Jesus to change the world, and the point of Jesus' baptism is that God's Beloved came into the midst of our particularly sinful humanity to change ourworld. You see, God doesn't step aside and watch passively as we struggle, and fail, to make our lives new again, to bring order out of our chaos, to erase the mistakes we've made. God gets down in the mess, in the chaos and darkness and sinfulness of our lives and works at it with us.
It's been God's habit from the beginning. "In the beginning," God did not wait for light to emerge by itself from the dark, or for the chaotic void to take shape on its own. That would never have happened. Instead, God spoke, God acted, and through the Spirit - the wind, as our translation says, although it also means spirit - God called forth the light out of the darkness, and made order out of the chaos. God brought about a new thing because that new thing could not happen on its own. Only God's Spirit can bring life. Only God's Spirit can make things new. And that is what happened. In a sense, the first day of Creation was the first new year, and God made it happen.
This is what God was making happen in the baptism of Jesus. God was making a new thing happen in the waters of the Jordan, because the old thing wasn't enough. The baptism with water that John practiced - it was well and good, it helped people repent of their mistakes, but it didn't change them. It didn't actually make them able to carry out the new things in their life. As the story in Acts tells us, it's because there was no Holy Spirit in John's kind of baptism. There was water, which washed away the old dirt, but there was nothing to bring about the new. Until Jesus.
With the baptism of Jesus, God did not wait for sinfulness to resolve itself into holiness, or for us to magically fix ourselves. With the baptism of Jesus, God repeated the same miracle God had performed at Creation - God got down into our mess, into the chaos and darkness, and God, through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, made something new. Through Jesus' baptism, God brought holiness into the midst of the sinfulness that was down there at the Jordan. Through Jesus' baptism, God began a new year.
It is a new year, a new beginning, that we all share when we're baptized. When you were baptized, it was with water, but it was also in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And that made it a new beginning for you. Your mistakes were forgiven, your relationships were set right. God set about cleaning things up, restoring order, and bringing light into your life. This isn't just a once-in-a-lifetime thing, either. Through the presence of the Holy Spirit, brought to you in your baptism, God is doing these things on an ongoing basis, continually giving you the help you need to continue in that newness.
And the effect of God's help, the presence of the Holy Spirit in the baptism you share with Jesus, is - as a canticle from the LBW service tells us - "a clean heart, and a renewed right spirit" within you. It means that, although you may look the same on the outside as you did before, spiritually, in your heart, God is constantly making you new - God is continually bringing you a real new year, one that really is different from the year before. God is not only erasing your old sins, but helping you to avoid making new ones. God is making you a new creation.
Now, that doesn't mean that everything is magically fixed in the blink of an eye - that you no longer have to clean up after yourself, so to speak, or that you will automatically succeed at your new year's resolutions, or that you won't have to work to fix mistakes you've made. But it does mean that you are no longer the same person you were, that you are not compelled to repeat the same mistakes, or make the same mess, or commit the same sins. I could say that you'll make all new ones, but that's not what I mean when I say that God has made you new. Just like in Creation, and in the baptism of Jesus, God is working a miracle in you, bringing light into your darkness, holiness into your sinfulness, and giving you a true new year. So, may the grace and light of God, given to you in baptism, growing in you through the Holy Spirit, make your new year truly blessed. Amen.
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