Scripture: Job 37: 1–5, Luke 3:21–22
Friends, spring is coming to Southern New England. We can see it in the crocuses and in the daffodils. We can see it in the mornings when the warm air meets the cool earth and throws off a gentle fog to hydrate the whole world. And we can see it all in the many Christian churches that are proclaiming in this season of Lent the coming celebration of Jesus’s resurrection at Easter.
From the Dark Woods, there are promises of a new life ahead!
One attribute of many churches in this part of the world is the high white church steeples, towers reaching toward the heavens. Christianity is a religion of symbols, and steeples are indeed symbols. A church steeple like the one here at Newman Church is not essential to the building’s structure; it is not a gathering place or a holy site. Yet it is symbolic of the church’s aspirations to be different, to be a place of high-soaring liberty, aspiring to a different kind of life.
One unintended consequence, however, of New England church steeples being the highest point in their towns is the occasional vulnerability of steeples to being struck by lightning. Because of this, church steeples are “grounded” by special steel cables, so that when they are struck by lightning, the surge of powerful energy from the sky runs down the cable and safely into the earth, leaving the steeple intact.
In many ancient traditions, lighting and thunder are depicted as the voice or presence of a God. God in the reading from the Book of Job is made manifest in the power of a thunder storm.
It says: God lets loose his lightning to the corners of the earth and roars with a majestic voice. God does not restrain the lightning when his voice is heard.1
This is an image of God finding expression in nature’s power. In a sense, our encounter with scripture should always be powerful compelling like lightning. Each week, here in this sanctuary, beneath a beautiful steeple, we should find support, rest, healing, and comfort in the texts of our faith, but we should also be shocked and motivated by the power of a challenging message, charged like lightning shooting to the corners of the Earth.
Perhaps we should all aspire to be like the steeple, positioned to attract the lightening, but grounded so that we can channel the inspiration of God without being overwhelmed or harmed by it.
Yesterday at an event hosted by the Rhode Island Council of Churches, our Southern New England Conference Minister, Rev. Darrell Goodwin, spoke on a panel2 about how we can embrace and cultivate our healthy Christian identities in this time when many are increasingly using a skewed and exclusive form of Christianity to wield power in the United States — something that Christianity, a counter-cultural religion of good news for the poor, the meek, the bereaved, the hungry, the peacemakers, was never intended to be.
Rev. Goodwin is a prophetic speaker; the calls to action that he posed to Christians in Rhode Island included enhancing our scriptural grounding, embracing Christian language in new ways, and learning about our faith so we can act confidently from a position of internal strength.
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In terms of scriptural grounding, an essential piece of scripture is our reading from Luke’s gospel this morning in which Jesus is baptized and the heavens open and God descends in bodily form like a dove. And a voice comes from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
What powerful words: We are connected; I love you; I am pleased.
Sometimes God among us is like a lightening strike; and sometime God among us is the soft landing of a dove. In both cases, we believe that God is still speaking, still revealing new wisdom, and still preparing a future of love for each and every one of us.
This is the truth at the heart of today’s baptism—that we as a community believe that there is something good that we can give to the future, with the help of the tradition of Jesus and those who have come after him, and that we can pass it on by asking Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit to be with the youngest among us, to care for them as they come into their own, to call them deeper into a community of love and belonging, a community which knows them and accepts them because of the unique individual that they are, and the unique individual that they are becoming.
Each one of us is on the way.
Each one of us is on the way, together.
As the season changes and the Dark Woods brighten, we may start to see profound changes among us—it is time to start budding; it is time to start sprouting. The landscape of our Lenten journey through the Dark Woods with Jesus is changing before our eyes. As the spring rains come, help us to avoid the lightning strikes, but allow God’s thunder of love roll and reverberate and go on and on in all of us, forever and ever. Amen.