“Wilderness Appearance”
“Wilderness Appearance”
Genesis 1:1-5 Psalm 29 Acts 19:1-7 Mark 1:4-11
Year B, Baptism of the Lord
January 7, 2024
Pastor Andy Kennaly, Sandpoint, Idaho
When we hear the word “wilderness” we tend to think in terms of large areas of land managed in ways that minimize human impact. Roads, mines, logging, or other industrial uses are not allowed. Usually, any type of machine is forbidden, especially if it has an engine. Wilderness implies a sort of quietness, a place set apart from the noise of society, the effects of industrial culture, and in this designation of wilderness, legal protection allows natural systems to work naturally.
Wilderness is essential, if one takes the Bible seriously. Multiple passages in key places mention wilderness not only in terms of location, but of importance in terms of transformation. Things happen in the wilderness that wouldn’t happen in any other place. Wildness is engrained, imprinted on the very fabric of creation, and to ignore this is to invite spiritual blindness and a negation of our essential self. Humans are wild, created beings of earth.
This morning the wilderness makes an appearance. Whether along the Jordan as Jesus comes to be baptized by John, who appeared in the wilderness with a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, or as the Apostle Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus where he finds some disciples and connects the Holy Spirit into their experience. Wilderness implies not being in the center, but out on the fringe, the edge, the margins of what’s mainstream for most people and institutions. It’s on the edge where the greatest learning is possible for one does not learn within a comfort zone, but only in getting stretched and challenged.
The Psalmist shares of God shaking the wilderness of Kadesh and there is wind and fire and flood and glory and strength and all these things make us feel vulnerable, small, and weak. Wilderness implies danger because it deals with the unknown, the out of bounds, and the unpredictable. And there are no fences in the wilderness, no roads to serve as dividing boundaries, no buildings for shelter, and no internal borders. Natural features such as rivers, lakes, cliffs, and caves become defining to the landscape and the patterns of animals, fish, and birds are shaped by mountain ranges, coastlines, and weather patterns. These features and patterns evolve with changing conditions, and it seems that creation is hardwired to perpetuate, to re-create.
In the book of Genesis, the opening of the Hebrew Scriptures, the very first verse involves a speed bump, otherwise known as a footnote. How does one interpret this opening verse of the Bible? There are several options. Some translations order the words differently from others, but what’s at issue seems to be nothing less than the nature of God and our place in the larger creation. From the start of the scriptures this seems to be the issue, the nature of God and our place as those who are shaped by our image of God.
In terms of the nature of God, all the footnote options mention there is a beginning to God’s creative action to create the heavens and the earth. But we would most likely also say that God is beyond time, so God doesn’t have a beginning, God always is. We would not want this verse to imply a limitation on God. It is things that are created that have beginnings. God is not created, God is.
A subtle difference in translation puts the earth and the heavens as the only created focus. This gets us off the hook of limiting God, we avoid that, and we now know that the earth has a beginning. But other translations also give the option for a more open field of perception, like the Earth is not necessarily the first or only gig for God. “When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos.” This does give the possibility of creating other heavens and other planets. We know there are lots of other planets and our solar system is only one of countless solar systems.
Amazing how Genesis poetically takes us into such a rich, descriptive narrative that opens the field for interpretation. If you have any knowledge of astronomy, you understand this Genesis pattern does reflect how planets form, from cosmic dust circling in darkness, to gravity and other forces forming stars. To hear that God creates the Earth from a deep darkness and the first thing is light; these fit right in to cosmology, science, astronomy, and a faith tradition that trusts love’s relentless ability to manifest as created life.
This morning as we read these lectionary passages, all these texts move us from wildness, a sense of chaos and disarray, to order, pattern, structure, blessing and peace. God’s creativity is the main driver in this transformation.
But do we trust this, really?
I have a small confession to make. Last week as I preached about Baby New Year and having a beginner’s mind to learn spiritual disciplines, and we used a labyrinth with twists and turns and what seems like a meandering path, as a prayer tool to trust the journey because God is with us, I finished one thought by saying “Jesus is born anew, and we, like him, are nothing less that prophets who notice that important things need proclaimed and lived out in our calling to engage and transform the world.”
When I preached that, I was all in. This is who we are, this is our calling as people sent. But in that last sentence I realized I didn’t believe it when I said we are nothing less than prophets in our calling to engage and transform the world. That part, about transforming the world. That’s the part I confess to having said with mixed emotions. On one level I believe it, Presbyterians are all about transformation and helping society improve by building schools and hospitals, especially back in the day. But today, now, there seems to be a decline on so many levels, it feels like the world will not transform. Indeed, it seems like civilization is headed toward collapse and the Earth’s natural systems that have been somewhat reliable are no longer. Global warming is changing the climate and humanity has not adjusted to the hard truth of this reality, but instead seems to perpetuate the denial and short-sightedness of greed, ecological degradation, and other root causes of this dilemma.
How does one trust in transformation of the world, especially when things seem to slip toward chaos and things that once were reliable are not helpful in stopping this slippage?
Today we take another look at trust in God’s creative power and purposeful Presence through the sacraments. Presbyterians recognize two sacraments: Baptism & Communion. Today is Baptism of the Lord Sunday, and also the first Sunday of the month so we have communion. I’ve placed the font before the table, and as you come forward to receive the bread and juice, you may touch the water to remember your baptism. Not so much a memory or thought, but in the sense of renewal, of confirming promises made by God. Promises like the assurance that God is always with you, that you are loved unconditionally, and you don’t have to do anything extraordinary to earn this love. You are special in who you are for you are marked as Christ’s own forever and carry within you God’s image and likeness.
Partaking the bread and the juice, we renew that image and likeness, renew our sense of calling as the body and blood of Christ, renew our response as those sent into the world. This is where the transformation takes place. This is where our trust can be renewed because love has no end and all this is the work of God, the One who brings order out of chaos and creates redemptive outcomes from what seems so destructive and painful.
Partaking by faith means leaning into deeper trust, as deep as primordial waters touched by the winds of God sweeping over them. Faith involves trusting God’s Holy Spirit with the patterns of creation and the reality of incarnation as spirit manifests through matter in all of life.
We come alongside those disciples in Ephesus who say, “We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” This leads to the Holy Spirit coming upon them. This leads to language. This pattern of new creation through water, Spirit, voice, this is a pattern at work as the Spirit transforms the world. In this transformation, God is with us. May peace and all good be declared as the Spirit continues to move, both now, and forever. Am