"A Flood to Destroy All Flesh"

Jesus ... was baptized by John in the Jordan ... The Spirit immediately
drove Him out into the wilderness. And He was tempted by Satan.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Our readings this morning are brief, but no less abundant for that. Together they form a meditation on baptism.

Our short Gospel lesson (to which I have added three verses) sets before us the entire Christian faith:

Believe.
Repent.
Be baptized.

Certainly, the great adventure of our journey to Heaven will normally take a lifetime and inevitably include much more. Yet, these three are the basis for all the rest, and no one might claim to be Christian without them. We understand the terms believe and be baptized well enough, but let us pause for a moment to consider the word repent, whose English meaning is, to regret. The word in Mark's Gospel is actually μετανοειτε (metanoe'ite), which is a command, meaning, "Get a whole new look on life! Make a U-turn!" Its emphasis, you see, is not merely negative (though anyone is bound to feel regret over regrettable things she or he has done). The meaning has more to do with having a change of heart, and we remember the Psalmist's cry, "Create in me a pure heart, O God!" (Ps 51). Metanoe'ite means to go in a whole new direction, to have a new lease on life. St. Augustine, sometimes called the Father of Psychology, understood a deep truth. Whatever we set our mind on, that is the lens through which we see the world. If one's compulsion is alchohol, then one will see the world as a map of bar rooms and a schedule of parties. If one's compulsion is acquiring, then one will see the world as lists of things that must be acquired. If one's compulsion is promiscuity, then one will see the world in terms of bodies and possible "hook-ups." Whatever you want, whatever drives you forward day after day, that is what you will find in the end. Indeed, that is what you will become in the end.

If you want God, then you will find Him everywhere. And if you want Heaven, then will see the way to Heaven all around you. But remember, there is one more layer to consider. Just as there is no worldliness in Heaven — no promiscuous, no materialistic, no drugged or alcoholic spirits — it is just as true that the ways of Heaven are apt to be mocked in this world, even labeled as "hate speech." Those of us sitting here, or hearing this on the worldwide web, are on the earthly stage of our spiritual journeys, and the earth, the world, is adamantly opposed to Heaven and hates God (John 15:18). The world has its own ways, which are diametrically opposed to God's ways: living worldly life is a daily repudiation of God. For God is holy, and to enter into His friendship, one must wash the world and its ways off of oneself; must drive the world out of one's life.

St. Peter, employing allegory, describes the Great Flood of Noah's time as being a story about this washing off of the world. That is, he views the Flood as being an allegory of baptism. Notably, the flood was "to destroy all flesh," as we read in our Old Testament lesson this morning. Reflecting on these lines, Peter writes,

.... eight persons, were saved through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this,
now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God
for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, ...

Now, for the Early Church, baptism was much more than sprinkling a little water on a baby's head on Sunday morning. It was a ritual death. You were completely stripped of your former life. And you entered those waters naked. You were then held under a very long time, and then, at the last, saved from drowning. Stepping out of these cleansing waters, with not one scintilla of your former worldly life attached to you, you were then clothed in white and anointed with perfumed oil. You were then ushered into the congregation, who applauded and congratulated you and embraced you in your holiness, now fit to be part of the Body of Christ.

Is it odd to think of the Great Flood as a figure of baptism? It would not have seemed so to those who witnessed the baptismal movement of St. John the Baptist. For the Gospels report that all the people of Judea and beyond sought out this immersion in water. It was a social tsunmami that swept over the whole lifeworld of Palestine — people seeking to destroy the life-in-the-flesh they had been leading. Oh! that there might be a way to do that! And if the social norms of Judea may be indicated by the official entertainments of the royal household, which included incest, daily drunkenness, and debauchery, we may well believe that Judea was just the place for such a flood. No, I believe it is likely that readers of St. Peter's First Letter would have nodded in agreement in describing the baptism of St. John as a great flood. Moreover, Peter describes another, related event, as being the ultimate baptism of that burning-point moment in history: the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Peter writes,

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the Righteous for the unrighteous,
that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive
in the spirit; in which He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who
formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, during
the building of the ark, ....

And we remember Jesus' question posed to John and James in high irony: "Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" (Mk 10:38). You see Jesus' baptism was not the culmination of St. John's baptism movement; the Crucifixion was.

We might easily understand that a newly baptized, newly clothed, and newly anointed member of the Body of Christ might pray that she or he could step from that shining moment directly into Heaven. But that is not the progression, nor precedent, that we find. Rather, the next step is spiritual warfare. In both the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Matthew, Jesus' baptism is followed immediately (and that urgent word appears in our Gospel lesson this morning), immediately, by an encounter with Satan. And now we see a deeper significance of the oils that follow baptism: they are like unto the anointing of a first-century wrestler applied before the fearful contest. Indeed, the word ascetic, denoting the life of the monk or the nun, originally meant, "to prepare for an athletic contest." Asceticism is a kind of application of oils, for you will now wrestle with the demons. And we recall that the language of our own baptismal vows are heavy-laden with the language of warfare with the Evil One and all his dark forces.

As we begin our first full week of Lent-proper, we must remember that, yes, stripping off fleshly living is an important element of our fast — banishing worldly luxuries or ridding ourselves of the worldly habits that have been dragging us down. But the goal is (of course!) to regret but then to move on from regret, to have a change in outlook, to "rend our hearts, not our clothes," to borrow the Prophet Joel's words. Or as we would say, "to be broken-hearted over the world's brokenness, and not simply glum." For the Lenten practices that God would have us follow are to look upon the world as God does, with a pure heart:

Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of wickedness,
    to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
    and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
    and not to hide yourself from your own [brother]?

Do all of this, Isaiah writes, and you shall, indeed, step into Heaven standing side by side with God:

"Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry, and he will say, Here I am.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.