Standing In the Stream
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
September 19, 2010
Matthew 3:1-17 (MSG)
1 While Jesus was living in the Galilean hills, John, called "the Baptizer," was preaching in the desert country of Judea.
2 His message was simple and austere, like his desert surroundings: "Change your life. God's kingdom is here."
3 John and his message were authorized by Isaiah's prophecy: Thunder in the desert! Prepare for God's arrival! Make the road smooth and straight!
4 John dressed in a camel-hair habit tied at the waist by a leather strap. He lived on a diet of locusts and wild field honey.
5 People poured out of Jerusalem, Judea, and the Jordanian countryside to hear and see him in action.
6 There at the Jordan River those who came to confess their sins were baptized into a changed life.
7 When John realized that a lot of Pharisees and Sadducees were showing up for a baptismal experience because it was becoming the popular thing to do, he exploded: "Brood of snakes! What do you think you're doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to make any difference?
8 It's your life that must change, not your skin!
9 And don't think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as father. Being a descendant of Abraham is neither here nor there. Descendants of Abraham are a dime a dozen.
10 What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it's deadwood, it goes on the fire.
11 "I'm baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next: The main character in this drama—compared to him I'm a mere stagehand—will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out.
12 He's going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He'll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he'll put out with the trash to be burned."
13 Jesus then appeared, arriving at the Jordan River from Galilee. He wanted John to baptize him.
14 John objected, "I'm the one who needs to be baptized, not you!"
15 But Jesus insisted. "Do it. God's work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism." So John did it.
16 The moment Jesus came up out of the baptismal waters, the skies opened up and he saw God's Spirit—it looked like a dove—descending and landing on him.
17 And along with the Spirit, a voice: "This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life."
We have three weeks until we start the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality initiative, and what I want to do in those three weeks is to look at a few specific episodes in the life of Jesus and frame them for you in new ways – help you hear them again, for the very first time. Today we’re going to look at this passage I just read, which is the entire third chapter of Matthew. The main point of the sermon, really, is found in the very last verse, but rather than assume the previous verses are just throwaway, I say we dig in and see how it all fits together.
So here’s John the Baptist in the desert. Let’s clarify some things. John the Baptist is a different John than the John who wrote the Gospel of John that we just wrapped up a couple of weeks ago. This John is the first cousin of Jesus. And this John is a pretty wild guy. He lives in the desert. We have to understand the significance of that. The desert is the fringe. The desert is the place of deprivation and death. The desert is the place of suffering and pain. The desert is the place you normally try to avoid. But not only did John not avoid it, but he lived there – the desert, the fringe, the place of suffering, was his home. There’s John in the desert baptizing people, showing that life is to be found in unexpected places – in places where death seems to rule.
Now baptism is not a tradition that started with Christianity – it was a Jewish tradition which Christianity adopted. So John the Jewish prophet is carrying out a Jewish religious exercise. But here’s the deal. He’s doing it in the desert! This is a huge no-no. Religion doesn’t happen in the desert. In John’s time, religion belongs in the temple. Religion belongs to the chief priests. God belongs to those who are pure, who follow the codes, who are not chronically sick. So this wild Jewish man baptizing in the desert stands in direct contradiction to his faith tradition. John, like Jesus, and all of the Hebrew prophets, and like every person of advanced spiritual understanding who has ever lived – realizes that he can contradict some of the key elements of his religion without sacrificing one bit of understanding about God. In fact John, and all of the prophets, and all deeply spiritual people, realize the value of their tradition, but do not allow it to box God in in any way. John shows this not only by moving this religious ritual outside the temple and into the barren desert, but think about it – he’s in the desert – the dry, barren desert where there is no water – but he’s baptizing. Yes, there’s a river running through this desert, my friends and there’s John, inviting people into a river, flowing in the desert. Do we see what this means? We should not fail to grasp the symbolism. “I’m in the desert. The Jewish rabbis don’t acknowledge that God can come to you outside the temple, but I’m telling you God is here. I’m in the desert. The Jewish rabbis – the religious establishment – says God is only here, only with us, only in these lines – I’m telling you he is everywhere – even in the desert. And I’m inviting you to step into this stream, flowing in the middle of this desert – flowing through the place of barrenness and dryness and death – this stream, bringing life to everything it touches.” Such is the stream, the flow, of God’s grace. It cannot be held in the temple. It cannot be restricted to the church. It cannot be said to only be found in “appropriate” places by “appropriate” people who meet appropriate religious standards and are therefore nice and appropriate. No, the flow of God’s grace and love and mercy are to be found wherever they are found, and our opportunity is to stop judging, stop deciding where it should be, and simply step into where it IS. And you know where it is? Sure, there’s some of it in the temple – of course. But it’s also in the desert. It’s in the dry and cracked places of the earth – the parched and broken places in your life. Running right through those deserted and dark places, there is a stream of God’s love and mercy and grace and healing and cleansing and forgiveness and peace.
So there’s John – the wild man, living on the fringe, outside the acceptable religious establishment, and doing unacceptable things. In doing this, John is risking his life. He is saying that those who make a living by selling God to you, they do not own God. You can have God for free. You can know God apart from them. Whether or not you can afford the temple tax, there is water in the desert for you. Whether or not you can wear the appropriate clothes, there is water in the desert for you. Whether or not you have kept the purity codes and know the commandments, there is water in the desert for you. Whether or not you have a churched background, there is water in the desert for you. Whether or not you know the Bible, there is water in the desert for you. Whether or not you have managed to stay out of all the wrong beds and hold your tongue and keep your temper and say your prayers, there is water in the desert for you. In fact, there is an abundance of water.
John 3:22-23 (NIV)
22 After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized.
23 Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water…
I love that. My friends, there is plenty of water. God’s not in any danger of running out of grace or mercy or love. There is plenty, and there is enough for you.
Even what John ate was symbolic. Locusts and wild honey. Something bitter, and something sweet. That is God’s word in your mouth, my friends. That is God’s word in your life.
Revelation 10:9-10 (NIV)
9 …I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, "Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey."
10 I took the little scroll from the angel's hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour.
What’s the message? This news is sweet, but it might be hard to swallow. It’s not all gonna be easy. John’s diet represents both the sweetness and bitterness of the gospel. Sweet because it brings the healing that we need. Bitter because it shows us the depth of our need and our blindness, and demands a change in our thinking and in our life.
John’s clothing – more symbolism. No flowing robe. No religious garb. Just a grungy camel-hair deal tied with a leather belt. The messenger won’t look the way you expect him to look. And the message? God is here! That’s the message. God is here. God is here in this desert, symbolized by the flowing stream. Jump in! Get in on it! You don’t have to wait, or meet requirements, or be good enough – just get in! And the response from the people?
Matthew 3:5-6 (MSG)
5 People poured out of Jerusalem, Judea, and the Jordanian countryside to hear and see him in action.
6 There at the Jordan River those who came to confess their sins were baptized into a changed life.
Baptized into a changed life. Doesn’t mean they walk away perfect. Doesn’t mean they walk away without stuff dogging them. Doesn’t mean God does some kind of magic trick in heaven on their behalf. Nope. Just means that once you truly step into the river of God’s grace and love, you are never the same. People from all these cities find out that mercy is flowing in the desert, and they leave their homes and places of business and decide they have to get in on it. That is repentance. Repentance is a change of mind, a change of heart, a sense that you stand in need because of something you lack. And this sense of need opens you up to something. It makes your heart pound and whispers in your ear that you have to find God. A Hindu guru put it well – “seek God like a man with his hair on fire seeks water.” Elizabeth Gilbert writes in her book “Eat, Pray, Love”
I’m not interested in the [spiritual] insurance industry. I’m tired of being a skeptic, I’m irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by debate. I don’t want to hear it anymore. I couldn’t care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water.
King David understood this longing for God.
Psalm 84:2 (NIV)
2 My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
So these people pour out of their homes, seeking God. Some of them came from Jerusalem. You know what was in Jerusalem? The temple. Now in their tradition, GOD was in the temple, and only in the temple. Yet some of these people may well have passed right by the temple on their way to find God in the desert. FANTASTIC!! That simply IS the gospel. God. Is. Here.
And yes, confession of sin is there. Confession of sin plays a part in all good religion! It’s part of repentance – because once we become aware of this lack within ourselves, once we become aware of our need, it is natural to pour out that need to God, to cry out to God to meet that need, to feel shame and sorrow over our blindness and to sense deeply in our bones the tragedy of the small and piecemeal life we have lived without God.
Psalm 51:1-4 (NIV)
1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.
So the people come. They need God. They see their need. And they seek something that will meet that need, passing by the temple and going into the desert because that’s where the water was.
But those religious people – the ones John is pulling the rug out from under right at this moment – they’re looking on, and checking it out. Here’s how The Message puts it:
Matthew 3:7-10 (MSG)
7 When John realized that a lot of Pharisees and Sadducees were showing up for a baptismal experience because it was becoming the popular thing to do, he exploded: "Brood of snakes! What do you think you're doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to make any difference?
8 It's your life that must change, not your skin!
9 And don't think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as father. Being a descendant of Abraham is neither here nor there. Descendants of Abraham are a dime a dozen.
10 What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it's deadwood, it goes on the fire.
There are a lot of people in the world like this, seeking a religious experience. Something to amp me up, thrill me, and make me feel good. It’s religion as a drug – spiritual cocaine. Using God for my own purposes. But John calls them on it. “It’s your life that must change, not your skin.” What I’m doing goes beyond the way you have understood religion. And this is not about being good, upstanding, appropriate, Jews. Yes, you’re descendants of Abraham, father of the Jewish people. Good for you. And big deal. It’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter who you come from, or what the tradition is – none of that changes your life, and what God is after is a changed heart, a changed mind, a changed life.
Matthew 3:11-12 (MSG)
11 "I'm baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next: The main character in this drama—compared to him I'm a mere stagehand—will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out.
12 He's going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He'll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he'll put out with the trash to be burned."
So John characterizes baptism as a turning in of the old life for Kingdom life.
But the real deal – Christ himself – has yet to appear. Christ is what makes things happen. He’s the central theme, the main character. And what John says here is incredible. “Jesus will place everything true in its proper place before God – everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.” John makes clear that to really know Christ – to really have “the God experience” – is to find ourselves more and more understanding of truth. Truth moves to the front. Truth takes center stage. We begin to realize what matters and what doesn’t.
Now John isn’t talking about hell when he says Jesus will put false things out to the trash to be burned. Hell has nothing to do with it. Look at John’s language. He’s a passionate guy. He feels things, and he preaches so as to make others feel things too. John is saying that Jesus will teach in a way that will show how fruitless and stupid false things are. He will make truth clear -- not to those who will only stand near the river and dip their toes in and hem and haw and make assumptions and create theories, but to those who jump into the river and locate themselves in the midst of a love relationship with God. One of the Jesuits said:
Nothing is more practical than finding God,
that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute,
final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you will do with your evenings,
how you will spend your weekends,
what you read,
who you know,
what breaks your heart
and
what amazes you with
joy and gratitude.
Fall in love,
stay in love and
it will decide
everything.
The promise is that for those who step into the river, who seek to love and be loved by God, truth will be found. Because truth IS love, and love is not love when it is only analyzed and conjectured about. It can only be lived. You cannot love objectively. You cannot be unbiased in love. You can only throw yourself into it, allow it to wash over you, and learn the lessons it teaches you. Any of you who have ever been in love before knows that is true.
Now finally we arrive at Jesus. Here comes Jesus, and he asks John to baptize him. Christians constantly miss the significance of this. My friends, in having John baptize him, Jesus is doing a few things, I believe. First, he is confirming John’s idea that God is here. You don’t have to go to the temple to know God. Now I say that, but remember Jesus taught often in the temples – mature spirituality moves forward without rejecting what has come before -- mature spirituality takes old things and brings them up and in and elevates them, filling them with meaning. Fundamentalism, on the other hand, insists that the words are dead. There is no meaning other than the literal meaning of the words on the page. Of course if knowing God is about love, and this relationship is a relationship of love, than fundamentalism cannot be the way, because in love little things carry great meaning – a glimpse, a touch, a rose sent at the right time, a song, a helping hand on a busy day – and the big things might not speak as loudly as we think. A huge argument can be overcome and forgotten with a knowing glance. A fantastic weekend can be nullified with a demeaning remark. And so on. Fundamentalism misses all of this and asks us to believe that all that matters are the words and their dictionary meaning. This is a shame and it’s why fundamentalism is dangerous and must be rejected by all people in all religious traditions. Jesus addressed this problem with the fundamentalists of his time.
Matthew 23:24 (NIV)
24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
That’s what fundamentalism always does. It majors in the minors and minors in the majors. It claims to know and possess the only meaning of a scripture text, and exalts itself for knowing and possessing the only truth, but it misses the meaning entirely.
So Jesus taught in the temples, but he validates that God does not have to be found in the temple and indeed often will not be! But second, and maybe more important, is that Jesus sees his need to slip into that stream of God’s grace himself. He does not stand beyond it, insisting that others do what he has not done. He, like every one of those people in the crowd, sees his need for God, knows he needs what God has, knows that his place is in that flow, in the stream. Jesus, like you and me, needs to receive what God has to give. John doesn’t get it at the moment, but Jesus says,
Matthew 3:15 (MSG)
15 …"Do it. God's work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism." So John did it.
I love what Jesus says. “God is up to something here, John. Get out of the way and let it happen.” So John, in his incredible humility, gets out of the way and lets it happen. Notice that when John baptizes Jesus, that’s all he’s doing. He’s not DOING anything special – he’s just getting out of the way. Ever think about that? Maybe when you’re out there exercising your gift, doing what you are called to do, you’re not so much doing something in those moments as you are getting out of the way and allowing the stream to flow! Do it. God is up to something – do you want to be part of it or not? If so, then do it.
Jesus needs to do this. And we begin to see why when he comes up out of the water, for at that moment
Matthew 3:16-17 (MSG)
16 … the skies opened up and he saw God's Spirit—it looked like a dove—descending and landing on him.
17 And along with the Spirit, a voice: "This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life."
I checked all the instances of this account in scripture and nowhere is it stated that anyone except Jesus saw this, and my guess is that Jesus probably was the only one who saw it. This event was not in order for God to confirm to the people who Jesus was. God did that later through Christ’s healings and teachings. This event was between Jesus and God, where God confirmed to Jesus who Jesus was. This is where Jesus came to understand his identity – God’s Son, chosen and marked by God’s love, and the delight of God’s life. And it was out of this understanding of himself as God’s dearly loved child that Jesus – breaking company with all spiritual teachers who had ever come before him – called God Abba – Daddy.
Without that understanding of who he was, Jesus could no more accomplish the work God had given him than you can accomplish your work without that same understanding. And you know what? Most of us don’t have it. And you can’t make God give it to you – you have to simply receive it, and being able to receive it is a grace, and a gift, and one that we can only pray for. It comes in God’s way and on God’s terms and in God’s time – it’s simply not up to us. All we can do is what Jesus did -- get in the stream and allow God to descend, listen for him to speak, knowing that you will surely hear these words just as Jesus did. As it was for Jesus, so it must be for you. Jesus was 30 years old before it happened for him. You might be 30 or 40 or 50 before it happens for you. But at some point you will need to know what Jesus came to know on that day – that you too are God’s child, chosen and marked by God’s love, and the delight of God’s life. Until you come to know that, you are experiencing God around the edges. Once you come to know it, you begin to experience God at the center, and yourself in the center of God. And I assure you, that’s when the whole world begins to change.
As it was for Jesus, so it will be for you. All you need to do is locate yourself in the stream of God’s love and grace and pray that God will whisper to you who you are. You will know the truth – and the truth will make you free.
