Dear People of St. James’,
This Sunday, we take the celebration of the Baptism of our Lord as an opportunity to reflect on our own baptisms and on the new creation of God brings about by this being plunged into a life in Christ. We are going to be reminded of God’s unshakeable covenant of love and life and the vows that we make as the baptized, a people who yearn to live out the fullness of our humanity just like the Human One, Jesus.
A new humanity is formed through Christ as we wade in the water of struggle and chaos on a journey toward liberation and peace. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams reminds us that this means:
The new humanity that is created around Jesus is not a humanity that is always going to be successful and in control of things, but a humanity that can reach out its hand from the depths of chaos, to be touched by the hand of God. And that means that if we ask the question, ‘Where might you expect to find the baptized?’ one answer is, ‘In the neighbourhood of chaos’. It means you might expect to find Christian people near to those places where humanity is most at risk, where humanity is most disordered, disfigured and needy. Christians will be found in the neighbourhood of Jesus – but Jesus is found in the neighbourhood of human confusion and suffering, defencelessly alongside those in need. If being baptized is being led to where Jesus is, then being baptized is being led towards the chaos and the neediness of a humanity that has forgotten its own destiny.
I am inclined to add that you might also expect the baptized Christian to be somewhere near, somewhere in touch with, the chaos in his or her own life – because we all of us live not just with a chaos outside ourselves but with quite a lot of inhumanity and muddle inside us. A baptized Christian ought to be somebody who is not afraid of looking with honesty at that chaos inside, as well as being where humanity is at risk, outside. So baptism means being with Jesus ‘in the depths’: the depths of human need, including the depths of our own selves in their need – but also in the depths of God’s love; in the depths where the Spirit is re-creating and refreshing human life as God meant it to be.*
So, I invite you to linger at the font this week and dare to gaze into the depths of yourself and those who surround you. May the time between this Sunday and our next baptismal feast on Easter become an intentional journey through the depths. May you risk something along the way to do the work of restoration. May you dwell in the neighborhood of chaos knowing that Jesus has walked that path before you and reaches out to show you the way.
Rev. Eileen
* Williams, Rowan. Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Kindle Edition.
