Baptismal Limitations

Introduction

I have been feeling pretty limited lately, you? It feels like we are needing to re-invent how we do everything thanks to COVID and it’s exhausting. Thanksgiving was a week long decision-making process where we needed to not only weight COVID risk, but also the risk simply getting over-tired or a sore throat can pose to our abilities to work or send Alice to daycare. This summer I started to feel like I could get into a routine of some sorts, but this fall and start of winter has seen a spike in decisions that follows the spike in COVID cases. You can’t do this, you can’t to that, you need to rethink how you do everything!

I’m sure you relate. We are limited in so many new ways and we don’t have any tried and true systems in place for how to deal with it. So we are forced to work hard all the time as we navigate these decisions and how to be safe while still balancing the need to actually live our lives. It’s limiting! And it reminds me of my experience of Chaplaincy training.

I was able to spend 6 months working at Rochester General Hospital as a Chaplain while I was being trained. It was brutal, exhausting, and I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. You see, in chaplaincy training, especially early on, we need to work hard to break the habit of constantly giving advice or trying to solve problems and instead just be present and be a good listener. The reality is that as a chaplain, the care I have to give is not theological advice, or medical advice, but I have the privilege of being a representative of God’s presence with someone while they suffer.

It was really intimidating and it felt like I needed to do it with my hands tied behind my back. I couldn’t rely on my seminary training, or on sharing my own story because it wasn’t about me, yet I was supposed to actually be there to help. To be honest, it felt like being sent out to play basketball with one arm tied behind my back. It felt like I was being limited and I wasn’t allowed to use the gifts and skills I already had. I felt like I was doing a terrible job.

But you know how they say that when someone loses one of their senses, like someone going blind, their other senses heighten? That’s exactly what happened to be over those 6 months. By not using my theological training or talking about myself with patients, I was forced to simply experience pain alongside people rather than trying to fix it. I learned that I had never allowed myself to just feel something negative without a path out of that bad feeling. It was really hard, it was painful, and I became a better pastor because of it.

John the Baptist’s Limitations

I can imagine John the Baptist had similar feelings. He grew up with Jesus and knew from before he was even born that his role in the world was to point people to him, but his ministry was limited, he was the one who would point to the real deal, his baptism was only with water. He knew that God was coming to change the whole world, yet his job is just to tell people to get ready. He could have easily grown up in Jesus’ shadow and think that since he was not the messiah, he wasn’t important enough to be worth much. He could think, “what is the point in baptizing people with this water and preaching about repentance if my work isn’t even the real thing?

He was limited in how much he could do. He knew there was so much more, and that people could one day be baptized in the Holy Spirit, but his hands were tied by the role he was supposed to play. Talk about being limited from day 1, he was prophesied about by Isaiah, which is really powerful, but he was limited to do his ministry in the wilderness, living like a homeless man. I mean, the guy lived in the woods, wearing animal hair clothes and eating bugs. He was basically Neil Parmerter.

John’s limitations are an interesting way to start the story of the gospel isn’t it. I mean this is all leading up to the birth of Jesus, but we start the story with a disheveled mountain man telling people to repent and be baptized in the river.

Our story is starting with limitations, yet this first Character sets the tone in how the Gospel presents limitations. They are more than walls that get in our way, they are opportunities to see things from a new perspective. By being limited, John was forced to be creative in how he prepared the way for Jesus. He couldn’t just go to the synagogue like everyone else, and he couldn’t be the people’s messiah like his cousin Jesus, but he saw past those limitations and did his part powerfully.

I can imagine that instead of trying to clean his hair and eat better food, he took that limitation as an opportunity to lean into the spectacle of it all and when people started hearing about the crazy wild man who perfectly fits the description of Isaiah’s prophecy they came out in droves. When they got there, he didn’t just say, “I can only baptize you in water” but he told them to repent and be baptized now so that they can also prepare for what is to come. By being willing to lean into the limitations and fully embrace them, he was able to see God move in ways he wouldn’t had experienced otherwise.

A New Perspective

This whole “Coming Soon” series if going to be about seeing things from new and different perspectives. John’s is just one example, but I think it encourages us to look at our own limitations the same way. It’s fascinating to look at the context around Isaiah’s prophecy about John. Starting in Isaiah 40:1-2 he says...

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The New Revised Standard Version God’s People Are Comforted

Comfort, O comfort my people,

says your God.

2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and cry to her

that she has served her term,

that her penalty is paid,

that she has received from the LORD’s hand

double for all her sins.

God’s people had been sent into exile because they just kept cheating on God, over and over again. God promises that he is good and merciful, but also just and they had been given the just exile they deserved, but not they has served their time and he was ready to let them back out. He continues...

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The New Revised Standard Version God’s People Are Comforted

A voice cries out:

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,

make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Now that the difficulty has passed, John has been sent to comfort them with the good news that God is coming to them. God put limits on them in order to deal with their infidelity, but now he is coming back, so John’s job is to prepare them. They need to prepare their own hearts, go to the wilderness, to the desert, to the broken, barren, and painful places, and make space for God to come in and show the way forward. And when they do, he promises in verse 11.

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The New Revised Standard Version God’s People Are Comforted

He will feed his flock like a shepherd;

he will gather the lambs in his arms,

and carry them in his bosom,

and gently lead the mother sheep.

In order for the people to see the new perspective John is talking about they need to prepare, which should make us ask, what preparations can we be making this season so that God can transform our limitations into opportunities?

Our Preparations

Our preparations this season are the same as they were for Israel. We must humble ourselves, repent, and move forward with God’s comfort around us. Let’s get practical by looking at each of those preparations and considering how we can apply them in our lives now.

Humble Ourselves

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The first preparation is humility. This is a hard trait to find these days, though we have been talking about it a lot. To be humble is to be willing to look bad, to be willing to have someone call you foolish, to be willing to change our minds and to hear someone else’s point of view. Humility is when we respond to disagreement with our ears rather than our mouths and when we respond to insult with kindness.

Humility is not timidness, nor is it self-deprecation. If you allow people to trample all over you, you're not being humble, you’re being passive. Let me give you an example. I am having a conversation with someone who says something really offensive as a joke. To be humble is not saying something sarcastic and cutting to them, but it is also not just pretending you didn’t hear it. To be humble is to be vulnerable and tell them how the joke caused you pain. Hear that again,

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To be humble is to be vulnerable

When we recognize that we feel pain, that we struggle, and that our limitations are hard to deal with, we are preparing ourselves to experience God’s presence in us. When we open ourselves up to attack, when we let our guard down, God comes in and comforts us and empowers our work. If you have been feeling limited lately by masks, by rude people, by circumstances, then don’t respond with attack, but respond by taking off your armor and allowing God to use your weakness, and your ability to be hurt.

Repent

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When we open ourselves up to that pain, we are also being willing to see, not only our vulnerabilities, but our failures. We can prepare our hearts for God by asking this question…

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“When did I last allow someone to tell me I was wrong about something?”

Really, honestly ask that question. If this is difficult for you to actually think of an example, then this may be an area to spend some time. God can use you no matter what, but you open yourself up to much more powerful opportunities if you allow Him to see your flaws through the eyes of others. This is the heart of repentance. John preached to Israel who had served her time in exile, he told the people to repent, to admit their failure and change their ways. We are called to do the same. It’s not just something we do once, but it is something we do perpetually. When you close down your heart from being willing to see your own failures, you are telling God “I don’t want you to heal me”

Be Comforted

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So, humble yourself, repent, and move forward in comfort.

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God wants to lead you gently

That’s his heart for you, he doesn’t want you to tear down your armor so that you can be harmed, he wants you to take down the armor so that he can hold you close as you walk through life. Your armor may help you avoid feeling pain, but it also stops you from being truly comforted. And this is something John truly understood when he stood in his own limitations. By letting go of a need to be like everyone else, or a need to be highly regarded, or a need to be the best of the best, he allowed God to work powerfully through his limitations and do more than John could have ever imagined.

God’s comfort to you is this today, The limitations you are experiencing right now, can be an opportunity to know his close, tender comfort, if you are willing to humble yourself, repent, and walk forward in his arms.

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Conclusion

As we work through being online for worship services again, our limitations are right in front of us. My prayer for us in this community of faith is that we are willing to be spiritually vulnerable. That we are willing to accept the limitations and allow God to work powerfully in ways that we did not see coming. Sure, we could just endure being online until we can get back to normal, but I don’t think that’s what God wants for us. I think God wants us to humble ourselves, and see this as an opportunity to see him work in new and powerful ways. So I encourage you to try new things in this online season. Be willing to take a risk, be vulnerable, let other people see that you are uncomfortable with technology and ask for help. Be the comfort God wants to give someone today. Lead something despite not feeling like you know how. Be the wild man in camel hair telling the world that Jesus is coming, knowing that your cries are not in vain because the savior of the world is your shepherd, and he is the wind behind your voice. Will you join me in prayer?