The Song of Water and Fire

Baptism of our Lord -C24

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

When Lindsey Crittenden was a little girl, she was practicing that magic trick that is the stuff of childhood — floating on your back in the swimming pool. When you kick and flail, explained her coach Mrs. Ursula, you will sink, but if you just relax, “the water will hold you.” Mrs. Ursula’s calm and confident encouragement stuck. It became the title for Crittenden’s memoir: The Water Will Hold You; A Skeptic Learns to Pray (2007).

“The water will hold you. That could be a powerful summary of our readings this week about the baptism of Jesus, and, by extension, our own baptisms. In the waters of baptism, we hear the promises of God from Isaiah 43: “You are my beloved. Do not fear. I have called you by name. You are mine. You are precious in my sight, and I love you. I am with you.”  (Daniel Clendenin, You Belong to God, Journey with Jesus, 1/5/25)

Water is a mixed metaphor of grace. Water gives life and water drowns. Water flows. Water freezes. Water evaporates into cloud. Water is heavy. Water gently cleanses. Water cuts through rock. Water shapes the landscape. Water always finds a way.  Water resonates through our bodies which are comprised of 60% water.  The old Adam and Eve in us is drowned baptism to rise again to new life. We are born in God to live a life we could not otherwise imagine, like fish out of water, we become children of a new humanity.  The water will hold you.

Three of the four passages we read today also point to another double image for grace—fire.  We are seeing how threatening fire can be to our life and well-being this week in Los Angeles. Fire destroys. Fire purifies. Fire breathes oxygen and moves like a living thing. Perhaps that is why we are drawn to gathering around the fire and why we instinctively flee from it when we lose control.

We speak of “baptism by fire,” meaning an ordeal that serves as rite of passage or an experience that proves our mettle. That common phrase most likely originated from today’s gospel and the story of Jesus’ own baptism. Grace operating in baptism is like a refiner’s fire.  Fire burns off the chaff of delusion, falsity, and self-hatred. With this fiery baptism three things are revealed: our true self, the central meaning of existence, and a holy welcome. Identity, love, and acceptance (Diana Butler Bass, Baptism by Fire, The Cottage, 1/11/25).

Metals melted and mixed by fire become an alloy that is stronger and better together. We become more fully human. We become our best selves. We are the people God created us to be joined together in community with one another and with God. In times of emergency and natural disasters like the one unfolding in Los Angeles today, we find out what we and our neighbors are made of, and what we are made for. “In the blaze, we may find ourselves as we truly are — loving friends, self-sacrificing neighbors, courageous human beings. We are worthy of saving, even as we are willing to save others. We are beloved, cherished. And with us, God is pleased.” (Bass).  Let the fire reveal you. Let the water will hold you.

When Jesus, the One who would baptize with fire, got baptized, fire didn’t show up in any expected way. The heavens opened (as they would later open in Pentecost with tongues of flame) and the Holy Spirit descended. Yet that Spirit didn’t descend as a phoenix, a flaming bird, but as a dove. The heavens were ripped open, and the holy appearance did not thunder judgment. Rather, a Voice uttered: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” “There’s no threshing floor. There’s no burning chaff. There’s no vision of hell or eternal punishment. There is only God’s announcement of Jesus’ identity — the Beloved. There is love. And assurance. “With you I am well pleased.”” (Bass)

In baptism, Jesus received a new name — he was beloved by God. In baptism the church declares what has always been true, that each of us belongs to God and only to God. Many malignant forces try to name and claim us for themselves. Baptism reminds us that first and foremost, above and beyond all other claims, we belong to God. God knows and calls us by name.

“We don’t belong to our boss or the bank. We don’t belong to an abusive spouse or our addictive impulses. We’re not defined by sickness, success or failure. We don’t belong to the political propagandists or the advertising industry. We’re not the sum total of our poor choices, painful memories, or bad dreams” (Clendenin).

This baptism is more radical than we realized.  Baptism is a ‘red pill’ like the one that the character, Thomas Anderson took in the 1999 movie, The Matrix. Souls alloyed with the Spirit live by a new covenant. They become, as Martin Luther King Jr. once described, “creatively and chronically maladjusted to racial discrimination and segregation.  They become maladjusted to religious bigotry and economic conditions that take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. They become maladjusted to the madness of militarism, and the self-defeating effects of physical violence” (Martin Luther King Jr., 1967 speech to the American Psychological Association, Psychology Today, posted online 1/17/17).

This transformation is more radical than the one Mr. Anderson undergoes in the Matrix movie.  When Mr. Anderson discovered is true identity, he took on a different name like we do in baptism.  His name became, Neo. He was born again.  He became fully human. As the credits roll, he is fully and finally Awake, as the song of that same name roars in the background by the rock band, Rage against the Machine.

As Christians, we too are called and empowered to cast off the machine.  We are not human resources. Our value is not in how many bricks we can produce for Pharoah.   And yet, the water and fire of baptism carry us beyond even this seemingly radical image of nonconformity from The Matrix movie.  Remember the famous line when the character named Tank askes Neo, “So, what do you need, besides a miracle.” Neo says— “Guns. Lots of guns.”   Neo defeats the machine with an absurd burst of bullets and violence. This is not the way of Christ Jesus.

This may be the type of hero many of us wish for.  We would prefer that new life in Christ would make us invulnerable to malignant forces and that we could win the day and establish the beloved community with force, but that’s not how love works.  This ultimately, is not how the world created and sustained by God works either.  Yes. in baptism we discover that we are not made for the machine, and that in fact, the world, the cosmos, and all creation is not a machine but something more like a song.  Music brings diverse elements together—melody, harmony, rhythm—into a coherent, beautiful whole. Music deeply engages the body, whether through dance, movement, or physiological responses. Music is relational. Music creates a shared emotional space. Music has power to heal.  Music flows, like water, like fire, like grace.

This is the tune we dance to.  It is the song of love. This is the water that holds us.  This is the fire that burns inside us now.  I have called you by name God says.  You are marked with the cross of Christ and sealed with the Holy Spirit, born as children of a new humanity, forever.