2602AFC010926 – Get in the Water,!
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Isaiah 42:1 –
Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my Spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
Psalm 29:3-4 –
3 The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord, over mighty waters.
4 The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
Acts 10:34-35 – 34 Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
Matthew 3:16-17 – 16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. This weekend we celebrate The Baptism of the Lord ← PODCAST LINK 😀 Sometimes this seems confusing because in the past couple of weeks, we were focused on Jesus as an infant and now we are reading about him as an adult about to enter into his ministry of The Good News, the Gospel. When we focus on the Miracle that accompanied Jesus’ Baptism, the confusion dispels and the Message becomes gloriously clear.
Can we add one more Key Verse? Zechariah 14:8 a – On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem and maybe one more? Jeremiah 17:13 –
13 O hope of Israel! O Lord!
All who forsake you shall be put to shame;
those who turn away from me shall be recorded in the underworld,
for they have forsaken the fountain of living water, the Lord.
That should set the tone for the beginning and end of this, so let’s get to the middle – after I say Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea!
Now ;then, who said he would give “Rivers of Living Water” to anyone who is thirsty and believed in him? Great answer, Camper! That’s found in John 7:37-39 – 37 On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, 38 and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified. Yep, I heard that, too. – for as yet there was no Spirit. Hasn’t the Holy Spirit been around since “Ancient of Days?” Yes, indeed, but the Holy Spirit was not yet available for indwelling meant for everyone. Some readers might ask, “Why is that?” and I would refer you again to the APP and the B.I.B.L.E. You see, no matter how we might insist otherwise, God makes the rules, and we either obey or experience the consequences of disobedience – a pretty hot outcome. That goes back to a core theme in the Absolutely Perfect Plan – PREEMINENCE. That is God’s quintessential attribute – Perfect Integrity. It looks like this:
HE is OUR God, and in his APP there are provisions for reunion, for healing of the breach caused by sin. Perhaps our greatest sin surfaces when we fail to remember his First Commandment – I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods besides me. (See Exodus 20:2-3). We have inherited the desire to be like God and to judge between Good and Evil without realizing we are already like God because we are “created in the image and likeness of God.” We need healing from the disastrous effects of that sin. At the center of that healing is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ has come to us, as the first-fruits of the dead (See 1 Corinthians 15:20), to restore us to the immortal friendship and communion with God. He is God, and he is preeminent in all things but sin. When we are finally altogether subjected and all together united in him, he will submit himself and us to the Father so that unity will be restored to the ultimate fundamental Oneness of I AM THAT I AM. That whole chain of events, that nexus of all created things and beings, happens in the blink of God’s eye. It only seems to us to be taking much longer because we are not seeing Life through God’s eyes. That deep a mystery is too lofty for us and our simple thinking. Nonetheless, we have some markers along the road that will help us in that journey. (↔ Music Link)
- We know that God is preeminent in all things. That leads us to understand that he must also be preeminent in our lives.
- Jesus is part of the nexus that will restore us to immortality and reunion with God. Recall that at the Baptism of the Lord, “the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.” This magnificent Miracle, the Descent of the Holy Spirit and Jesus’ Baptism, literally changed everything! The path back into the “Eden of Eternity” was no longer closed. (See Matthew 3:14-17)
- It is often said, “There is no Easter without a Calvary.” We must also remember that there is no Easter without the Tomb. Jesus Christ is preeminent in this as well. The Bible lists several people who were “raised from the dead,” but none of them were resurrected. All of those people eventually died again. Only Christ “rose again from the dead.” That should not confuse us. It simply means “Jesus was alive, then he was dead, then he was alive again.” The tomb, the grave, the urn – wherever our mortal remains are gathered together – that is part of the Long Road Home, too. Jesus endured that part of our journey, too, so once again he is preeminent.
- In God’s APP (remember that’s the Absolutely Perfect Plan) everything is connected to everything and to everyone all the time until Time is no longer relevant. If ever we feel we are disconnected from God, it is not God who has moved or let go. It is our nature to forget that we are HIS creation, and he is not ours.
- God is God because that is the Beginning and End of … you name it, it fits. He made all the rules because he made all of Creation. When we follow the rules in the APP, we travel from conception to natural death with minimal disruptions. If we disobey, mock, ignore the rules enough, there is literally all hell to pay. That’s the way the APP works. Who was asking, “WHY?” I’ll give you the answer I always got from my parents and I’m pretty sure it’s the way God, as a Parent (and Brother, and Companion), would answer it: “BECAUSE I SAID SO.“
That’s good enough for me!
But not everyone was willing to live like that. For over 200 years here in America we had a problem with chattel slavery. That is where – and why – I want to share another song with you. “Wade in the Water” (↔ Music Link) is a beautiful and formidable spiritual with multiple meanings which arose because of chattel slavery during the period from about 1600 to the late 1800’s. Initially it was a way to convey instructions to escaping slaves as a way to know that “wading in the water” was a way to disguise their scent and erase their tracks so they would be harder to find. “God’s gonna trouble the water,” signifies God’s Spirit as the source of Deliverance.
We recall Moses with Israel at the Red Sea where God parted the waters, and later Meribah in the Desert where God caused water to pour forth from the rock. God stirred up the waters to provide the capacity to keep moving toward the Promised Land. We, too, depend on God to trouble the waters when we are Baptized because that opens the path forward to redemption and eternal life. In the Baptismal Rite, adult catechumens and parents of infants or children are asked, “What do you ask of God’s Church for N.?” The person, parents, or sponsor will respond “faith,” or “the grace of Christ,” or “entrance into the Church,” or (my personal favorite) “Eternal Life.”
Listen closely to the lyrics in later verses of this Spiritual which ensure us that God’s going to have a hand in shaping our future if we just “wade in the water” as an Act of Faith and a sign of Trust for the Holy Spirit to Enlighten our Lives. If we are open to the Power of the Living Water, we can rejoice in the Hope we find in God’s promises of Providential Protection. And that’s one we can add to Perfect Integrity, Endless Mercy, Everlasting Love, Eternal Salvation, Immutable Justice, Irreproachable Wisdom, and Incomparable Grace – and also Providential Protection. And how do we know all this? You guessed it again! It’s the Absolutely Perfect Plan found in the Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. TAH-DA-A-AH!
That brings us to this: 1 John 1:11 – 11 Beloved, do not imitate what is evil but imitate what is good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God. Such a person has forsaken the fountain of living water, the Lord. That’s against the Rules; we need to wade in the Living Water, the Holy Spirit. That’s what God means when he asks us to wade in the water. He wants us to walk, and talk, and Live in the Holy Spirit, the “Rivers of Living Water” that flow from all the hearts of all the believers – the Adelphos – in our lives. Of course it is true that while we are in koinonia – fellowship, Communion – with the Church, we still must Witness and Evangelize to those who – through their own choices – elect to decline our koinonia. God the Father has given us his Servant whom he upholds, Jesus, the Christ of God as in our first Key Verse at Isaiah 42:1.
On that First Day when the Spirit of the Lord moved over the waters, the Voice of the Lord was over the waters; the God of glory thundered, The Lord, over mighty waters. The voice of the Lord was powerful; for the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. Take a moment and try to imagine that – the Thundering of the Lord’s Majestic Voice – as powerful as Love, as powerful as Eternity, yet silent as Light, a Voice with the True Power of Love. Now, listen to that same voice speak majestically over the waters again and hear God’s thundering Fatherly Love declare, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I AM well pleased.” And Bim-Bam-Boom! There’s the Holy Spirit settling gently upon Jesus as a dove would come to rest on its nest. God’s gonna trouble the waters! When The Apostle Peter realized this he stated, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
That last part right there is something we like to skip over, to gloss its meaning – fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. “I AM the Lord your God.” No matter what, we always come back to the necessity of following the rules. We are required to Follow The Leader (↔ Learning Link) because it IS HE who told us in John 13:13– 13 You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that is what I am. And in addition,John 13:20– 20 Very truly, I tell you, whoever receives one whom I send receives me; and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.
Not only should we wade in the Holy Spirit, the rivers of Living Water so that it is more difficult for our Foe to find us, but also we should walk in the Holy Spirit so as not to fulfill the desires of the flesh. (See Galatians 5:16) Wade in the Water HABITUALLY and the bogies won’t get you. Let us pray, therefore, that the Holy Spirit will descend on each and every one of us while he seeks a gentle landing place that is welcoming and safe so that he will remain on us, in us, and with us. And let us listen carefully in Joyful Hope for that Majestic Voice – at times swift and silent as Light and still sometimes thundering over the waters – with the sincere and pious intent to hear our Lord and God, the One, the Only, proclaim, ”Well done, my Good, and Faithful Servant! Enter into your Master’s Joy!” We will all have the Baptism of Calvary to face, but we know that our Easter is just a breath away. May our Good God continue to richly bless us with all that is Good!
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
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Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
