January 5: Step Into the River
♫ Music:
Theophany Eve
The Baptism of Jesus
Matthew 3:13-17
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
The Baptism of Christ
by Malcolm Guite
Beginning here we glimpse the Three-in-one;
The river runs, the clouds are torn apart,
The Father speaks, the Spirit and the Son
Reveal to us the single loving heart
That beats behind the being of all things
And calls and keeps and kindles us to light.
The dove descends, the spirit soars and sings
‘You are belovèd, you are my delight!’
In that quick light and life, as water spills
And streams around the Man like quickening rain,
The voice that made the universe reveals
The God in Man who makes it new again.
He calls us too, to step into that river
To die and rise and live and love forever.
STEP INTO THE RIVER
Our poet and lyricist pair, Malcolm Guite and Steve Bell, point us to the God in Man, the Three-in-One. Certainly the hovering of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove in the center of Piero della Francesca’s painting invites the viewer into the Heavenly disclosure of Jesus’ identity that Scripture attests to, “This is my Beloved Son.” Yet “as water spills and streams around the Man like quickening rain” it is the here-ness of this man that strikes us. His feet are planted on a path inviting us to join him in baptism. We can do so because he has fulfilled all righteousness. Jesus prophetically identifies himself with Israel in responding as the elect one to the Baptizer’s call to repentance. This man’s solidarity with fellow humans in their plight of sin, rebellion and distance from God is the disposition of love that takes him, in that same obedience to righteousness, to his own death on the cross. He opens the way for us who follow. As Salisbury Cathedral’s cruciform baptismal font makes visually clear, Christian baptism is about death to self in repentance, and conversion to live for God in newness of life. Baptism is, for Jesus, and for us, an invitation to die to self and live to love. And so necessarily baptism is about bodies.
Bodies baptized, bodies submitted to water, placed in the hands of another. I write from a cultural context where our bodies are increasingly tools for our own self-presentation – the selfie culture, the mirror shot. The successful can glibly satisfy bodily appetites through consumer and social power, the gourmet meal and the one night stand. Our bodies are no longer just our bodies, but projects to be worked on, identities to be airbrushed, walking visual resumés of power or failure. We love and loathe our bodies. We feed and starve. We caress and sculpt. And from this cultural lens we can look at The Baptism of Christ and wonder at percentage body fat and muscle tone. We can find ourselves seeing the perfect body because we have been taught to look aspirationally at others, or in the mirror in search of such. If della Francesca paints Christ and we see a ripped white dude we may be being called to confess our problems with bodies, our own and those of others. A grinding imagery processes the world by comparison and competition so that some bodies display favor and privilege and others must fade, fail, or conform. Some bodies, we are told, or we tell ourselves, are more righteous than others.
Where is your body as you contemplate being called to step into the river? How do you see your body with Jesus’ body? Do you need to hear of Jesus’ solidarity in and with your humanity in his baptism, an affirmation of the life and forever love that his Spirit empowers you to live, out of your baptism? Or do you need to hear the Baptizer’s words “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn3:30)? Dying to self in a body-obsessed culture may mean dying to the careless inhabiting of privilege that embodied life confers, or a liberation and empowerment to resist the disembodying forces that oppress and deny life and agency, welcoming the Spirit’s kindling into light. One baptism unites the Christian church to one Lord. As our bodies share in this memory of a physical surrender and claiming by God, how do we stand, figuratively and literally, like Jesus and John, side by side, learning from the three accompanying angels, hand in hand?
Prayer
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, may we, by your divine grace and empowerment so live in our bodies today to recognize our fellow humans. May we repent of our overlooking, our looking away, and our excessive looking, and may we resolve to lovingly walk into the frame of embodied lives around us, in their difference, frailty, awkwardness, and even wickedness. Show us how, again today, to step into the river, through death to life, so as to inhabit, by your gift, your love for others.
Amen.
Andy Draycott
Associate Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies
Talbot School of Theology
Video: Saint John the Baptist From Birth to Beheading, Episode #7
About the Video:
John the Baptist: From Birth to Beheading is a series of 10 films sharing the highlights of the collaborative course taught by Dr Jennifer Sliwka, Howard and Roberta Ahmanson Fellow in Art and Religion at the National Gallery, and Professor Ben Quash, Director of the Centre for Arts and the Sacred, King's College London. John the Baptist earned his name from his baptism of Christ on the banks of the River Jordan. This act marked the beginning of Christ's ministry, when he began to travel, preach and perform miracles. In this video, art historian Jennifer Sliwka and theologian Ben Quash visit Salisbury Cathedral and the spectacular font designed by William Pye to discuss the significance and symbolism of baptism, before returning to the National Gallery to see Adam Elsheimer's, The Baptism of Christ (1599) and the great Italian Renaissance masterpiece by Piero della Francesca, The Baptism of Christ (1450s).
To view additional videos: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/channel
The National Gallery of Art in Trafalgar Square, London, was founded in 1824. It houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. Its collection belongs to the people of the United Kingdom and is one of the best and most visited art museums in the world.
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/
The Baptism of Christ
Pierro della Francesca
Egg tempera on poplar, 1450s
National Gallery of Art, London, England
About the Artist and Artwork:
Piero della Francesca (1415-1492) was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. To contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Today, Piero della Francesca is chiefly remembered for his paintings. His art is known for its serene humanism and its use of geometric forms and perspective. The Baptism of Christ is the central section of a polyptych. It may be one of Piero's earliest extant works. The altarpiece was painted for the chapel of Saint John the Baptist in the Camaldolese Cathedral of Piero's native town, Borgo Sansepolcro. The town, visible in the distance to the left of Christ, may be Borgo Sansepolcro. The walnut tree next to Christ is a symbol of his coming crucifixion.
About the Music:
“Epiphany On The Jordan”
Lyrics:
The heavens split and the water spilled
And streamed around that man like a quickening rain,
A quickening rain.
The Word behind all worlds revealed
That God in man makes everything new again,
New again.
This Word of God to his beloved
Has settled on me like a dove.
He calls us too to step into that river,
To die and rise to life and love forever.
So graciously extends to me, a sinner,
To tread the sacred waters of
This mystery of love.
About the Composer/Performer:
Steve Bell (b. 1960) has been called a “songwriter, storyteller, and troubadour for our time.” This Canadian musician uses artful word and song to encourage Christian faith and thoughtful living. Bell has been performing and touring since he was eight years old. Since Steve’s father was a prison chaplain, it was federal prisoners at Drumheller Penitentiary in Alberta who taught the young boy to play guitar. Mr. Bell has released 18 albums including two Christmas albums. In addition, Bell has earned numerous awards including two JUNO Awards and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.
www. stevebell.com
About the Poet:
Malcolm Guite (b. 1957) is a poet, author, Anglican priest, teacher, and singer-songwriter based in Cambridge, England. He has published four collections of poetry: Saying the Names, The Magic Apple Tree, Sounding the Seasons: Poetry for the Christian Year, and The Singing Bowl. His writing has been acclaimed by Rowan Williams and Luci Shaw, and his Antiphons appeared in Penguin’s Best Spiritual Writing 2013. Guite’s theological works include What Do Christians Believe? and Faith, Hope, and Poetry: Theology and the Poetic Imagination. He is a scholar of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and the British poets and serves as Bye-Fellow and chaplain at Girton College at the University Cambridge, supervising students in English and Theology and lecturing widely in England and America. Guite plays in the Cambridge rock band Mystery Train, whose albums include The Green Man and Dancing through the Fire.
www.malcolmguite.wordpress.com