SERMON: BapLord.B18; BULC. ©The Rev. Scott K. Davis, STM, DMin, BCC-ret

Where have you heard the voice of God this week?[silence]

I heard it on Wednesday night At the bedside of a father who 18 hours

earlier sat,Holding his son’s care-giving hand in

critical care,Until the son breathed his last.

I heard the voice of God through the father’s tears

Affirming that the deadly storms of tragedy in his life

Was not enough to dissuade his beliefs and hope

Because the LORD God was still in charge.

And not even the tragic death of his second son

Nor the impending death of a daughterCould sway his faith and trust in

God.I heard the voice of God as grieving father and I prayed

Remembering the words of Henri Nouwen:That’s what prayer is.

It is listening to the voice that calls us 'my Beloved'

Henri J.M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith―

And I heard myself singing to myself as I walked out his room,

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 This is my Father's world:O let me ne'er forgetThat though the wrong seems oft so strong,God is the Ruler yet.

I thought of the context of today’s first lesson as I sang:

So often we have dragged the Priestly creation story

Into philosophical debatesAbout how long was a day in God’s

creating; Or into scientific discussions

When dinosaurs were created by God.The message of creation story in Chapter One of Genesis

Is the bold proclamation of good news of great joy

Answering once and for all, this existential question:

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Do you still believe that our God is strong enough

To protect us and bless usAmidst the chaotic circumstance of

life?ABSOLUTELY…WITHOUT A DOUBT!

Our God…the LORD God of everything…Forms and orders and stabilizes chaos

And continually creates a world…My father’s world…

Where God is the ruler yet,

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Brooding as a wind-powered divine breath

Over life’s deep despairs and stormy seas, Over society’s political upheavals

Sweeping over the cosmos with new order

Creating and calling forth new realities.

[SILENCE]

Where have you heard the voice of God this week?As I wrote this during the gusts of Thursday afternoon,

I began singing that familiar hymn again:This is my Father's world: I rest me in the thoughtOf rocks and trees, of skies and seas-- His hand the wonders wrought

Psalm 29 speaks about the orderly stability of God’s world

In a way that invokes a song of all creationTo praise the Glory of the LORD God

Whose voice effects what it intends.All nature sings a divine doxology

Praising and glorifying the LORD God’s kingship

By which God reigns over all of nature.

Listen to the metaphors of nature in describing the doxology

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That begins with God’s voice thundering forth:

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1-2 Bravo, GOD, bravo! Gods and all angels shout, “Encore!” In awe before the glory, in awe before God’s visible power.

Stand at attention!     Dress your best to honor

him!3 GOD thunders across the waters,

Brilliant, his voice and his face, streaming brightness— GOD, across the flood waters.4 GOD’s thunder tympanic,

GOD’s thunder symphonic.5 GOD’s thunder smashes cedars,

7-8 GOD’s thunder spits fire.GOD thunders, the wilderness quakes;

He makes the desert of Kadesh shake.9 GOD’s thunder sets the oak trees dancing… A wild dance, whirling;

We fall to our knees—we call out, “Glory!”10 Above the floodwaters is GOD’s throne

from which his power flows, from which he rules the world.

11 GOD makes his people strong. GOD gives his people peace.

And so we sing the praises with the wind and the seas,

The earth and the fullness thereof

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Of the awesome lord GodWho is simply Wow!

This is my Father's world, And to my listening ears All nature sings, and round me rings The music of the spheres.

[SILENCE]

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I’ll tell you twice when I struggled To hear the voice of God this past week

It began early New Year’s morningAfter balls and shoes / roses and baloneys

droppedA mother and sibling sat sobbing in the emergency room

Knowing that yet another teenager had died

In spite of heroic efforts to save the life.

To what word does one give voice In the face of sudden and senseless death

From the awesome God of the wow!Who broods over chaos to bring

order?Twelve hours later, on New Year’s afternoon,

A son stood silent before his father’s angry rant.The son had heard these words before,

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Accusations of being inadequate / unacceptable;

Being deprecated and devalued…not good-enough.Still, the voice of God did speak…

…The voice of God does speak like thunder

Within the deep dark void of uncertain chaos.

By Monday evening, I heard the words of that hymn

That kept haunting my soul all week:This is my Father's world: Why should my heart be sad?The Lord is King: let the heavens ring! God reigns; let earth be glad! 

The Lord is King…let the heavens ring!Oh, there’s the voice of God at Jesus’

baptism!It’s a voice that thunders forth

When the heavens are torn open.It’s a voice heard at every baptism,

Though not always with such power.

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It’s a voice Of divine affirmation and

authority;It’s a voice

Of God-given identity and grace;

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It’s a voice that says first, You are my son, the beloved

one!It’s a voice that then says,

With you I am well-pleased!Oh,

What a voice of God has come Upon each of us at baptism!

Luther understood the power and the eternal goodness

Spoken in this voice of God at baptismWhen he confided that whenever he descended into despair

that whenever he felt tormented by the devil

He would write this reminder:I AM BAPTIZED!

I am baptized:The voice of God has declared that I am

God’s child.I am baptized:

The voice of God has proclaimed me beloved.I am baptized:

The voice of God has embraced me as pleasing/blessed.I am baptized:

The voice of God has affirmed me as good and worthy.I am baptized:

The voice of God has granted me authority…

That my status before God is my inner-being.

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I am baptized:The voice of God has bestowed grace and

forgiveness.And so I still watch the storm clouds and chaos of the world;

I will withstand the bluster of the winds and the sea;

I can disregard the gossip/lies/innuendos/accusations:6

May you hear what I have heard in the voice of God:

I am specialBecause God who is King over all

Has spoken grace to me at baptismA gift that no one and nothing

Can take away or diminish.So I sing this day

With the Psalmist, the hymn-writer and all creation:

This is my Father’s world! He shines in all that's fair;In the rustling grass I hear Him pass, He speaks to me everywhere.

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-2 Our re-creation in baptism is an image of the Genesis creation, where the Spirit/wind moved over the waters.-2 In the readings for the Baptism of Our Lord, year B, the Spirit creates, the Spirit empowers, and the Spirit marks one’s life for mission.-2 Consider the ups and downs of any life that intentionally interacts with the living God. These are the ups and downs of a baptismal vocation. There are times we find ourselves disoriented when we face the deep. There are times we bravely identify the darkness. There are times we see the dawn break and are relieved. There are times we are astounded to hear that the formerly formless has been named “good.” All this action occurs in the context of the Spirit’s movement.-3 The activity God does today doesn’t take place in a vacuum. God works in a world that’s already here. God’s breath, a word of life, crashes into people in their own context. Like a dove descending from heaven, the Holy Spirit comes into our incidentals. The Holy Spirit…creates, empowers, and engages God’s people for a life in God’s mission. The Holy Spirit is active in the incidentals. When we name the incidentals in our context, we point to the places where God’s story intersects with our stories. Today might be the day to unwrap some of our incidentals by sharing Spirit-filled stories.-3/4 As people living in this world, we know how lives are interrupted. We have lived through incidents which dimmed the light around us. There are times when silence is all we hear. It’s in the space before the amen when we need to hear that God is present. We need to hear that there are no incidents or incidentals the Holy Spirit avoids. In the space before amen, we long to hear what God affirms in our reading today. In baptism, we are God’s beloved children and we are never alone.Luther: I am baptized! [written in dust on his desk]-5 The vision of God in this text is one that stresses transcendent power. God is able to create with a word. God

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overcomes the disordered reality of chaos and darkness by creating light. In the separation of light from darkness, we have the start of an ordered world. We also know, however, that, in the Bible, darkness has connotations related to the human condition of sin and estrangement from God. Thus, as we have seen in other readings for this season, light is also associated with God’s saving work that brings people out of their darkness. As in the creation, only the transcendent power of God can bring an ordered world out of the nothingness of chaos and darkness. So only God’s power can bring us out of the nothingness of sin and death to light and life.-5 Out of the nothingness of the dark void, God brought forth the light and began the world of days, the dawn of time, and the intricate and wonderful world of living things that was to follow. Out of the dark void of our sin God has brought us into the light of salvation and made of us a new creation in Christ (2 Cor 5:17). Indeed, the Christ in whom we are a new creation is the very Word who was in the beginning with God and through whom all things were created (Jo 1:1-3). He is the light of life that shines in the darkness of the world and the world did not overcome that light (John 1:5).This Word of creative and saving light speaks to a disordered world divided by hostilities rooted in greed, religious intolerance, and racial and cultural prejudices erupting in terrorism, war, and cruel forms of competition. Divided in this way among ourselves, we are also divided within ourselves by the contradictory impulses that signal the lingering of sin. As God’s creation of light brought order for a harmonious world, so the light of God’s redemption can lead us into the ways that make for harmony among us and peace within.-8 The pairing of Gen 1:1-15 and Ps 29 in the RCL is particularly pointed in emphasizing the power and purpose of God’s words (literally the voice of God) to create, order, and even disorder the world. For a people bereft of long-honored institutions and the security of a homeland, this notion that God’s very word, God’s voice, is the basis of creation offers profound comfort.-9 With Mark’s typical hyperbole, “all” the people of the Judean countryside and “all” the people of Jerusalem come out to hear John and to be baptized by him. As such, John’s ministry is cast as a kind of revolutionary religious movement that stands against the established order (of the Jerusalem Temple cult) and prepares a new “way.” Importantly for Mark, this new way is Jewish and deeply rooted within the traditions of Israel’s Torah. In this sense “the beginning” of the good news for Mark is grounded in a return to Israel’s origins (the wilderness) and connected to a prophetic call to respond to God’s presence

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(repent) and to be transformed for God’s purposes (forgiveness of sins). Literally the terms for repentance and forgiveness in Greek (metanoia and aphesin) speak to transformation and release. John’s call (to which Jesus himself clearly responds) is to hear God’s voice and to be open to the transforming and liberating presence of God in the world.-10/11 Mark portrays Jesus’ baptism as a moment of literal divine intervention into the realm of this world… Jesus arrives on the scene from a place of particular economic and political disenfranchisement and is anointed with God’s presence and blessing to begin a ministry of proclaiming the kingdom of God in this world. In his baptism Jesus is confirmed as the one who will bring forth the Holy Spirit. Those who read and hear this text are put on notice that Jesus not only announces but also bears in his person and through his actions the very presence of God. Heaven and earth have been joined, and what promises to issue forth is nothing less than the “way of the Lord.” That way, as detailed in the readings from Genesis, Isaiah, and the Psalter, will serve to proclaim the sovereign presence of God that calls all creation and all powers and authorities to serve God’s creative purposes of justice, mercy, and peace.-11 Do our churches merely replicate the kinds of services that the municipal community offers already to the enfranchised and the privileged? Do we unwittingly promote culturally embedded values of class and race in our implicit curricula of worship, fellowship, stewardship, and education? Who do we consider our “ideal” new member, and why? The Gospel text calls for such wonderment on this Sunday. For Jesus, baptism meant following a call to proclaim God’s presence among the last and the least, and to challenge his family, his community, his tradition, and his culture in the process.-12 God’s voice alone is all it takes to get chaos transformed. Beauty and order flow with ease from God’s verbal command.-12 The waters of baptism are about this very sort of creation experience.-13 with the riveting imagery of a meteorological drama. The psalm’s sevenfold repetition of “voice of the LORD“ (Heb. qol YHWH) is onomatopoeic of crashing thunder; it adds a colorful image (borrowed from Canaanite mythology) of the primordial defeat of the seven-headed chaos monster, Leviathan (cf. Ps 74:14).-13 Mark’s comparison of the Spirit to a dove leans heavily on Genesis 1:2, where the Hebrew depicts the Spirit hovering or brooding over the cosmic abyss like a bird.-13 A voice from the heavens declares: “You are my Son, the Beloved.” The same voice states, “With you I am well pleased.”

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-14 Jesus, the triumphant Vicar of God, had no need whatsoever for “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (v. 4). Yet he submits to it obediently, faithfully, knowing that his mission was one of complete solidarity with his people. His work is to share their predicament, identifying with them in their suffering and sin. In Jesus’ way of living, others get priority. The self purposefully takes a back seat, willing even to bear vicariously the brunt of God’s decisive judgment (see Mk 10:38).What really changes the world for the better is a ministry of sensitivity, like that of Jesus, God’s true Servant. Such a ministry empowers other people to open up to each other, and to God. It nourishes the tender reeds and flickering flames of people’s souls and allows their spirits to spring forth (Isa 42).-14 What is a covenant? An agreement, to put it simply. God said, “I agree to be your God and you agree to be my people.” This proposal was re-stated many times in ancient scripture, with varying degrees of success. But now Jesus had become this covenant. He was the most profound agreement of God and humanity possible. He was both halves of the covenant, God’s and humans’.-15 So you might feel that you are just an unnoticed member of your company or an invisible one of the many ordinary people in your town. But you stand out as the particular person you are, where the Lord is concerned. God does not deal with people as faceless members of a collective. He calls, and he heals, one particular person at a time, as each individual comes to him. See later in this, Lose re. affirmation; my feelings NYD re. not doing things “right” re. dad/mom.-39 But is it a perception or illusion? Sherry Turkle– MIT professor, internet scholar, and author of Alone Together  –has discovered that people today report feeling simultaneously more connected  and lonelier than ever before.Why? Because while we may crave affirmation, what we need is acceptance.A word about acceptance before going further. Acceptance, I want to be clear, is not the same as “fitting in.” Indeed, it is its exact opposite. For while fitting in – the skill we learned most keenly in adolescence but keep sharp into adulthood – is all about changing yourself so as to be found acceptable to your peer group, acceptance is simply and crucially being accepted and valued just as you are. And there is nothing more important or necessary in leading a healthy, productive life than feeling accepted. / Which is where baptism comes in. Notice in Mark’s treatment of the story of Jesus’ baptism two things. First, notice God’s words to Jesus. They are personal, poignant, and powerful. “You are my beloved son. With you I am well pleased.”

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Wrapped in these words of acceptance are the blessings of identity, worth, and unwavering regard.-15 Jesus’ baptism is one of his earliest great transformations of our human condition. The first was that the Word itself could take human flesh. [so Elizabeth’s email this week…”living X”]-17 Here many Old Testament passages have contributed to the narration: the rending of the heavens, Is 63:11; the descent of the Spirit upon the Messiah, Is 11:2; the voice from heaven, Ps 2:7 and Is 42:1. The Christology of the voice from heaven combines the motifs of the messianic Son of God and the suffering servant-18 In Mark, Jesus has no backstory and no pedigree. His baptism is God’s “adoption” of Jesus, as he adopts the king as his son in Psalm 2:7.-18 The “voice” written in the prophet Isaiah (Mk 1:3) is followed immediately by the proclamation of John, then by the “voice” from heaven.WHAT IS THE PREMISE OF TV REALITY SHOW, “THE VOICE”?-20 The heavens are “torn apart,” a passive verb, because God cannot stand the separation any longer. Yet, look at what we do. Create systems and structures that mediate God’s presence. Insist on rituals and formalities to regulate God’s grace. Control the means of God’s love, not for the sake of good order, but for the sake of our own power…/ Baptism of our Lord Sunday according to Mark? Well, get ready and hold on. There is nothing tame or complacent or orderly about baptism at all. There are no rules, no ecclesial documents, no constitutions or bylaws. Rather, we are plopped in the middle of the wilderness with Elijah and the heavens ripping apart before our very eyes.-21 This description of creation isn’t meant to be taken scientifically – to focus on harmonizing Genesis 1 with modern science is a fruitless effort that takes us away from the purpose of this text.  Yes, it is meant to say – this is how things began, but it is a theological not a scientific statement.-21 Rabbi Rachel Timoner writes of the ruach’s activity in this opening moment of creation in terms of “organizing chaos and bringing life from the depths.”  She goes on to write:

It is through God’s ruach that God transforms uninhabitable space-time into benevolent, life-giving order.   (Rachel Timoner, Breath of Life, pp. 4-5).-23 Jasper Keith, "on the threshold between the numinous and the mundane."-24 SEE-“in the hole you go” baptism. Is this the hold on us at baptism? Like Jonathon Edwards’ sinner in hands of an angry God—hanging by spider thread?

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-24 So what did it mean for Jesus? It didn't mean that the Father would keep him out of trouble. He found that out even before he had a chance to dry off! It didn't even mean that things would work out just the way he had planned. No, it seems to me that what Jesus' baptism meant to him was that when he found himself in trouble, he wouldn't find himself alone. It meant that even when things didn't go his way, he would still have the Father's blessing and the Spirit's company.And isn't that what his baptism means to us too? Unlike John's baptism, Jesus' baptism means that we are not alone in the wilderness. It means that God's love for us doesn't depend upon us. It means that God's grace doesn't wash off. The baptism of Jesus means that whenever we find ourselves in a hole, we can be sure that in the hole he goes.-25 Mark is the only book in the Bible that announces itself as a “gospel” (Mk 1:1), the good news about Jesus, a verse read 5 weeks ago on the second Sunday of Advent./-26/27 This is a gospel which begins with words that exclude a main verb./In other words, the first verse is not a complete sentence but rather the title of the gospel: "Beginning of the good news/gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (Mk 1:1). A definite article (the) is not present before the noun, beginning. The evangelist is proclaiming from the opening word that there are no limits to a "beginning" in whatever parable, story, miracle, deed, saying, teaching of Jesus in the gospel. A "beginning" takes place as the good news/gospel of Jesus Christ breaks into our hearing. What remarkable "beginnings" take place throughout the gospel! What an epiphany word to proclaim on this Sunday of the baptismal voice from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved!"-44 Indeed, our soteriological reading of Mark suggests that Mark simply begins his story at the point where Jesus' story and the readers' stories converge, namely, in the baptismal waters.- 44 The whole of Mark's gospel, then, has been carefully tailored and crafted so as it make it simultaneously the story of a baptized one and The Baptized One.-26 The issue of infant baptism versus believer’s baptism is the fundamental division among churches of the Protestant Reformation. However, both sides agree that baptism is always done in faith -- whether the faith of the person being baptized or the faith of those who bring somebody to be baptized. We also agree that children who have faith even before the age of their church’s baptism rite are indeed part of God’s people because of their faith. /The main thrust of today’s text and the meaning of Jesus’ baptism for us is that we are baptized into something. A fundamental change takes place in baptism, at whatever age. An

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adult who is baptized after accepting faith is changed, and an infant baptized into a family of faith will be brought up in that faith. [think of Martin repairman conversation last week…]-28 The translation "just as" in the NRSV is better rendered "immediately." This adverb (Greek, euthus) occurs for the first of 41 occurrences in the gospel of Mark. The evangelist is drawing us into the drama of the gospel with each occurrence of this word. The word "immediately" both expresses a chronology (Greek, kronos) in the gospel story but also expresses an opportune time (Greek, kairos) of God's kingdom breaking into our world in the stories, parables, miracles, deeds, sayings and teachings of Jesus throughout the gospel.-44 Coming up from the waters of the Jordan, "immediately" Jesus sees "the heavens being torn asunder and the Spirit descending on him like a dove" (Mark 1:9-10). (This is the first of forty-two occurrences of the adverb "immediately" [ευθύς] in the Gospel of Mark, a word which indicates both a temporal immediacy and a theological urgency in the narrative.) What Jesus experiences is an epiphany, a revelation that breaches the curtains of heaven. The "tearing asunder" that takes place now, in the inaugural event of Jesus' life, will be echoed in the final event of Jesus life. Jesus' last cry and breath from the cross will signal the "tearing asunder" of the temple curtain, an event which inaugurates God's presence among us in Jesus Christ, a presence no longer confined to the temple (Mk 15:37-39). (The verb, "to tear asunder" [σχίζειν in Mk 1:10; 15:38], appears only twice in the Gospel of Mark, thus serving to frame an epiphany theology that continues throughout the gospel.)-28 Mark portrays God's declaration of Jesus as though it were a private transaction between God and Jesus: "You are my son." / Not until the second half of the gospel is Jesus' messianic identity unveiled, after Peter confesses Jesus to be the messiah (8:29). Indeed, only then will God publicly announce to the disciples on the mountain that "This is my son" (9:7).-29 God's words to Jesus, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased," allude not only to Ps 2:7, but also to Gen 22:2 (Isaac as the only [Greek: beloved] son of Abraham), Isa 11:2 (God's spirit resting on the king of Israel), and Isa 42:1 (God's spirit resting on the servant in whom he delights). Thus, Mark is subtly telling us that, already in his baptism, Jesus' future course is laid before him: he will be the servant of God, who will offer his life as a sacrifice. Like Isaac, he is the son of promise, a promise that nothing, not even death, can break. In fact, it is precisely through his death and resurrection that Jesus' sonship and messiahship will be confirmed and God's promises fulfilled.

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-30 The words of baptism reflect on the images of water. Here are some of the images we use:

The sacrament of baptism proclaims and celebrates the grace of God.

By water and the Spirit, we are called, claimed, and commissioned.

We are called God’s own, welcomed as children of God. We are claimed by Christ, united with Christ.

-30 As Catherine Keller notes, God creates within the chaos: "the turbulence, the uncertainty, the storms, and the depths of our actual life process."-30 Baptism tells us we are located, rooted in this creative possibility toward goodness. Baptism is not a once and for all event, for each communion service is a reaffirmation of the ongoing creation. /It is true we often experience events in our life in random ways and we seek to make sense of this fact by ideas like, it was meant to be, as if predetermined. The image, though, of order out of chaos suggests things are not meant to be. Rather it is within randomness order is created. It was not meant to be as if everything is fixed, for creation is an ongoing process where novelty and order alike emerge in the context of randomness. Baptism prepares us to live without a safety net. / One of the reactions to this reality as been, we and we only create reality. Through some superhuman activity and thought pattern, we hold back the sound of fury. The problem with such a view, and it is one of the dominate views of our time, is when we cannot hold back the sound of fury, that chaos overwhelms, we end in despair. And despair leads to nihilism - all is hopeless, so let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die, for nothing we do matters.-31 way of understanding God we are formed to live with an open future, for we begin in the baptismal affirmation that God works with chaos to offer new possibilities. God broods over the water of creation, over the waters of chaos and calls forth life. In Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism we are invited to see an invitation to reflect upon our own revelatory experiences. Those moments when we take a risk and move into the unknown. We know that in that moment God is there offering the aim of harmony, intensity, peace, compassion and justice. In our risk, based on this faith, we help make these aims real. All life is sacramental, but some moments and practices awaken us to the holiness of the world and the blessedness of our lives. God’s covenant with creation is universal, but expressed to us one moment at a time.

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-32 the baptism tells us not what Jesus does but what God does to him // Our baptisms are not what we have done, but what God has done to us.-34 We are who GOD says we are…-34 Genesis 1 is a grand symphony of a text-36 In the opening verses of Genesis, God exhibits a certain creative style.On the one hand, it is an orderly, light-filled moment (hence the choice of this text for Epiphany). On the other hand, God's creational work exhibits a certain messiness, with the wind sweeping across the face of the waters. And who knows what will come of that! The wind blows where it wills (Jo 3:8). /Creation is not a sudden one-day affair; God doesn't snap the divine fingers and immediately bring the creation into being. God takes time in creating: There was evening and morning, one day, two days... and given that God has been creating through the millennia, I wonder what number today is for God. Bringing the creation into being over time signals that creation is a dynamic process and not a finished product. /Moreover, this Creator God chooses not to take an "I'll do it by myself" kind of approach to creation. God catches up the creatures along the way to participate with God in ever new creations: let the earth bring forth; let the waters bring forth...Let us create humankind. God invites the earth and waters and microorganisms and you and me into the creative process. /And, then, at the end of each day, God makes an evaluation of what God has observed: it's good. The word "good" includes a range of meanings, but one sense of the word is aesthetic--like looking at Rembrandt's Jeremiah or hearing Mozart's clarinet concerto. Yes, that's just right! -36 As Sibley Towner (Genesis [Louisville: WJK 2001] 21) explains:

"If there were no freedom in this creation, no touches of disorder, no open ends, then moral choice, creativity, and excellence could not arise. The world would be a monotonous cycle of inevitability, a dull-as-dishwater world of puppets and automatons." 

-36 Your writing, your speaking, your actions, or your way of being with others may be revealing of creative activity that God treasures and honors. Indeed, God so values you that God will confidently entrust you with creative tasks and responsibilities beyond your present knowing. That evaluation may run something like this: what you do and say is good, but the way in which you say it and do it may make the "what" even better. Style counts with God.-37 In sum, God takes the ongoing creational process into account in shaping new directions for the world, one dimension

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of which is engaging creatures in creative activity. Divine decisions interact with creaturely activity in the becoming of the world. Creation is process as well as punctiliar act; creation is creaturely as well as divine. God's approach to creation was and continues to be communal and relational.-37/38 Similarly, Genesis one was written as a statement of faith in the midst of horrific times, not as an answer to the question of how God created the world. The time was either the exilic or the immediate post-exilic period. Jerusalem, the temple, and major cities in Israel had been attacked by Babylon, and its leaders had been taken off into exile. Even the fall of the Babylonians did not spell freedom, just domination by another group, the Persians. In that time, the country that won the war and conquered the area was seen as the one with the strongest and most powerful god. Questions hung in the air. Is our God strong enough to protect? Did God go away or just not care anymore? Should we abandon the God of our ancestors for other gods that are seemingly in control of the world? Is YHWH a lesser god who cannot protect or control world events?The beautiful prose of Genesis 1 gives one answer. It is not about how long a "day" is or if there were dinosaurs in the created order. The answer is not meant to equal historical fact. In fact, it might be better to think of Genesis one as answering to the question, "Do you still believe that our God is strong enough to protect us and bless us?"-40This is why I think baptism is so incredibly important, because it offers us the acceptance, not merely affirmation, of the Creator of the Cosmos and thereby empowers us to accept others in turn. Baptism reminds us that wherever we may go and whatever we may do or have done to us, yet God continues to love us, accept us, and hold onto us. And for a generation that has been sold cheap affirmation as a substitute for genuine acceptance, there is no more powerful word-42 The Priestly writers recognized the orderly movement of God in the natural world only because they had first recognized God's saving movement in their national and personal world—in the watery event of the Exodus.-43 God's Messiah lives his life with us in the midst of chaos. It is when things are most chaotic that God's light shines the clearest. The season of Epiphany is the time we celebrate those little glimpses of light in the midst of our darkness that enable us to trust that God is yet at war with the powers of darkness, even as the waters of baptism swirl about God's Son and us.-43- Doxology is the quintessence of worship. In praise we say, "Glory be to the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit." As we finish praying, we say, "Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the

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glory." Ps29 is an Old Testament form of that second sentence. The kingdom, power, and glory are its themes. It is a magnificent expression of doxology and a marvelous text for the exposition of doxology.- 43 doxology as a means of grace and the human need and quest for a sphere of power in which to shelter weakness and lostness. That is what Psalm 29 is really about. As a hymn for use in liturgy, it is designed to confront human finitude with divine majesty in a solving way.-43: Ps 29 is the only text in the Old Testament in which the glory of the Lord is so extensively and directly said to be manifested in what we moderns call natural phenomena.-43: Ps 29 has often been used as the psalm for the first Sunday of Epiphany when the focus is on the baptism of Jesus. The choice is a profound interpretation of the occasion. The liturgical setting connects the psalm's mighty theophany with the quiet epiphany in the waters of the Jordan. The voice of the Lord in the thunderstorm is paired with the voice from heaven saying "this is my Son." The storm says, "this is my cosmos;" the baptism, "this is my Christ." The two go inseparably together. The Christology is not adequate unless its setting in cosmology is maintained. The Old Testament doxology is necessary to the gospel.-44

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