With Fire

Propers: The Baptism of Our Lord, A.D. 2019 C

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Death, says Paul, is like an infection. It is the physical manifestation of our separation from God. And it spreads from person to person like a virus, corrupting all we touch, bringing all our efforts to naught.

This is what we mean when we speak of Original Sin. It cannot be inherited guilt; that’s simply a poor translation of the Greek. Sins of the father, after all, are not the sins of the son. What we inherit is a weakness, an illness, a brokenness. We are born alienated from the presence of God, separated from goodness and truth and beauty, so that we glimpse these things only in part, reflected as flashes in a fractured mirror.

If Creation were God’s own symphony, the perfect interlacing of innumerable unique voices into one pure flawless harmony, then sin and death are the discordant notes that throw off the consonance of the whole. Bad music corrupts as surely as any disease.

We can grasp these metaphors plainly, for in this fallen world of ours the things of life are all too readily corrupted by death. How easily a simple touch, a single wound, can cause the catastrophic failure of our bodies. How quickly a droplet of disease—a microbe, a parasite—can turn the river of life into a swamp of decay.

Sickness we know. Disease we know. Death we know. And as surely as these are realities deep within our bones, so is the contagion of sin—of pride and wrath, cruelty and lust—a reality deep within our souls. And we cannot root it out, no matter how we try. The patient may fight the disease, indeed must if he hopes to survive, but the cure lies outside of himself, in the healing hands of others, in the medicine he must imbibe.

But imagine now a world in which life is not so fragile. Imagine a world where sin and death, disease and decay, are not the constant bookends of our lives but instead as ephemeral as wisps of smoke, dissipating like shadows before the sun. Look at our world upside-down, and you will see the world as God intends for it to be.

In God’s world, death is not an infection. Life is. It starts as a single drop—a pinch of yeast in the dough, a tiny mustard seed—and it grows and it grows and it grows until it fills all the world around it to bursting with light and joy and song. It spreads like a virus to everything it touches, everything it sees, and rather than corrupting, the life of God transforms. The Holy Spirit enters through the tiniest of cracks, like a spark of purest flame, and then He grows and spreads and burns until all the dross within us is blazed away and the Image of God emerges at last like silver purified in a crucible, like gold refined seven times.

That is your Baptism. You are injected, infected, inoculated with the Love and Life and Light of God, the Spirit of God, the Breath of God. He puts in you something that cannot die, indeed a Spirit who conquers death, and you cannot get Him out. You are promised, by God Himself made flesh, that in these waters, in these flames, you are joined to Christ’s own death already died for you, that you need never fear death again, and to Christ’s own eternal life already begun.

And there may be times in life when that’s hard to believe. There may be times when it seems that Baptism doesn’t make any difference at all, that still we suffer, still we sin. What good is a splash of Word and water when life itself comes crashing down? But that’s tough. Because Baptism isn’t about how we feel. Baptism isn’t about anything that we can say or do.

Baptism is the promise of God, and God does not break promises. Not to you, not to anybody, not to this whole fallen, broken, burning world. Nothing can break the promise of God, not even God Himself. You cannot wash your Baptism off. You cannot extinguish the Spirit inside. And you’d better square with that, buddy, because I’m telling you, He ain’t coming out. He’s in there for good. And sooner or later, that fire will purify you. He will cure you of yourself. And you can fight Him all you like, but in the end God wins.

You cannot stop God from loving you. You cannot stop Him from fulfilling His promise. You cannot ever make God let you go. He has loved you since before time began. We’ve already thrown at Him everything we’ve got—the Cross, the lash, the nails, the spear—violence and hatred and murder and death—and He just got back up. If hell itself cannot stop the love and mercy and grace of God, what chance do you think your paltry sin has? So buckle up, because God’s coming for you.

In His Baptism, Jesus enters fully into the filthy waters of this world, the waters of life and death, of chaos and creation, poisoned as they are with sickness and evil and hatred and sin. And with His simple touch, He burns their impurities away. From now on, anywhere and everywhere that there is water with the Word of God inside, there is Jesus. There is new life. There is God Himself made flesh and bone to meet us in the waters, to breathe us into life.

And the heavens are torn asunder, the chasm cast away, and God is fully revealed here on earth, in these waters: the Word of the Father, the Body of the Son, the wings of the Holy Spirit; all come down for you.

It is spreading even now, this life of God in Christ; like a virus, like a vine, like a fire. At times it may seem hidden, yet it burns all the purer within. His is the spark that will light the entire world aflame—a white-hot drop of infinity fallen into time—that at length the cosmos itself shall be consumed in the fires of love that forge the world anew. And the end will be so glorious as to set all our wrongs aright.

Until that day, we must tend the fires burning, the flame of the Holy Spirit who dwells within our hearts, trusting that no sin, no sickness, no wickedness or death, could ever extinguish this promise of superabundant forgiveness within us. For we are baptized not only in water and Word, but in the Holy Spirit and fire. And if we but let Him shine in us, He will light the whole world with His flame.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.