CHOOSING THE LIGHT AND AUTHORITY OF THE SPIRIT

Sermon delivered on the Feast of The Baptism of Christ, the 1st Sunday of Epiphany, the 11^th January 2009 by Fr Nicholas JG Sykes in the congregation of St. Alban's Church of England, George Town, Cayman Islands.

Scriptures: Genesis 1: 1-5         Acts 19:1-7         Mark 1: 4-11

Genesis 1: 2f   "Darkness was on the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good."

THE EPIPHANY FEAST

The Epiphany feast is described in the 1662 Prayer Book as commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, and the connection is made in the Epiphany Collect between the Gentile Wise Men who brought gifts to the Christ Child, and the members of the Church from earliest times, who came to know God through faith in Christ. Epiphany means "manifestation" or revelation. Those who have seen and received and come to know Jesus Christ have come to see the Light. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Darkness, of course, is not altogether destroyed in the areas around a pool of light, but it is disturbed and driven back by it, and the light of the Good News of Christ is understood to act in a similar way. Even though the light has come, we may choose not to dwell in that light, but to remain in the darkness.

THE DIFFERENTIATION OF LIGHT FROM DARKNESS

Our Old Testament lesson today recounts that "God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night." The differentiation of light from darkness, of what is called Day from what is called Night, is the creative act here. The undifferentiated state that existed before this creative act, is itself declared to have been made, but this creative act is an act of differentiation and discrimination. God says nothing about the darkness, but He declares the light to be good. The New Testament refers to the calling of Christians to be "children of the day", to be children of that which God has declared to be good. Just as God has discriminated between night and day, calling the light good, so in any age to be a child of the day involves a creative differentiation and discrimination between various ways of living. Christ does not affirm all diversities of lifestyles, but rather differentiates them and discriminates between them. He declares a certain way of life to be good, and not others. It is a key part of our calling as children of the day to conform our ways of living to what He has declared to be good, and to subdue any attraction we may feel to anything He does not affirm. Being a child of the day will involve for us both resistance to temptation and a frequent repenting of sins of deed, word and especially thought. To be guarded against the works of darkness is necessary to be preserved in the freedom of being the sons of light. For the sake of the future generations it is our joyful Christian duty to uphold such discrimination before our children and before the community, and by its means to declare our spiritual baptism into Christ. In passing, let me note the familiar dislocation between the meaning that we find in the word "discrimination", and the meaning that the powers-that-be in the world currently attach to it, and assert that since the concept of it is essential to us, we must not be persuaded by them to trash its essential idea.

THE EPIPHANY TO JESUS AND TO US

This Sunday is referred to as the Feast of the Baptism of Christ. The Gospel this morning recounts Jesus' baptism at the hands of John the Baptist, and the other New Testament lesson, which is from Acts, indicates the unique character of our Christian baptism. The Acts passage shows the pre-Christian origins of the rite of Baptism. John the Baptist had baptised people, plunging them into the waters, but not in the name of Christ, nor with the expectation or indication of the seal of the Holy Spirit, though in his message John had proclaimed the coming Christ, who would come with a baptism of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps John’s baptism was a sort of replay of the children of Israel crossing the Jordan into the promised land. They had failed to do what God had for centuries required of His people by covenant. Now they were called to be baptised into a repentant and cleansed state and a new start as God's people Israel. Our Lord Himself accepted this baptism "to fulfil all righteousness" as He said, as a sign of God's favour and approval of it, and in a spirit of identification with those whom God was calling into the new Israel; but in His own baptism the rite itself was transformed. What depths of mystery are declared by the opening of the heavens, the descent of the Spirit upon Him like a dove, and the voice from heaven affirming Him as the Chosen and Beloved Son, whom the heavenly Father approved and commended? In this event, the purpose of the Father was revealed in a compelling manner to His Son. The manifestation of God to the Gentiles was preceded not only by the manifestation of God to the Jews, but by the manifestation of the Father to the incarnate Son, and in further distinction from John’s other baptisms, by the gift and seal of the Holy Spirit. Jesus alone had been given the authority and the power to take up the role of the chosen and approved Son and Servant Israel. So when we by faith and baptism are united with the Lord Jesus Christ we are made children of a greater day, a greater light and a greater authority than our minds alone can encompass. Our lifestyle is to be conformed to that of a child of light but there is more than even that. We too are given the spiritual authority to prevail over evil and conquer it by the power He demonstrated. And we are called to take up our cross and follow Him victoriously through His Cross and beyond it.

CHOOSE THE LIGHT

So the Light has shone out, and the darkness of our common life has been disturbed and pushed back, and the event of Jesus' baptism at the hands of John reveals the mighty purpose and authority of God. There is nothing in our common life that can make these things untrue. But we do have a choice. We can stand aside in the darkness, as if the Light had never arrived. We can live as children of darkness, shackled to sin, as if we had never been baptised into Christ. We can live as those who cannot or choose not to distinguish the truth from falsehood. We can indiscriminately participate in all the lifestyles that the world has to offer, and reject the joyful duty to choose what the Lord has affirmed. Or, we can face into the Light we receive and live out our baptism in union with the Christ who beckons us along His way, and in the power of the Spirit of Him who authorises us to walk it. Let us choose well, since the destiny, both of ourselves and the wider world, requires us so to choose.

BIBLE STUDY QUESTIONS

1. "We will seek to faithfully model the unity that affirms diversity and works for the common good of all humanity" (A recent declaration of purpose by a Christian group). Is this a Christian or a humanistic model?

2. Why is our Baptism to be regarded as more than an ineffective sign?

3. Why should our day to day choice affect the world's destiny?