Some Things Are a Mystery: Psalm 29; Matthew 3: 13-17
In the late 1980s through the 90s nothing was as terrifying as the show Unsolved Mysteries. A friend of mine said that this show single-handedly convinced him that he would either be kidnapped by unknown mobsters or taken by aliens at some point in his life. Indeed, we often worry about things we can’t answer or explain. Years ago, I played for a small United Methodist church. One night while practicing, I heard footsteps walking up the aisle. At the organ, your back is to the sanctuary. After finding out that there was an older member, now long dead, who used to walk the aisles around the pews at night, I never, NEVER, practiced at night again. Some things in life are just a mystery.
We always seem to connect mystery, though, with something bad and sinister. There are also good mysteries. When you see someone after a long absence, you get very happy and emotional. I don’t know how that works in the body and mind, but it’s a beautiful mystery to experience. In many churches, they believe that God is present in the bread and cup and call it the mystery of faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. We don’t exactly know how or when, but it’s a beautiful and holy mystery.
Baptism is also one of those beautiful mysteries. It’s impossible to explain what the change is in a person’s life when they plunge into the water and come up from it, but in every baptism I’ve been to, I have seen that unexplainable change. Even more mysterious in our scripture is the fact that Jesus was baptized. Remember though that it’s two different symbolic acts. When we are baptized, it is proclaiming a faith and desire to follow Jesus as the holy one, redeemer and sustainer. John the Baptist merely baptized people to symbolically cleanse them of wrongdoing or sin. There was nothing holy or mysterious. It was merely a ritual or symbol.
For Jesus, though, it was something infinitely different. Jesus comes to the Jordan River to be baptized of John, not because he needed to wash away his sins. When John baptizes Jesus, a mystery happens, something unexplainable: the heavens open and the Spirit of God, like a dove, descends upon Jesus. Then a voice from heaven says, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.” This was far more than just a symbolic moment in the river. It was a holy mystery played out in front of everyone gathered including John the Baptist himself.
In this moment, the sovereignty of Jesus was established for all to see and hear. It was a definitive moment saying that Jesus was not just a prophet, not just a teacher, not just another human given the wisdom of God. Jesus was the Son of God. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. It is clear I this whole story that, though John the Baptist had his ministry here, Jesus was in charge throughout this whole event. But it extends to us as well. When we are baptized, we proclaim to the world that we are also children of God…not just followers, not just putting away what we’ve done wrong before, but fully and completely a part of God’s family. That is both the mystery and beauty of baptism. We become a part of God’s own family.
It’s hard to remember my own baptism. I was only 5 or 6 years old. But I do remember that big, bright green hot tub at the front of the church they used for baptisms. And I remember there were three baptized that October night from the youth at the church. But what I’ve not lost is that feeling that this changed how people understood me and my relationship to God, that now I claimed a closeness to God and declared that to the world.
But it’s not always an easy walk after the baptism is it? We think we’ve reached a place of righteousness, but the mysteries of life continue. The things we don’t know and don’t understand are still there, and in some instances multiply. I think of my Nanna, at 89, saying, “I don’t understand the world I live in anymore, and I’m not all that sure I like it.” One scholar writes that righteousness is doing the revealed word of God. Hint…revealed. We don’t know everything, and we don’t understand everything; however, God will reveal what we need to know to live as faithful people on this earth.
The Psalm echoes this same theme of God’s sovereignty. It talks about the kingdom, the power, and the glory of God. All of that is found in Christ, our redeemer and sustainer. The purpose of creation is to glorify God. I think sometimes we wrongly think that creation is meant for us, like our own little gift of planet Earth. We need to remember, though, that there is far more, infinitely more out there than just Earth. We are also created by God. We may be children of God, but we are not gods. All of creation, including us, are meant to glorify God.
And while we are smart beings, we don’t know everything. Science and technology have revealed so much over the years to us. Medicine has healed diseases. Technology has given us interconnectedness, and science has made earth a better place. I am a big fan of humans using the brain God gave them to engage in science, arts, and medicine to make this a better place. But at times we need faith too, in order to help us through the less grounded places of life…the mysteries, the uncertain, the times of grief, the times when we need more than just a fact or lesson. Faith bridges that gap.
We must also remember to live in our place in the world. We are neither God nor godless. We are creation, but made in God’s image, and called children of God. Sometimes, we get a bit out of role. We want to do things our way instead of waiting for the revealed will of God. Sometimes we get too antsy with God. God calls us to follow Jesus, to speak and live in truth, in justice, mercy, and humility, and to love others even as we are loved by God. Nowhere there are we charged with fixing people. It is God alone who fixes people, who saves, heals, and redeems them from where they fall short in life.
John the Baptist only worked to make people aware of their wrongdoings. Then they symbolically washed themselves of that old behavior. There was nothing about this that saved them, transformed them, or gave them the Spirit of God. It was Jesus who could do that. But remember that John also did not become a disciple of Jesus. He never left his ministry and the calling God had given him. He stayed, speaking prophetically, and baptizing till his life was taken from him by Herod Antipas.
We, too, have a calling to stay the course of following Jesus: to speak truth in this world, to seek justice, to offer mercy, and to walk humbly with God in the love of our fellow humans. How, exactly, we do this, I’m not too sure. But I trust in my relationship with God, that God will reveal to me how to be a minister and blessing to others in this life who need it most.
Mysteries sometimes make us uncomfortable. Every time I saw Robert Stack come on to share the unexplainable and bizarre, I got a nervous knot in my stomach, and so did many other kids who probably shouldn’t have been watching Unsolved Mysteries, but did anyway. We give glory and praise, though, that in this life, we can rely on the guidance of God, creator of all, and in whom we find our wisdom and direction. So let us be thankful for a God who is in charge of all of life, all of our hope, all of our hearts and minds, and yes, God is even in charge of life’s greatest mysteries.
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