Preached at St Peter’s, Poulshot and Christ Church, Bulkington
1 Peter 3. 18-22; Mark 1. 9-15
“repent ye, and believe the gospel.”
We see all sorts of patterns in the universe that repeat on vastly different scales. Most famously the swirl of water down the bathplug has the same pattern as that of the clouds in a big storm system coming in off the Atlantic to batter us – like last night’s – and that of the impossibly slow swirl of stars in the arms of a distant spiral galaxy.
The evidence of order in the universe is everywhere. At this time of year, we are particularly aware of the natural world following the pattern of the seasons. The flowers have arrived early in this exceptionally mild winter – we have not only the snowdrops but the violets and daffodils and even some of the blossoms. In very different climates, something similar happens. I have been on the South African/Namibian border in August, when the spring rain comes and briefly turns that parched landscape into a riot of multi-coloured daisies. There as here, what we see is new life following death.
In today’s readings, we see this pattern of new life following death, as part of an ordered universe. Jesus, God made human, does not start His earthly ministry until he has been baptised by John the Baptist. John was a great man but still a human being, so this Gospel reading is saying something very powerful—God puts Himself under human authority here, and respects John’s own distinct calling.
Baptism is rich in symbolism—a symbolic drowning before a rising to new life, a drowning of hate and selfishness and contempt and all the sins that keep us from loving God and our neighbours as we should. Our Epistle reading, from St Peter, looks back to the story of Noah’s Ark as a something that pointed towardsbaptism—the flood marks the close on an old and wicked order, a terrible but necessary death so that new life could begin.