Day 36 - Fire and Chaff

My sermon reading 1/13/13: Isaiah 43:1-7;  Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Last week I said the readings for worship since Advent provide hints or pieces of the answer to the question, “Why did Jesus come to earth?” Today we shall think about the baptism of Jesus in the light of that question. 

Did you ever wonder why Jesus the Son of God was baptized?

When you read these words of John the Baptist about gathering the grain and throwing the chaff into the fire, what do you think?  Your answer really depends a lot on your religious heritage. If you are of a more Pentecostal bent or come from a Baptist tradition like me, you may think of some of the old fire and brimstone preachers you heard challenging you to repent or risk burning in the fire of Hell.

Presbyterians, and for that matter all of the reformed faith, believe baptism is the sign of new birth, we have discarded the old clothes of death and put on the new clothes of life as begin a Christian life. Presbyterians might also say some of us are elected to receive that grace and others the fire of Hell. 

I’m not going to argue with John Calvin on predestination for at least two reasons, first I’m not presumptuous enough to know if you or I are elected or not; and second, like Paul I know that no matter how clearly I know the good thing to do, I will do what is bad.

Baptism is a sign of our redemption from that inescapable reality of sin. Our strength in Baptism opens the way for the Holy Spirit to come to us and seal our redemption.

Think about it like this. If I have the option to choose to be saved, then may be I don’t need Jesus, I can do it own my own. But if I accept the fact that I am a totally lost person and can do absolutely nothing to be saved; the freely given gift of God’s grace of salvation and redemption through Christ takes on very great power and meaning as an unmerited gift.

 The traditional way we describe this gift is to say God has reckoned us righteous in spite of our sin; he has justified us.  To reckon someone righteous means regardless of guilt, before there even is a trial God has dismissed the charges and said, “I make you righteous.” That is what he did to Abraham. When Abraham obeyed the Lord he was reckoned righteous for his faith alone.

That is quite a gift and obligation that I am not sure we can fully understand unless we find an answer to the question, “Why did Jesus come to earth?”

Sometimes we don’t really appreciate that Jesus came to earth as a complete human being. We think he is really God and God can do anything. God could have blessed us with the grace of salvation with no more than a willful thought or wave of the hand…

Why did God work in this way, come to earth in the complete form of a human and suffer our life of temptations, compassion, mean-spirited urges and death? Why did Jesus come to earth as a human? I suggest to you that it is tied up in God’s declaration, “It is very good.” In Genesis after all, when he created us he said it was very good.  That sounds really close to the words from heaven at Jesus’ baptism, “You are my Son with you I am well pleased.”

We can see the baptism of Jesus as a validation of that blessing at our original creation. Baptism is a sign of redemption for humankind accomplished by the ultimate human experience of the death by crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.  It is a sign of our justification as one of God’s beloved children, the gift of grace of salvation.

Let me explain it this way. Paul’s remark about knowing what is right strikes at the heart of what baptism means. Baptism is more than a sign of redemption and justification of righteousness in the face of that sin. Being reckoned righteous is Jesus walking up to you and saying, “I just wrote your name in the book of life and now that I have reckoned you a compassionate, righteous person, go act like it.” Our obligation when we put on those new clothes - when we are reborn – is to seek something called sanctification.   That is what the great commission speaks to the disciples: 

Matt. 28:19-20 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (NOTE: There are only 2 commandments – what are they?)

A Story about Justification and Sanctification

In my spare time, which I find very little of lately, I build furniture and work on our house. When I need to I can rewire an old circuit if it is simple or run a new one. I can repair the end of rotted roof rafters, install a gutter, rough in a doorframe or an interior wall or even build my own kitchen cabinetry.

I’m not bragging though because I would never call myself a carpenter or electrician, I’m only good enough to get in trouble. In fact every time I look at one of my pieces of furniture, I see an edge that should have run differently, or a less than perfect gaps on that cabinet door. I see my mistakes that most folks don’t ever see.

I picked up these skills over the years. I lived in Pittsburgh thirty or so years ago while I was working as a metallurgist for Alcoa. I bought my first house, a wood-framed two-story structure about a hundred years old. It was framed out of 2x4 hemlock two stories tall. If you know anything about old houses, you know I bought a project. That is where I started practicing on rotten roof rafters, roofing and tile work. Like many of you who a lot better at it than I am, when something needs to be done, I just go out and do it.

I hadn’t thought a lot about that old house until this past December. My oldest son who I love dearly is a “starving artist-type.”  That means under-employed, but finally he has found a way to purchase a house. For him, buying a house means buying a fixer upper - a serious fixer-upper. It reminded me how I learned to work on old houses.

He called to ask, “Dad, can you come down to Atlanta and help me assess what needed to be done on my house? Dad, I don’t want you to do the work l want to do it myself, but I don’t know much about carpentry or electrical work and I’m really not very confident tackling what needs to be done. If you could come down and help, show me how to do things and what tools I need, and maybe loan me some of your tools, then I can learn from you, ask you for advice when I’m in a bind, and do the rest myself.”

After I got down off cloud number 9 from where that complement sent me, and packed away my pride, I thought about how what he said so mirrors sanctification.

I realize I had absolutely no choice about being born in Akron, Ohio or growing up in Rome, GA where my father grew up, no choice to be born in a poor family barely a generation removed from poor, working farms or even of being on this green earth at all. Who I am, where I am, is all beyond my control. God put us here for his reasons.

Two of my blessings are my father and mother. My dad, long deceased, worked as an electrician with his stepfather early in his youth. His stepfather was the first one who didn’t work on a farm but they were still poor. Granddad and my tag-along Dad did most of the work that needed to be done. By the time my dad was an adult, he never hesitated to tackle a problem on our home. When he wanted to convert our duplex into a single family home he learned to build a roof truss in the attic so he could tear out a load-bearing wall and not have the ceiling fall.

My confidence came from watching my Dad do it. I learned not so much techniques as confidence in the face of challenge.  And now, here I have my son calling with the confidence he can do it, if I’ll help him learn.

 That confidence to do what needs to be done is what being reckoned righteous means -justification. I realized I could watch my Dad, or find the information in a book and then start trying it by myself.  My first few projects were not ready for Country Living Magazine or Fine Homebuilding, more likely better for firewood. But with every project my skill improved.

That practice and learning is what sanctification is all about, watching fellow Christians do good things; reading about how Jesus lived his life as a model for us; and practice, practice, practice. For us, the human catch to being reckoned righteous, of being justified without having any say to it is the hard work of sanctification that follows - unless we want to abuse that gift of righteousness.

Only God Can Do It

Why did Jesus come to earth?   God chose the time, place and human person. It is important is that Jesus came to earth as a human person and felt every positive and negative thought and urge…and experienced our death. This is God’s ultimate statement of our relationship to him, being a comrade in arms with Jesus.

He experienced every trial and temptation we experience but filled with the Holy Spirit, the helper and advocate, he remained sinless and fully sanctified. He promised to leave to us that Holy Spirit that he called our guide, our helper, our defender. Baptism is the mark of that we are justified righteous and empowered by the Holy Spirit with the charge to seek sanctification.

The task before us now is every day to get a little closer to living this life as Jesus lived his.

None of us are the perfect grain of wheat or rice to be plucked and placed in the granary as is. We are not gods. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Sin is the great equalizer. What we can do is work in humility with our fellow travelers seeking to perfect our behavior and thoughts, rubbing our shoulders with the world and breaking off the husks, the chaff and the dirt that cover us until we begin to shine like polished grains of life in the darkness of the world spreading the compassion being made righteousness brings.

We are reckoned righteous… God did that. We can’t say, “Oh today I’m going to be saved.” We can choose to say, “Today I know I am going to stumble, I’m going to forget to measure twice and cut once but with God’s help, the Holy Spirit, I am going to pick myself up from my stumble, hug my neighbor, ask for forgiveness, and begin again to perfect my living as an example of Christ.”

Paul said our path is to seek justice and peace. That is what the Church is about, that is what we are about, that is baptism is about. That is what Jesus being on earth is about - growing in justice and peace honoring the greatest two commandments. Amen.