2022 01 09 Sermon

Sermon for January 9, 2022 Baptism of Our Lord, Year C House of Prayer Lutheran Church

Isaiah 43:1-7; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone

I was about 9 or 10 years old, and was spending a week in the summer with my friend Jonathan and his family. We were at a beach house on eastern Long Island in New York; it was along the Peconic River. The Peconic is a tidal estuary—so it’s salt water, with many bays and inlets, surrounded by beaches, marshes, and forestland. While it eventually flows into the ocean, the estuary itself is sheltered, giving it calmer waters—so it’s ideal for boating.

Just down the beach from the house, we could see, like a wall standing there, tall marsh grass guarding the entrance to a creek that led inland, and the creek kind of ended at a gravel road. Jonathan and I decided to sail this creek on a rubber raft. We waited for the tide to come in, we went down to the edge of the marsh grass, then hopped aboard our raft and paddled. The tide easily carried us downstream ‘til we ended at the road. Then we carried the raft down the road home. That was pretty fun! So a few days later we tried it again. The tide was flowing in, but not as swiftly as before. So we worked hard at the oars, made it about halfway down the creek, and found then that no matter how hard as we paddled, we were stuck. We couldn’t move forward. In what felt like the blink of an eye, the tide shifted and carried us backward! We were powerless to resist, and were sure that the tide would carry us out to sea and we’d be drowned.

We soon realized that our only hope to escape was to cling to the marsh grass at the side of the creek—it was taller than we were. As we grabbed hold of the grass, we found that by also holding onto the raft, we could both jump to the land together, save ourselves and save the raft. The marshland was a stinky, swampy, muddy muck. But we ran through that tall and mucky marsh grass, dragging the raft behind us; couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of us ‘cause the grass was so tall, ‘til finally we made it home—muddy, frightened, weary, relieved, with a stink that clung to every pore of skin and fiber of clothing.

That feeling came back to me this week. Not the smelly, muddy feeling—but the feeling of being stuck and being pulled backwards; stressed out and weary; unable to resist. Not because of the change of tides in an estuary, of course, but because of the tide of the omicron variant sweeping over the earth, over the United States, over Wisconsin, over hospitals and schools, over people I know and people I love, and people you know and love.

Nobody likes this feeling. And when you’re in the middle of it, it can be hard to know what you need to feel better. Like me and Jonathan on the tidal creek: Do we keep paddling? Let the tide carry us? Do you fight it? Surrender to it? Cling to stay in place? Jump out? Run?

What do you yourself need at this moment to get through this latest feeling of stuck ness, brought on by the shifting tide of omicron? Maybe each of us needs something different. Be with others? Be apart from others? Find rest? Get exercise? Find things to do? Try to escape from things to do? Recommit to spiritual practices? Attend to your mental health?

Do you worry for a loved one? Or maybe for yourself? Or are you beyond the point of worry, and are just ready to accept whatever happens? Or maybe none of those things sound right? It seems that we are each in a different place, even as we are all stuck in the same place.

It is, perhaps, a small comfort that we are not the first people to feel stuck. For example, take

today’s first reading from the prophet Isaiah 2,600 years ago, as he speaks words of hope to the weary people of Israel in exile. Their city and Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Babylonians, who then shipped them off thousands of miles from home to an unknown place. Talk about stuck! They were just longing for a return to normalcy, while being disoriented and stressed out.

The feeling of being stuck can even create a crisis of faith and doubt for some, which is a very uncomfortable place to be. Maybe you even feel like God is absent. He is still with you, I promise, but maybe you don’t feel his presence. And this is when it’s very easy for our feelings about God to be mistaken for God himself. Our feelings about God are not God—but they are still vitally important, because our feelings and emotions are messengers God uses to try to tell us things.

If you are stuck in a spot like that, it’s important to accept the tide of feelings and emotions that may be washing over you, to acknowledge and release them to God, and to listen for what God may be trying to say in the midst of them. Because the only way to get unstuck is to go through the difficult experience that we are up against, as uncomfortable as it is. We can try to resist, avoid, or ignore it—but it will still be standing there in front of us, like the tall and mucky marsh grass of a tidal estuary. And like my youthful rafting misadventure, the only choice is to go through it with a vague sense of the right direction home, not being able to see the end until you get there.

The promise God makes to help us through to the other side, as we are stuck in this new phase of the pandemic—well, it’s the same promise God made to Israel when they were stuck in exile: God has created you. God has formed you. Therefore, “I have called you by name” God says, “and you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you. So do not be afraid, for I am with you.”

This is why Jesus was baptized by John in the River Jordan, along with all the other people who were there with him on the riverbank. Jesus was baptized to show unconditional love and solidarity with God’s people. To make visible and put flesh on God’s promise: “I am with you.” I’m one of you. I’m here; now. Your weariness is my weariness. Your suffering is my suffering. You are not alone.

And this is why we get baptized, too—joined together in the one Body of Christ by water and the Word—so that we get to embody and make visible God’s promise: “I love you and you are not alone.” We carry our suffering together. We carry our weariness together. And we carry our hope together, as we take one small step at a time forward in faith, with a vague sense of the right direction; the destination clear only when we get there.

By carrying it together—like me and Jonathan carrying our raft through the muck and mud and marsh grass—we can see that what is hard for me is hard for others, too. But sharing our struggles unites us with each other, and with God.

Jesus shares the struggles, too. He carries our weariness, our pain, our doubts and our fears in himself and with himself, all the way to the cross—and he does it willingly, out of love; to free us from being stuck; to redeem us. There on the cross our crucified Messiah embodies and makes visible the promise: God is totally and completely with you—no matter what! Amen.