Last Sunday's sermon

Speaking of preaching, here's my sermon from last Sunday at my old parish, the Church of St Simon and St Jude in Barchester. I had all kinds of trouble preparing this sermon, partly because I was quite busy with academic work but partly because the readings were so forbidding. That passage from 1 Peter is desperately obscure, and Mark is not forthcoming about the details of the Temptation in the way other Evangelists are. The priest-theologian who concelebrated was very complimentary: he liked the way I set up the contrast between our baptism and Christ's and he said the sermon taught sound doctrine, was attentive to the particulars of the lessons, and was appropriate for the season. All of which was quite nice -- and exactly what I was going for -- but I still felt the whole thing was just too theologically chewy. I was much happier with the sermon I preached on Epiphany 6 at Saint Swithin's (posted elsewhere on the web under my onw name). I guess it can't be great every time.

The First Sunday in Lent (Year B)
Church of St Simon and St Jude, Barchester
4 March 2006

I speak to you in the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Jesus was baptized, and I was baptized. Mark tells me that Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan. Peter tells me that baptism now saves me. But these can’t be the same baptism, right? Baptism now saves me – but Jesus did not need to be saved. He was not lost. He had no sins to repent. But I am in need of salvation, though I am only fitfully aware of my need – and indeed the fitfulness of my recognition is but one evidence of the greatness of my need.

Jesus was baptized, and I was baptized. But these can’t be the same baptism, right? The water of the Jordan could not purify Jesus, but he hallowed the water of the Jordan by the purity of his presence. And I – I can only profane the water of baptism by the sins that I commit, the sins that stifle the growth of the new life that was inaugurated in me when I was baptized.

But here’s another comparison. Jesus was tempted, and I am tempted. And now we’re getting somewhere, because temptation is temptation – the only difference being that Jesus never succumbed to it, as I too often do. And Mark links the temptation of Jesus with his baptism in a very direct and striking way.

Look first at what Mark says about the baptism of Jesus. What concerns Mark above everything else is the acknowledgment of Jesus as the Son of God. At his baptism Jesus is acknowledged by the Father, in the voice from heaven: "You are my beloved Son; in you I am well-pleased." Jesus is acknowledged as well by the Holy Spirit, descending like a dove.

And yet this same Spirit immediately drives Jesus out into the wilderness. Mark wants us to know that Jesus does not go courting temptation; he does not go looking for Satan, spoiling for a fight. Nor does Satan go looking for Jesus – how could he dare, when the Father has attested that Jesus is his beloved Son, and the Spirit has descended upon him like a dove? It is only because the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness that Jesus and Satan contend with one another.

What does it mean that the Spirit descends on Jesus and then drives him into the wilderness? At this point in his Gospel, Mark has told us only one thing about the Holy Spirit. In the verse right before our reading for today, John the Baptist says that he baptized with water, but someone is coming who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Now we see that Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit because he is himself baptized with the Holy Spirit.

This does not mean that Jesus now receives the Holy Spirit for the first time. It means that at his baptism the Holy Spirit comes upon Jesus in a new way, to inaugurate his ministry on our behalf. And the first step is that he must face temptation as he will later face the Cross, not because he has to, not because he deserves to, but so that his identification with us will be total, so that the Spirit will not be quenched but will make us new in the power of the victory that is won on the Cross.

1 Peter tells us that Christ "suffered for sins." His temptation was the beginning of the sufferings that would culminate in the Cross. He suffered for sins – not for his own sins, for he had none, but for ours. So in baptism he did not receive the Holy Spirit in order to be saved, but in order to save; and the Spirit drove him into the wilderness so that he would face, on our behalf, the temptation that he did not have to face, and that Satan could not otherwise have dared to inflict. "Christ . . . suffered for sins . . . the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God."

Because Jesus was – and remains – a human being, he was able to identify himself with us in every respect. Because Jesus was – and remains – God, everything he does has an infinite meaning and an infinite power. And that is what Peter is getting at when he goes on to say that Christ "was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit." His death takes place in sphere of the flesh, of his earthly existence in time and history; but in that death is an infinite meaning and an infinite power, so that his resurrection takes place in the sphere of the Spirit, which is unquenchable, indestructible, and eternal.

So the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness to face the temptations that come to the flesh, just as the Spirit will impel Jesus to face the Cross on which he was put to death in the flesh: all so that he could triumph over temptation in the Spirit, so that he could be made alive in the Spirit, so that the infinite power of his triumph and his resurrection could be made available to us, so that he could bring us to God.

And this is why Peter continues as he does. Baptism saves us, he says, not because water has any power in itself, but because the Spirit in whom Christ has been made alive broods over the waters of baptism and incorporates us into "the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him."

Now look again at the beginning of the passage from 1 Peter. I have been skipping a word. He does not merely say "Christ suffered." He says "Christ also suffered." That’s because he has just been talking about our sufferings. He is giving encouragement to the Christians of his own day: yes, you are suffering, but Christ suffered too. And in his sufferings Christ won a perfect victory, once for all, a victory to which we cannot add, but which we can claim for ourselves if we have been incorporated into the resurrection of Christ through the waters of baptism.

This is what Lent ought to be about. I sometimes hear people talking about Lent as though it were all about psychological manipulation. We deprive ourselves for a while so that when Easter comes, we’ll feel more joyful. We inflict petty sufferings on ourselves – giving up chocolate or what have you – so that when Easter comes, we’ll get a nice feeling of relief. But we do not suffer in Lent in order to play mind games on ourselves. We suffer in Lent so that we can identify more deeply with Christ, who identified himself so deeply with us. We should not be thinking, "What should I give up for this Lent?" but rather "What is one way in which I need to be conformed to Christ this Lent?"

Jesus was baptized, and I was baptized. And these are the same baptism, because Jesus has identified himself with us so that we can be incorporated into him. The Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness to suffer temptation, and the Spirit drives us, who have been baptized into Christ, into the wilderness of Lent to be formed into a closer likeness of the one who for our sake made himself subject to death, even death on a Cross.

And so, to the Name that is above every Name, to Jesus our Savior and Lord, with the co-eternal Father and Holy Spirit, be ascribed, as is most justly due, all might, dominion, majesty, and power, world without end. Amen.