Homily for Baptism of the Lord during Retreat

The baptism of Jesus is an important theological moment as all four Evangelists record the event. Mark's account is the most straightforward but it presents an embarrassing problem for the early church. It struggles with the incongruity of the sinless Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist for his sins. Matthew remedies this point by removing that baptism is done "for the forgiveness of sins" and adding "let it be so for now" emphasizing the fulfillment of Scripture.

Matthew's main theme is kingdom of God is breaking into our world where justice and righteousness are essential qualities of living in this kingdom. One is to act justly because one is obedient to the will of God. By receiving baptism, Jesus identifies with the common person and shows his solidarity with us, even though in theological terms he did not need to do so.

As Jesus comes up from the water, the heavens are opened for him and he receives power, wisdom, and holiness to become the special anointed servant of God. In Matthew's mind, the mysterious suffering servant who, though innocent, suffers for the people is Jesus. God has a special relationship to this servant. God delights in him who is obedient to the divine will even if it involves terrible suffering. This servant will establish God's justice on the earth and will be a great teacher of God's mercy. Through his suffering God will be able to bring light to the nations, open the eyes of the blind, and release prisoners from their dungeon. This is where the story gets interesting.

Through suffering, God will bring about divine justice as a saving God. It is quite difficult to wrap one's mind around this concept. What kind of love, what kind of justice is this? What kind of God uses suffering as a means to bring about justice? I think of loved ones who suffer overbearing heartaches that never cease. It breaks my heart to hear their stories and there are so many of them. I think of:

• My cousin who is searching for answers for her 16 year old son taking his own life in August just when the promise of his life was to be launched,
• A woman in Australia whose niece asked her to be the godmother of one of her twins, the one who has special needs, because her own daughter was born disabled, with cerebral palsy. She wonders why she cannot be the godmother of the normal one.
• A friend who has been caught up in a family cycle of dysfunction that debilitates her and keeps her paralyzed. She doesn't think she is strong enough to withstand the constant family pressures to keep the silence, the skeletons in the closet. The psychological, emotional abuse continues and she shuts down all the options that would allow her to experience joy and freedom.
• A friend who is gay who longs to enjoy love and affection, is repeatedly, crushingly told by the church he loves that he is "fundamentally flawed " and is wholly not welcome.

My friends, I can go on and on. You have your own stories of interior chaos to add to all this heartache. You can add to the exhaustive list that has not yet been spoken but is held by God, a God who uses suffering as a means of divine justice. This is still hard to grasp.

I have learned in life to be real. I have learned that it is important for me to express my desires and feelings to God in the rawest way I can do it. I have learned to see that anger is good. It is very healthy to express it well. I have shouted at God with tremendous anger. I have been so angry with God I would not even talk to him. I have poured out my heart far from the kindest of ways because I wanted to let God know of my supreme frustration and my utter doubt in God's care of me and my loved ones. How could God treat me this way if God is all loving and all powerful and all just. I let him have it good.

I watched my sister die an excruciating death. She was born with mental retardation and had a difficult life physically and emotionally and it had an enormous psychological effect upon our family. We cared for he well and early in my life I got so angry with God for doing this to an innocent little girl. Poor girl. Her illness in life was undeserved.

At the end of her life she stayed at home and had seven long years of pain and suffering - the worst I've ever seen. Jesus had only been on the cross for three hours. Wheelchair bound and constricted, a tube to feed her and a tube to catch her waster, we would hold her in our arms and look into her catatonic eyes wondering if she knew we were there. She would cry herself to sleep and would immediately wake up from her ceaseless pain. Our fear and psychic pain would arise and we would try to reach her to let her know we were there for her, and we knew we were unable to help her. We were inexhaustibly powerless.

After further pouring out my to God while caressing my sister's face, it was then that I could penetrate deeply into my sister's eyes. She could not fully see me back but I had to continue to look. I gazed into this dark infinity through her eyes. Exhausted, I was drawn in to see the sad eyes of Jesus looking back at me. He was there on the cross, weeping, weeping so deeply for my sister, that I could finally come to a place of stillness and silence. He was with her in her suffering and with me in mine. He was so sad for us. My sister's pain continued a few more months before she died, but I solidly knew that Jesus was with her and she was consoled by that. It was only by looking deeply into that dark pit of suffering that Jesus was able to gently reach me and show me his heart.

I encountered a gentle God - a God who can't act violently. The mission of Jesus as the suffering servant will bring about a victory of justice. He will show the greatest justice of all - by being in such vulnerable solidarity with his people. As the description of the servant says, "he will not cry out, not shout, nor make his voice heard in the street, a bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench." If we look deeply into our suffering, we will undoubtedly find the broken, disabled, disfigured Christ, imprisoned on his Cross, and he will gently be present to us. No greater justice exists.

Notice that after the baptism, the symbol of a gentle dove is seen. Doves evoke peacefulness and hopes for new beginnings. Doves are signs of new life and they cause our delight. God's reach is as gentle as the dove. Nothing is as powerful as gentleness. In the baptism of Jesus, God's mighty arm is extended to Jesus to bring him new life as the anointed one in whom he is well pleased. We also have been baptized and God reaches out to all of us to grasp us by the hand to save us from our chaos and suffering. We pass through the waters to die with Christ so we can be raised to new life.

Listen to his words again from Isaiah: "I, the Lord, have called you for the victory of justice, I have grasped you by the hand; I formed you, and set you as a covenant of the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness."

Extend your hand to God's reach that God may grasp it firmly and find much pleasure in you. Be sure of this, God will never let go.