Fifth Sunday of Easter Sermon

“Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; [but]…where I am going, you cannot come.”[1]

There’s such a sadness in these words. It’s so easy to place ourselves in the story – to be the little children being left behind. My brother Mike remembers when he was very young when our dad would leave for work. He’d watch Dad’s car pull out of the driveway, out of sight. Then Mike would rush down the hall, into our room, and get up on tip-toes to see out the window, to catch a final, fleeting glimpse of dad’s car heading down the street and then out of view, leaving him behind.

Of course, a dad going to work is no betrayal or sin. He was not abandoning Mike. To the contrary, he was providing for Mike. But – oh, little child – how hard it is when you cannot see where the father goes, but only knows the gaping sadness of being left alone.

In Jesus’ case, where was he going that his disciples (his friends) could not follow? The cross, of course, and then the grave. And who’s to know what work – what mission – Christ was doing during those days in the grave: his descent to the dead, his harrowing of hell, his defeat of sin and death? And then his resurrection – those strange forty days: sometimes here, sometimes not; sometimes like us, sometimes not. And then the ascension – Jesus’ return to heaven.

All of this would be Jesus’ experience alone. His time of leading the disciples was ending. Now was the time to journey ahead, where they could not follow. Like Mike, peeping over the windowsill, all they could see and feel is that their Christ (their rabbi, their friend) was heading down the street without them, disappearing ‘round the bend.

And surely, we’ve all felt the disciples’ same lament. How much easier our faith would be if Christ remained here among us, in the flesh. But, honestly, it’s not Jesus’ absence we most relate to in this story. After all, we’ve never known him in the flesh. Faith in Jesus, for us, begins as a set of teaching about him and why his life, death, and resurrection should matter to us. Over time, we may learn to perceive him as the true object and source of our yearnings for wholeness and meaning and intimacy.

But the real similarity we feel with the disciples is our lament for “those we love, but see no longer,”[2] our own beloved dead who have gone ahead of us, into the mystery of the life beyond the grave: our parents, our grandparents, our husbands and wives, our friends – and in the worst occasions (as several of you have known) – our children.

Our theology may assure us of their being “in a better place.” And, indeed, there’s genuine comfort in that. I’ve certainly felt it. But, of course, that place (whatever heaven is), remains entirely unknown to us – for the time being.

And yet, in the church, we have been given a gift that bridges the span between this world and the next; between Jesus and ourselves; between us and those we love, but see no longer; even between faith and doubt.

That gift is baptism – our sacrament – this tangible sign of an intangible grace: theology turned mystery through the palpable presence of water.

What a powerful thing water is. We humans begin life in our mothers’ wombs, suspended in the amniotic fluids. And when the womb opens, water remains the agent of life. Not just for us, but through us. We and all living things join together as God’s universal aqueduct, carrying this water through us – through our bodies, through roots and stems, through gills, through air and soil. Water is moving everywhere: making life, sustaining life, and ferrying that life to others. And, mystery of mysteries, water is also a raging threat. In hurricanes and torrents, in swirling rivers and currents and crashing waves and depths beyond depths, water is death for all who succumb to it. And it is water, too, that cleanses. We yearn to keep things clean and to be made clean ourselves – this intuitive human sensibility for hygiene and beauty and renewal.

Nothing in all of creation has such a role as water does: such power for life, such power for death, such beauty, such necessity. So surely, there is nothing in creation with such power to speak to us of the nature and presence of God: God is life and calls forth life. God sustains life. God redeems life. And – when it is time – it is God who claims life.

And so, it is the fullness of this wonderful mystery of water and God that we bring to baptism:

In these baptismal waters we are born again. The water become as the amniotic fluids, and Christ becomes our mother.

The waters become as a cleansing stream, and we are washed in God’s grace of all that has soiled us.

And the waters become as Christ’s grave and ours – the drowning waters that claim our life, and from which we arise with Christ.

For at the heart of this sacrament is our participation in the mystery that we are given to complete union with God through Christ. We are born anew. We are cleansed. And we are raised to life beyond the grave. As Christ is risen, so too are we, our life to come already begun with him in whom we are now one.

You’ve all noticed, no doubt, that at Easter this year, a new baptismal font appeared at St. John’s – a much larger font than we’d had before. My daydream was for a font large enough to submerge someone completely – a stronger sign of our total renewal in Christ. My compromise was a font large enough to submerge a newborn – which will probably never happen. But at least it’s large enough to pour out a substantial, truly-bath-like amount of water over the person’s head. We’ve been planning this for a long time, and now it’s permanently installed.

It’s made of a natural stone: heavy and substantial and “of the earth.” Cut open and hollowed out, this stone has become like a sepulcher in which Christ was buried, in which we are buried. It is our tomb. And yet, at the same time, its interior is so polished and smooth. With its organic shape, it feels nearly womb-like – a place to be born again. And the water within it is always moving, a perpetual sign of Christ, the living-water, living among us, bringing life and life and life again. When I walk past it during the week, the nave may be empty, but the font is full – full of “living water” that greets me every time.

Our font has been given as a memorial gift by OeSun and Ladd Bacchus in memory of their daughter Kim who died seven years ago from breast cancer. She was only 43 years old and has, like Christ, “gone ahead” where Ladd and Sun cannot yet go.

Kim was raised at St. John’s. Just recently, her mother showed me a photograph of Kim – robed as a young acolyte alongside the bishop at one of his visits. Years later, her funeral was held here. And now, stored within the font’s pedestal, reside some of Kim’s ashes, a relic of sorts. Beside the ashes is an envelope, holding a testimony written by her sister, Stephanie, so future generations at St. John’s can know who she was.

Our font is a perpetual sign of hope that we are joined with Christ in baptism: his death is our death and our death is his. And so, too, has his resurrection already become our own.

And soon [at the 10 o’clock service] we will baptize Elizabeth Carmen Groves, not yet one-year-old. Elizabeth will begin her life in Christ today, with us. And, along with her parents and god-parents, OeSun and Ladd will also stand as sponsors for this new generation of the church, grafted into the life and love of God through Christ.

A baby is too young, of course, to make a commitment of faith. And so the sponsors – her parents and godparents – make commitments on her behalf. There’s nothing strange in this. It’s like all the choices a parent makes for their child when they are young: what they will wear, what they will eat, when they will eat, when they will the sleep… everything. This is how it is with parenting: it is your choices that shape and form and preserve that child’s life. And from what you model they begin – day by day – to make choices for themselves.

Two days ago, I was out walking with my own godson. He’s seven now, but remembers proudly his choice to be baptized two years ago. He brought up some topic of faith. We talked it through and I concluded,  “I believe that,” and he said, “I believe it, too, because you’re my godfather. And you’re a priest.”

What an honor. What an honor: first to believe on another’s behalf. And as they age, to model that belief in such a way that they can trust in it because of who they know you to be. And then for that belief to grow into their own – theirs to discover and choose in the years to come.

Isn’t this the way we’re supposed to live together? Not only in matters of doctrine and belief, but in the greater substance of hope, expressed through love.

“Where I am going,” said Jesus, you cannot come. [But] I give you a new commandment, that you love one another…By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

When we are baptized, we are baptized into the life of Christ which means we are baptized into Christ’s life of love. This is the way we now live.

And along the way, as we continue to choose this life of love and faith, God gives us gifts – little signs, to carry on in hope, that what we’re choosing is real.

It was during our capital campaign several years ago that OeSun and Ladd first said they wanted to donate the new baptismal font. We didn’t have a design yet, just a general concept. We certainly didn’t have a cost estimate. So they made a donation and said, “Let us know if it costs more and we’ll cover it.” So years went by. We found the basin in an import shop. We commissioned the pedestal from a craftsman in Turkey. The Building and Grounds Team installed it. And when all the bills finally came in, we’d overspent by $1,080. So I was writing Ladd an email, telling him what the deficit was, when I stopped and thought, “Wait a minute. Weren’t there other memorial gifts given by friends of Kim’s when she died?” So Kelly looked up the file that tracks memorial funds and saw: there was exactly $1,080 sitting there. Waiting for this. Waiting to become a sacrament unto itself, a tangible sign of an intangible grace: our hope in baptism is real; our hope for Kim is real; our hope for Elizabeth is real. We are made one with Christ. Our death is his death. His resurrection is our resurrection. And the life to come has already begun. Kim and Elizabeth are sisters together in the family of God.

[1] John 13:31

[2] Book of Common Prayer, p. 504