I dropped my drop!

Genesis 1:1-5
Psalm 29
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11

My friend Aaron has this children’s message he gives from time to time that I am going to outright steal and use this morning. Or, I suppose since I’ve already let you know it’s not something I came up with, I guess it’s alright to go ahead and use it. Just so we remember we all depend on each other more often than we are probably aware of… which is sort of my point, but I haven’t gotten to it yet, so let’s start with that children’s message.

See, what happens is Aaron stands over the Baptism font with the kids and looks a little lost. “I’ve dropped it!” he says. “I’ve dropped it and I can’t find it!” Of course the kids ask what he’s dropped. They want to help, as they so often do. But this is truly an impossible task, for what Aaron has dropped is a drop of water. Into the font. How in the world is anyone going to be able to extract that one individual drop of water out of even a small bowl of water? Can’t evaporate it until there’s only the tiniest bit left. Can’t freeze it and shatter it into tiny bits. Can’t soak it up with a cloth and squeeze out only that one particular drop. Once a drop of water joins other drops of water, once the river joins the sea, or the rain falls into the lake, there is no going back. Sure we have water cycles to circulate moisture throughout the air and the land across the world, but as the sages remind us, you never step in the same river twice.

Can you guess where this is going? Today is the celebration of the Baptism of our Lord. We began worship with a thanksgiving for Baptism, calling to mind some of the wonders God has done for the world through water. Creation, the Flood, the Exodus across the Red Sea, and of course the Baptism of Jesus - and ours. Our Baptism wraps us all up together in much the same way that one single drop of water becomes part of the whole font. This might be cause for rejoicing. This might be cause for rebellion. Or confusion, seeing as there are so many people who claim the labels we claim - be they Lutheran specifically or Christian more generally - and yet they do and think and say things we would never consider to be part of our faith heritage. For example, the attack in Paris was carried out by people who called themselves Muslim, and yet Islam is a religion of peace and justice. Or the Westboro Baptist Church calls itself Christian while spouting all sorts of hate. We would really like to distance ourselves from these practices and the people who perpetrate them in the name of our faith. Even in smaller cases, if one Christian finds her doctor at Planned Parenthood and another in the same community frequently protests outside of that office, it can certainly stir up some contention.

But being caught up in Christ does not mean that we all are suddenly exactly the same. Being Baptized does not mean that we all believe and think and practice like Stepford wives or automatons. What it does mean is that we are tied up in each other, for better or for worse, living with our disagreements and differences, teaching and learning from each other while still thinking for ourselves, just like I could have easily decided not to use that lost drop of water illustration Aaron shared with his kids at his church. We are tied up in one another, dependent and interdependent, because the same God has loved us all and claimed us all in these waters of Baptism.

And even with that good news, it is not quite the Good News of today’s reading. There have been arguments through the ages about why Jesus had to be baptized. He was without sin, he is God incarnate, when we Baptize, we Baptize in his name, for crying out loud. But he stepped into John’s baptism, which was a baptism of repentance, of turning around, changing course, and it led him out into the wilderness and on to the cross, for our sake, and I’m getting ahead of myself again because the reading doesn’t take us that far. Where the reading takes us is to that intimate moment between Father and Son, where the heavens are torn apart and the Spirit descends looking like a pigeon or a dove, and Jesus is told in no uncertain terms that God loves him and delights in him. Here is Good News for us, because even if we do not have pigeons flying around at our baptisms, it is still God’s word to us in these waters that we are loved and chosen and children of God.

One of those drops of water now lost in the great bath of the world is God, who once brooded over the waters at creation, bringing forth light and life out of the chaos of that primordial soup. One of those drops of water now mixed in with the rest of us is the very One who created each of us. One of those drops of water is Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, and today, and forever, who is as near to us as these drops of water are to each other. In the coffee we drink and the water we wash our faces with. In the frozen snow and the summer rain. In the River Jordan and the waters of the Kinderhook. Jesus who has bound us all up in each other is bound up with us in this crazy sort of freedom which means we will never be separate from the love of God, no matter where we go or what we do. Yes, God loves the shooters in Paris and the Westboro Baptist Church, and the victims of all of their violence, too, because that is just who God is, and God's love for us does not depend on us. And maybe if those who act in violence knew that love of God truly and deeply there wouldn’t be so much violence. But the love of God has caught us all up, and come to join us to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in our Baptism. We have been united with him in a death like his, and so will also be united with him in a resurrection like his.

There are promises we make at Baptism, to be part of the community, to study the Word and come to the Eucharist, but even they are not as important as the promise God makes to be always in covenant relationship with us, where there is forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Jesus is here in the waters with us, was there at the waters of creation when all was dark and chaos, and will be with us wherever the Spirit leads, wherever we choose to go or feel we are thrown by the waters. That's just who God is.