From Water and Fire

Sunday, January 12, 2025 – Isaiah 43:1-7, Psalm 29, Acts 8:14-17, Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Most Sunday evenings, I have a standing date. Not with a man, but with a Masterpiece, the Masterpiece TV show on PBS that shows British dramas and mysteries, that is. I can’t get enough of them.

I’ve often joked that I want to lead a PBS tour of the U.K. and go to all the sites of my favorite shows: “All Creatures Great and Small,” “Downton Abbey,” “Last Tango in Halifax,” and “Call the Midwife,” among others. Seems I’m not the only one with that idea, as I’ve discovered that WEDU in Sarasota is hosting two travel programs this year to Great Britain to visit show locations. Maybe I’ll get to do that one day.

As you might guess, “Call the Midwife” is a show that focuses on childbirth. It’s set in Nonnatus House, an Anglican convent based in the Poplar district of London’s East End in the late 1950s and 1960s, and they’ve already aired 13 seasons. Each episode features multiple babies being born, and in almost every case, that momentous event begins with what? The breaking of the mother’s water, which signals the start of childbirth.
With that water comes new life.

In the first creation story in Genesis, the Spirit of God hovers over the waters and new life is also born those waters. And in our gospel reading, Jesus rises from the waters of baptism with a new blessing, a new mission, and a new life.

Water has long been associated with rituals of purification. In Judaism, both women and men practiced ritual immersion – men before each Sabbath and women after menstruating.

The Christian practice of baptism of course has its roots not only in these ancient Jewish practices but also in the narratives about John the Baptist at the Jordan river. There’s evidence from Qumran in Palestine that in the first century, Jews used water rituals to signify that the old life was washed away and a new person was born. In fact, John the Baptist was a member of the Qumran community.

In the church, we use baptism to mark the birth of a new Christian. When we’re watching families gather around the baptismal font, and the pastor is cradling that sweet little infant, we don’t usually think about baptism’s connection with death.

But the ritual of going down into the water symbolizes the death of the old person, and the rising up out of the water symbolizes the rebirth of an entirely new being.

We see hints of this when John tells us that Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire. We talked about the power of fire to purify and refine during Advent, but think of it this way, it’s when forest fires clear out dead brush that new seedlings of life have the opportunity to emerge and grow into the light.

Water and fire are powerful facilitators of new life that are, at the same time, frightening. Water drowns and fire burns, but in Isaiah, God promises God’s people that,

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you,
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.

Why should the people not fear?

God says, “for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine.”

Redemption is another one of those words we hear all the time and may misunderstand. Think of it like your drycleaning or the coat you gave to the check clerk. If you want to regain your possessions, you have to give the clerk a ticket that “buys back” your goods from the one holding them. The ticket identifies the item as belonging to you. God’s voice is like that ticket.

When God’s voice calls us by name, there is no power in the world that can break that relationship. Jesus heard that voice at his baptism. It said, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” God called Jesus by name. God called Israel by name.

And God calls each one of us by name.

Being called by name means that you have been redeemed. You have been bought back by God and released from whatever was holding you captive.

We are each called by name in the waters and the fire of baptism and we have each been redeemed. That means that come the fires of hell or high water, we are loved and we belong to God. In baptism, God tells us, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine.”

[I then sang the song “You Are Mine,” by David Haas, that you can listen to below.]