I often wonder where it all went wrong. How did it get so bad? Of course, I am talking about Christianity. Why did it become so mean, so hateful, and so ugly? If following the way of love that Jesus taught, modeled, and embodied, is the road we should be traveling, many Christians not only seem to be off track, but they seem to be going in the exact opposite direction.
It’s like, instead of going home by another way, the wise men went back to King Herod and collaborated with the empire, and for the sake of wealth, power, cheap eggs and gas, told the King exactly where he could find the boy Jesus and exterminate him.
Because it’s like many have never heard any of the stories of Jesus. How he with his parents fled violence as refugees in Egypt. How he grew up to lead a revolutionary movement of non-violence resisting the powers that be. How he called out their corruption, their greed, and their lust for power. How he was a radical advocate and ally for anyone who was marginalized by the culture or by sick religion. How he challenged systems of injustice that hurt women, alienated foreigners, demeaned Eunuchs, and were blind to the needs of the poor.
It’s like some Christians today have not just misinterpreted the gospel but have rewritten it for their own self-interest.
I often wonder if part of the problem is the way it was all introduced and explained to me in the first place. For years, every Sunday, I heard the same message. I was born into this world a lowly sinner and because of that sin, I was separated by God and would be punished by God for all of eternity, unless I did something about it, namely accepting Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior, and then getting baptized to wash all my sins away.
I would go home from church almost every Sunday feeling absolutely rotten, worthless, dirty, unloved. Well, one day after church, when I was ten years old, I had had enough. I was tired of all the guilt, so I told my parents that I wanted to be baptized. I wanted to get clean. I wanted God to love me.
They told me that I needed to pick up the telephone and call the preacher and tell him that I wanted to be baptized, which I did. On the phone, he said he would come over to my house later in the week to talk to me about it.
I remember sitting outside on the patio with him when he said something like: “Jarrett, were all born into this world separated by God because of sin. But God loves us very much.”
I must have had a confused look on my face, or he must have thought I was a tad on the slow side, because that was when he got out a spiral notebook, opened it up, and began drawing me a picture.
He drew what first looked like the logo for McDonalds, but then he said, “It’s like there’s these two mountains.” He wrote my name on one mountain and the word “God” on the other mountain. He called the space in between the mountains “a valley,” and there wrote the word “sin.” He said, God is here on this mountain, but you are way over here on this other mountain, and sin is the valley that separates you.
Then he drew a bridge connecting the mountains and writing the word “Jesus” under the bridge, he said: “But God loves you and sent Jesus, who never sinned, to die on the cross, to be a bridge so you can cross over the valley to be on the side with God.”
He then asked me: “Jarrett, don’t you want to be on the mountain with God?”
I thought to myself: “Or stay on this other mountain and one day go to hell forever? Nah, I think I’ll take that bridge, thank you very much.”
He said: “Jarrett, when you are baptized, it is a way of saying that you believe Jesus died for you on the cross and rose again, and it is like you are crossing the bridge, to be with God. When you are baptized your sins are washed away. Your sins are forgiven, so they no longer separate you from God.”
“Well, how fast can I get baptized?” was my reply.
But later, I had questions. I had lots of questions. The main one was: “If God loves us so much why did God put us on the wrong mountain in the first place? Why did God create us as sinners? And: “If God really loves us, why would God threaten to punish us for all of eternity if we do not choose to be with God and get baptized?”
But whenever I would raise such questions, I would get this convoluted response about free will, that God only wants people who choose to love God to be with God.”
And if I replied: “Well, that sure doesn’t sound like a very good and loving God to me, as that sounds like God only loves people who love God back.”
It was then I got: “Jarrett, it is not for us to question it, but to just believe it.”
But all of this would lead to even more questions, like: “If Jesus was perfect and never sinned, and if baptism is about having your sins forgiven and washed away, why did Jesus get baptized? Surely Jesus wasn’t separated from God? Right?”
“Of course not,” I thought “Because he wasn’t a sinner. And sin is what separates us from God. And there was this vision at Jesus’ baptism of heaven being opened wide, the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove, and this voice from heaven saying the most beautiful words, words that are the antithesis of: “You are a sinner, separated or cut off from God”— “You are my Child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
So, why was Jesus baptized?
The answer that I most heard, even in seminary, was that by getting baptized in the manner we are encouraged to be baptized, Jesus was “identifying” with us. Jesus was becoming like us.
I was taught that this was the scandalous good news of the incarnation. That God identified with us poor sinners. That God, the source and essence of all that is, became flesh, became one of us.
That may be sound theology, but what if it is actually the other way around? What if got it completely backwards, or at least, there is much more to it?
Early church theologian Athanasius, put it this way: Jesus became one of us, so that we might become like him.
Instead of Jesus being baptized like us, maybe it’s more like we are baptized like Jesus.
For isn’t that the goal of every disciple, to be like Jesus?
Maybe we have misunderstood the nature of baptism, because we have misunderstood the whole notion of this thing we call forgiveness.
For how many of us were taught that we are sinners, separated from God, and need to be forgiven, to have those sins washed away in order to be named as one of God’s beloved children? Instead of being taught the exact opposite: that because we already are God’s beloved children, God forgives us? How many of us were taught that forgiveness is a condition to receive God’s love, instead of being taught that forgiveness is the result of God’s love?
We need forgiveness, only the most depraved believe they don’t need, and Baptism is indeed about forgiveness, but baptism is primarily about love. Baptism is about affirmation. Baptism is about a holy covenant, an intimate relationship. It is about our sacred identity as children of God. And forgiveness is a by-product of that identity.
When Jesus is baptized, Jesus hears God say these incredibly important words of love, affirmation, and identity: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And the good news is that when we are baptized or when we remember our Baptisms or our confirmations, we are to hear the same thing: “You are my child, my beloved, and with you I am well pleased.”
Like Jesus’ baptism, when we are baptized, whether we were infants, children, or adults, God promises God’s unconditional love for us. God calls us, names us, and claims us as God’s beloved children.[i]
Think of how different this world would be today if more people understood this. That everyone, regardless of their religion, or lack of religion, believed that every human being is a beloved child of God.
I can’t help but to believe that it would turn the world upside down, and Christianity back right-side up.
There would be more less meanness and more kindness, less inequality and more justice, less blame and more responsibility, less judgment and more grace, less indifference and more empathy, less violence and more peace, and less fear and more love.
So, this morning, I am not sure who needs to hear it. Perhaps we all need to hear it. Even if we have heard it before or have always believed it, we need to hear it again and again and again.
So, let’s listen carefully to the word of God. For the heavens are wide open. There is no separation between heaven and the earth. The Holy Spirit is descending, and God is speaking—in the quietness of an evening snowfall in the laughter of children playing in the snow—in the solitude of a morning walk, or in a raucous crowd watching a basketball game—lying in bed on a cold Sunday morning, on sitting on a pew in a sanctuary—listen, there is no separation between God and the earth.
You were not born on the wrong mountain because there is only one holy mountain.
There is no separation between God and “you.” There has never been, and there never will anything on heaven or on earth that separates you. Did you hear that? “You.” “You” is such a powerful world, especially in the second-person singular. When someone says, “you,” they see you. They have identified you. And this “You” is coming from God. Do you hear it? Listen carefully. Block out everything else. Listen to the creator and essence of the universe:
“You are my beloved child. And with you, I am well pleased.[ii]
[i] Inspired and adapted from David Lose https://www.davidlose.net/2019/01/the-baptism-of-our-lord-c-forgiveness-and-so-much-more/
[ii] Inspired and adapted from Karoline Lewis https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/the-power-of-you
Just Love 