F
orget about explanations and analogies for the Trinity. Please instead take them hand-in-hand, then walk his students or disciples down a dusty path to the Jordan.
There, among the tall reeds on the bank stands Jesus, who has also just walked there from Nazareth, his feet tired, sore, and dirty.
Jesus wades in ankle-deep. The cool, flowing water is soothing. From here he watches his human brothers and sisters descend one by one, waist-deep, faces drawing near to John the Baptist.
They are entering the water to be cleansed, to repent. Jesus has no need for the cleansing, or the change of heart and mind, and yet here he is, his human face set toward suffering encounter.
Bonhoeffer says that Jesus does not ponder his perfection or feel his superiority but rather expresses solidarity with everyone gathered to be made well, to amend their ways, by—what wondrous love is this?—presenting himself for baptism, too.
As he approaches John, the Baptist recognizes not only the body of his cousin, with whom he played as a child, but Isaiah’s lamb, the One who takes away the sin of the world.
John is reluctant. He does not see why Jesus needs this ritual because he does not see the cross in this watery moment, does not understand that Jesus is already, here In the murky waters of the Jordan, descending into chaos, darkness, and death, taking on himself the sin of the whole world.
For every moment in this story is a story about the cross, and as a story about the cross is also a story about resurrection but only after it is a story about torture.
This is not a God who remains on the banks of the river, uninvolved and aloof from the pain of existence, but who joins us in our predicament, participates without sin in the deaths we each of us bear about in our bodies, especially in the moment of our deaths—all the preparatory ones and the last and final one—is baptized for us and with us.
Unlike the other gods we project and handcraft and make wishes for, this God is a baptized God. He identifies with us so that he might identify us with him.
He also rises out of the waters. He does not stay in the grave. And as he comes up out of the chaos and the darkness, he is in prayer. Perhaps he prays among other things, “Father forgive them.”
And here I want to loudly encourage the catechists, pastors, Sunday School teachers, and theologians of the church: forget your distorting analogies and torturous explanations and help your students and disciples have an *encounter* with the Living God!
Like this:
Jesus comes up out of the cool, flowing, murky waters, and as he prayers, we are told in Matthew, Mark, and Luke that there’s the sound of avionic movement, there are wings, feathers, and mystery as the Holy Spirit “alights” or “rests” on the Son in the body of a dove. Perhaps she rests on his shoulder?
Do you see and hear the rustle of divine wings on the air?
And this is not nearly all.
We are told that the sky is torn, a rip occurs in space-time. And through the tear in existence, there is suddenly a Voice: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
The majestic voice proceeds from the invisible Father who dwells in light so bright no one can approach him. And yet here is his Son with whom he is One God with their Spirit, who does not wait for us to approach him but who has approached us, who touches his human brothers and sisters and heals us, who looks upon us with compassion, who embraces us in suffering, who dies with us, that we might ever live.
The Father and the Spirit *reveal* themselves in this moment that the Son draws near to every human who has ever lived or ever will live, just as they reveal themselves in the transfiguration and at the cross.
The baptism of the human God does not separate Jesus from any other humans, nor any humans from any other humans, but draws every human into Love’s triune fellowship. And this why I trust that the Father is pleased with the Son, as he always is.
Why on earth would you use a symbol when you can *enter* the story of God with humans, the story of God as a human, a human with a Spirit that rests on him, a human with a Father who loves the world so much that he sent him, not to condemn the world but that the world through him might live.
Why make an analogy or explanation when you can live this revelation of the triune Love?
*thanks to Taylor, Drew, Jason, David, Ryan, Josh, and Todd for prompting this from somewhere deep in the Covid-jaded heart of this mere human that sometimes still feels like he has something pressing to say to anyone that might still be listening
Comments