The Universal Solvent

The Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew, the 3rd Chapter

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 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. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

In the science world, water is known as the universal solvent because water dissolves more things than any other liquid.  Water percolates through the soil, dissolving minerals along the way and then deposits them in caves, creating stalactites and stalagmites.  Water runs over centuries and eons dissolving solid rock and washing it out to sea creating canyons and perhaps most importantly, hot water dissolves tannins and essential oils and solids and caffeine as it flows through ground up coffee beans giving humans the ability to live with one another in the morning. 

This week we celebrate the Baptism of our Lord.  We remember the time that the Universal Solvent was poured out by John the Baptist on Jesus and we also take this time to remember and affirm when that same Universal Solvent was poured out on us as well.  In today’s lessons we hear God speaking through the prophet Isaiah saying, “See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I NOW declare.”  We hear the Apostle Peter, after having been taught all his life that God is partial to the people of Israel, now saying, “I truly understand NOW, that God shows no partiality.”  And we hear John the Baptist saying, “I need to be baptized by you Jesus, not the other way round!” And then we hear Jesus answer him saying, “Let it be this new way NOW.”

NOW.  Let it be so NOW.  One of the gifts of being one of the Baptized is in the Water and the Word’s ability to dissolve the things that seek to trap us, bind us and hold us in the past.  Things like sin, shame, bad choices, oughts and shoulds of every shape and size… those are the parts of the past we desperately long to leave there and not dredge back up in the middle of those sleepless nights.  The waters of Baptism free us from being bound to that pain-filled past.

But it’s not just the negative things that can trap us in the past, is it?  The waters of Baptism also dissolve the connections that tempt us to try and live in the familiar, unsurprising, comfortable nature of the past as well.  But our nostalgia and selective memories of what was, keeps us from living fully in TODAY, just as much as the painful shoulds and oughts of the past keep us from living fully in TODAY.  

Baptism frees us both from the prison of being tied to an unchangeable past full of pain, and also demands that those connections to the comfortable, familiar and nostalgic parts of the past be dissolved as well, because whether the past is full of pain or full of remembered joy, the truth is that the past is no longer where we live.

But it’s not just those ties to the past, that the waters of Baptism dissolve either.  Those same waters also dissolve our continual efforts to live in an effortless, Pollyanna sort of future or live in the fear of an apocalyptic wasteland of a future.  The waters of Baptism wash us back from either of those unpredictable futures and insist again, that as Children of God, we live fully in TODAY.  The Water of Baptism is the Universal Solvent God has given us that makes the unalterable past’s grip too slippery to bind us and makes the unpredictable future too slick for us to grab hold to with a firm grip. 

Henri Nouwen said all of that much better than I ever could.  He said, “The real enemies of our life are the ‘oughts’ and the ‘ifs.’  They pull us backward into the unalterable past and forward into the unpredictable future.  But real life takes place in the here and now.”   

This is NOT to say that we should refuse to learn lessons from the past nor is it to say we shouldn’t plan for the future.  But THIS moment, the moment to which we have been called to be, live and act, musn't be sacrificed to either the past or the future.  We must learn from the past, certainly, but not at the cost of abandoning the present.  We must plan for the future, absolutely, but not in a way that leaves us doing nothing today and always waiting for tomorrow. 

Our world seems filled these days with people either insisting on returning to an unrepeatable past or paralyzed by a fearful, unknowable future.  Stuck in either the unalterable past or the unknowable future, they forget that their neighbor desperately needs them to be present for them in THIS moment.  Look to that person sitting right there beside you, right this very moment.  THAT child of God needs you to be fully present for them right now, shining the light of Christ you first received in Baptism, into their lives RIGHT NOW.  

Let the past be the past.  Let the waters of Baptism dissolve the chains that bind you there.  Let the future happen in the future.  Let the waters of Baptism dissolve your grip on an unknowable future.  Allow the Waters of Baptism to wash you up from the past and back from the future into THIS moment, TODAY, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.  And as those Baptismal Waters wash you into this moment, listen closely for the Words from heaven speaking to you in each and every sacred NOW, “You are my Child.  You are Beloved.  You are a pleasure to behold RIGHT NOW.”  Amen.