 Good evening. I Am Jamie Pitts as Sarah said and I want to give a special. Thank you to Sarah. That's the best introduction. I've ever had I Should have asked you to blurb my book. Wow I Wanted to do something a little bit different than a Sermon or a lecture And so Janine and I collaborated on kind of a worship experience So we thought this was appropriate since it's the opening session and I'm going to talk about baptism So you're going to be immersed. Hopefully and I do invite you into Into an immersive experience into the immersion in the Holy Spirit and I'm going to come up four times and give short meditations That'll be intertwined with scripture and song and some different actions that you'll find out about so We're very excited. So again, I invite you into this place of meditation This week's theme of seeing Jesus trades on the common use of visual metaphors for human knowledge in the Bible these metaphors are perhaps pushed to their furthest extent in John's gospel Where Jesus is portrayed as the light to come into the world So that we might believe But these visual metaphors can be found throughout our canon From Psalms and Proverbs for instance, we get the familiar language About God's word being a lamp unto our feet and all four gospel writers relate Jesus's healing of the blind To faith and discipleship Beyond the Jewish and Christian traditions Hindus celebrate Diwali the festival of lights during the darkest part of the year And mystical Muslims meditate on the ayaat's anur the light verse that describes the law as all-knowing divine light When 18th century philosophers one of the signal their devotion to reason they raised up the banner of enlightenment in Daily speech we reference light bulbs going off in our heads We say that we see when we understand something and at times we ask one another to gain Perspective on a situation or to try to see things through a different lens When we ask Jesus to help us to see and We ask for help so that we might see Jesus We are employing metaphorical language for human knowledge Our primary concern in other words is neither the physical state of our eyes nor the reception of a vision of Jesus We may hope for and welcome these more literal scenes But I would suggest that our request for vision Express as a deeper longing to know Jesus and to know the world as Jesus knows it furthermore the knowledge we seek is not simply an accumulation of facts but an intimate relationship with incarnate love and a loving Lovely way of being in the world that emerges out of that relationship In short when we ask Jesus to help us see and Ask to see Jesus. We are asking to be disciples of Jesus and Thus to have our way of understanding and acting in the world transformed So these comments may be enough to justify my turning your attention in this initial session to baptism Anabaptists after all understand baptism as the gateway into discipleship a Declaration of the world and pledge to the church of our intention to follow Jesus as part of the disciplined community of believers Moreover the fourth century Cappadocian theologian Gregory Nat Ciancis wrote of baptism as an illumination That sheds upon the baptize the light of knowledge of God's will Therefore we can and tonight we will reflect on how undergoing baptism is Crucial to the process of coming to see Jesus for help with our sight as Well as to the process of learning to see Jesus yet there is a more direct connection between sight and Baptism and Mark's account of Jesus's baptism As Sunita read Mark says that just as Jesus was coming up out of the water He saw the heavens torn apart and the spirit descending like a dove on him This vision together with the father's words of affirmation Then propelled Jesus into a period of wilderness testing and from there to his mission of an announcing and Incarnating the good news of God's reign Through the power of the Holy Spirit So if we are going to ask how baptism Sights and seeing Jesus are related we might then inquire into how we baptized disciples Might see what Jesus saw at his baptism We might investigate the significance of our own baptisms for how we see and how we see Jesus in particular We might ask what happens to us when we go under the water How is it that we too through baptism can see the spirit descending? Empowering us to survive the wilderness and Join Jesus's mission. I Explore these questions tonight in a series of short meditations that tie together various threads of biblical systematic and historical Theologies At the heart of my reflections are three biblical passages The first which we've just heard is Mark's narration of Jesus's baptism This passage gives us insight into a biblical theology of baptismal seeing At baptism we come to see as Jesus saw at his baptism As I've indicated we have come to see the heavens open the spirit come down and This thing transforms us and launches us into ministry In order to answer the question about what happens to us in baptism About what happens under the water that enables us to see differently. I Look to a second passage Which is Colossians chapters 1 and 2 and I'll read these back to front Colossians 2 describes baptism as a process of being buried with Christ In his death and then being raised to new life with him in his resurrection In this new life, we are free from the rulers and authorities who previously condemned us and We are now able to discern with wisdom. What is proper? conduct doctrine and ritual as This new life as a sharing in the resurrection life of Christ We must look to to the depiction of the exalted Christ in Colossians 1 It is this exalted Jesus I contend That we see through baptism and this vision of Jesus transforms our vision of everything Finally the third biblical passage I consider is the story in Exodus 14 of the Israelites Crossing the Red Sea interpreters have long used the Exodus story as a baptismal metaphor In here, I want to draw attention to how our deadly submersion under the water is at once a liberative passage through the water In light of the use of Exodus by African American composers of spirituals and black and Latin American liberation theologians This story can help clarify How baptismal seeing Transforms on a social and material level as well as a personal and spiritual level Seeing Jesus with baptismal eyes is to see the ongoing slavery and oppression That characterizes our world to see paths to liberation and to begin to tread those paths with Jesus In the Spirit's power This emphasis on concrete liberation brings us back to Mark's gospel Which shows Jesus freeing a wide variety of captives and inviting his disciples to do the same We who have gone under the water share this invitation We who through baptism have been given a vision of the Spirit and the resurrected Lord Jesus Can see the world anew And seeing it anew we know it differently and may act in it differently So that every captive might be freed every broken body healed and every despairing spirit restored So we say help us to see Jesus Help us to see Jesus We can imagine the fleeing Israelites crowded up against the Red Sea as Pharaoh's armies descended upon them panic sets in doubt Why had Moses why had Yahweh brought them out here just for them to be killed Now with our safe Retrospective gaze we can ask why did they not just trust Yahweh? Were these not the same people who had seen Yahweh rain plague after plague after plague upon Egypt until Pharaoh let them go Were these not the same people who had seen Yahweh's terrible Passover guarantee their escape Were these not the same people who had since been accompanied by a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire Shouldn't they have been confident that there between an army in the sea Yahweh would rescue them again We might further ask why they weren't a little bit more pragmatic and just swam for it At least the water would have given them some options a possibility of escape from sword and spear or so we might think Aside from the technical problems of swimming across a large body of water on a mass with Elders and small children There is also the problem that the sea in the Hebrew imagination was hardly a benign or even a neutral force The sea was the place of raging storms and deadly chaos of the deep the Tehum or abyss from which there was no return For the Israelites that day the water offered no hope no respite from their imminent demise at the hands of Pharaoh's army Better they thought to have remained slaves in Egypt than to perish in the wilderness The New Testament image of baptism as a death or a burial partake of a similar watery imagination and Baptism we are drowned our lives undone in the deep waters Given that for the early Christians baptism Signaled a radical transition from one form of life to another it was indeed a kind of death The baptismal waters to or to be feared which may help explain why over time lengthy Catechetical processes came to come before baptism You don't want to enter those waters unadvisably Exorcism fasting training in the Christian life and doctrine were taken as necessary precautions and preparations For many and a Baptist baptism has become a mandatory rite of passage that is often devoid of significant meaning But perhaps some of us can recall a sense of anxiety as we awaited baptism a sense of uncertainty and fear Perhaps we somewhat like the Israelites wondered if we weren't doing it just fine before we approached waters edge Thank you very much If maybe that old way of life wasn't comfortable enough after all if maybe that old way of seeing wasn't clear enough after all Such hesitations would have been appropriate in the build-up to what amounts really to a death ritual Even a life of brutal exploitation and enslavement can though not always be preferred to certain death our life instincts Kick in and we will do almost anything for a few more gasp of air No matter how bitter and polluted it may be both Moses and John the Baptist offer assurances of God's Deliverance against the appearance of impending demise Do not be afraid Moses declares Yahweh will fight for you Repent John calls the one who is endowed with the Holy Spirit of God is coming In each case deliverance comes by entering the waters Faith is required trust that new liberated life is to be found by going under the water By entering the place of death And so Moses stretches out his hand over the sea And so Jesus comes from Nazareth of Galilee To the Jordan And so we stand at the edge Looking over the baptismal waters Preparing for our burial As those of us who have lost loved ones to drowning know Going underwater it can be perilous Without proper equipment we eventually run out of air and our hearts stop beating After several minutes of oxygen deprivation our brains die And resuscitation from brain death is unlikely Hypothermia inhalation of fluids and collapsed lungs or other other deadly dangers of the deep sea I dwell on these macabre realities because they seem to be more or less what the Pauline author has in mind When depicting baptism as a watery burial site In Colossians chapter 2 verses 11 through 15 The author uses three images To portray the transition from death to new life in christ The first image is that of circumcision Just as that ritual removes old flesh Life in christ requires the removal of the body of flesh Of our former identifications and habits Second comes the image of baptism just as we are buried with christ in baptism So are we raised with christ through faith in the power of god Third just as the previous regime of rulers and authorities had condemned and executed us For our many trespasses So we are now forgiven and restored to life by god Who has disarmed mocked and triumphed over those rulers and authorities Our burial and baptism therefore Is likened to a painful mutilation of the flesh And to execution Under the water is pain and terror Short of death or blackout Visual impairments underwater is far less scary Yet potentially quite serious in its implications When human beings with healthy eyes are submerged underwater They become extremely farsighted That is they are unable to focus on anything in their immediate vicinity The eye is unable to focus underwater because water is denser than air and so light passes through it more slowly When light rays hit the eye underwater the cornea The first part of our eye Is unable to refract or bend The light rays into a focus point on the retina which is the back of our eye Instead of a crisp clear image Our brain receives a blurry muddled mess We may misjudge or misrecognize the president presence Of heavy objects or predators And we may come into harm's way Added to that challenge is the fact that the deeper we go underwater the more colors are filtered out First reds Then yellows and greens and violets and then finally blues At a certain point all is dark dangers unseen Whether through brain death or visual distortion Going underwater undoes our normal way of seeing At the very least our vision goes out of focus Since our sense of space depends in large part on sight we become disoriented And since our sense of touch is intertwined with our vision We have trouble physically interacting with our surroundings Not to mention the fact that we're underwater and we're moving much more slowly than we normally would At the further extreme of course we lose all vision As our life functions ebb away With these realities of underwater vision in mind We can reflect on their consequences for our connection Of visual metaphors to baptism Recall that vision metaphorically represents knowledge Both genuine knowledge of the world and saving knowledge of god We talk about jesus's light in other words not because he travels in a vacuum at a certain constant speed Or because he simultaneously displays the properties of particles and waves Rather we talk about jesus's light because he makes vision or knowledge of the truth possible If lights and vision are distorted and extinguished underwater then metaphorically speaking So too is our knowledge of god and world For the israelites their knowledge of god was determined by their long enslavements under the egyptians As we've seen even when yaoi had provided it for them repeatedly On the edge of the water they were yet filled with doubt Many biblical scholars contend that it was only through the liberating experience of the exodus That the israelites came to affirm yaoi as creator god The liberating god is the creator god That vision of god was learned only by responding in faith To god's call and going through the water As the israelites journeyed on from the red sea toward the promised land They learned that this vision of god Entailed a new way of seeing the world a new way of understanding it a new way of acting in it They would embody god's liberation liberation promise They would embody god's hospitality and justice The israelites entered the water And they found that it had that it had been parted They walked on dry land Their passage through the water changed their vision of god and of the world it changed them in their way of being in the world jesus approached john the baptist and entered the jordan river Leaving basat behind his artisans work and emerging with a vision of the spirit that led him into an itinerant ministry We enter the baptismal waters Where our vision is undone Distorted and finally blotted out Only then Are we prepared to see what is next? The early third century north african theologian Tertullian is often remembered for his ethical severity And sober-mindedness That memory is somewhat undermined by his weird and wonderful treatise called on baptism This treatise includes the speculation that Since matter catches the qualities of whatever overhangs it Water is holy because it catches the holiness of the holy spirit Who hovered over it or over hung it at creation? If you know what that means, please come and tell me at some point Although according to tertullian shady founts Unfrequented brooks and water sources used in pagan rituals Can be corrupted by the evil spirits that linger near them Invoking god's name over any water calls down the holy spirit For a fresh impartation of holiness Thus sanctified holy waters can be used to cleanse And sanctify the spiritually stained human soul in baptism Here tertullian uses the principle that spiritual matter can cleanse spiritual matter Tertullian is also to elucidate this draws an analogy between the angel at the pool of Bethesda in john chapter five And the holy spirit at the baptismal font Just as the angel was sent by god To heal the sick through their immersion into The water of the pool So the holy spirit is sent to the baptismal waters for our salvation We may find tertullian speculations confusing or perhaps amusing But we should pay close attention to his baptismal theology And when I say we should pay close attention, I mean us We in a baptist We inheritors of a baptismal theology that is very very different from tertullians Although tertullian himself Experienced a dramatic conversion in his treatise on baptism. He does not emphasize as we might The decision of believers to signal their faith decision publicly What then does he emphasize First that baptism partakes of the goodness of god's creation Had the spirit not hovered over the waters at creation Then water would not be a suitable material for baptism But since the spirit did hover over the waters of creation all water may be sanctified And it may be used to sanctify in baptism Second tertullian emphasizes that what happens when we wash in the baptismal waters Is the work of god through the holy spirit Although he says some strange things about the spiritual capacities of water Ultimately, it is not for tertullian the water that saves us But rather it is god working through the spirit in baptism In the waters To cleanse us from sin to heal and renew us To restore us to the image of god And to overcome death Tertullian's baptismal theology Can be put simply that god gives us a gift in baptism The water itself is a gift as is the holy spirit and the transformation wrought in us by the holy spirit I say that we and a baptist need to hear this because we have inherited a baptismal theology That often emphasizes only our decision to be baptized In order to fulfill christ's command and to testify to our intent to follow him Obedience to christ and public witness are laudable and right reasons to seek baptism But they are not the only reasons The other reasons concerned what god has promised to do To us in baptism This language of god promising to do something to us in baptism Probably makes us nervous It sounds a lot like the catholic teaching that the sacraments work no matter what No matter the holiness of the ordained person who is administering them No matter the holiness of the believer who is receiving them 16th century and a baptist leader pilgrim marpec Also rejected this no matter what teaching Yet he also insisted that it was possible to unite the inner meaning of baptism with its external form If he argued we come to baptism with a desire For it with the desire to be cleansed and saved by god as we go under under the water Then we can emerge transforms by god This transformation occurs not because of the strength of our own desire Which itself is a gift from god But because god will meet us under the water Pulling us down into our grave And then raising us up out of the water into new life Like torturions marpecs baptismal theology has it that god gives us a gift in baptism if we will receive it The gift given to the israelites was the concrete gift of liberation from slavery A new liberated form of life is encapsulated in the Torah And the hope for and journey toward the promised land To jesus rising out of the waters of the jordan Was given the vision of the torn heavens and the spirit descending As well as the voice of the father affirming and confirming Jesus's identity as his chosen beloved messiah That vision and voice as we've discussed Then provides the foundation of jesus's ministry And what about us? I presume that all of us here have been baptized That any of us experience radical political liberation upon baptism In baptism did we come to see how we are entangled in the exploitation of humans Other animals and indeed the entire natural order Did god liberate us from these entanglements giving us a new way of seeing Did we see the spirit and hear the voice of god Where we launched into wilderness testing in spirit empowered ministry Perhaps those things happened to one or two of us No, okay But I imagine that for most of us immediately before and after baptism life was not dramatically different In colossians two and elsewhere in the new testament Baptism is understood as the initiation of a process of discipleship For which we together as the church must take collective responsibility The author of colossians does contend that something has objectively changed in baptism We have been buried And raised into a new life in christ Our sight has been ruined and renewed Presumably christians failure to fully to fully embrace the baptismal life Is worthy of condemnation and may even lead us to doubt whether or not we are truly baptized Truly delivered from slavery into the liberated life Yet colossians author focuses on the objective transformation brought about by baptism In order to encourage believers to righteousness to spur us on to a right seeing of and acting in the world In light that seeing is in light of our participation In christ's resurrection life Resurrection life is our baptismal gift from god When we climbed out of the river or the pool or the bathtub Or we raised our heads after water was poured or sprinkled onto it We received the possibility of a new way of seeing god in world We received the possibility of a restoration of our vision Insofar as this vision this vision occurs in and through solidarity with the risen christ We see what he sees Including the spirit The holy spirit that descended upon him after his baptism Insofar as the spirit empowers us to join in jesus's ministry of life and freedom To be in solidarity with jesus's mission of liberation We too see jesus We see both the relevant contours of his earthly life that are told in the four gospels And we see as well his exalted risen form As the author of colossians hymns In the first chapter of that book We might say indeed that it is our vision of jesus in the life that vision makes possible That constitutes that is the very stuff of the resurrection life we receive at baptism It's our vision of jesus in the life it makes possible That is our resurrection life To see an ordinary human being Living his life in abandonment to god's liberated reign gives us a model to follow And the confidence to know that liberation is possible To see that the risen christ has triumphed over every power that would keep us in bondage And indeed that every throne dominion ruler and power along with everything else Were in fact created Through him and for him This vision strengthens our resolve And paves the way for our discipleship We see that all things hold together in christ And so we know that in some sense jesus shaped ways of being in the world or the most natural ways of all We see that christ is the head of the church and so we know that the calling We know what is the calling and purpose of our communities and we lead them with hope We see that in christ god reconciled all things To god's own self And so we strike out on bold peace making missions inspired by jesus's life and ministry In baptism we received This gift of vision This resurrection life And so to paraphrase colossians 2 7 We continue to live our lives in christ Rooted and built up and established in the faith Just as we were taught Abounding in thanksgiving This vision is glorious And yet we know that the journey it initiates is very very long For the israelites included 40 years of wandering in the desert before they reached the promised land Jesus received baptism by a prophet of the promised land john the baptist with his locus and honey And yet jesus spent 40 days in the desert before beginning a ministry that ultimately led to his execution We know all too well that the joyful life of baptismal Liberation Encounters many obstacles and many objections The new testament authors call us back to our baptisms So that we might remember what it was like To stand at the edge of the water And doubt god's provision To remember what it was like to be plunged into the watery deep And to have our vision blurred And blotted out They call us to recall and recover The gift of restored vision Of resurrection life So that we might see jesus And by seeing jesus we might see And live in the world anew