The Rev. Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor
© 2022, Dr. Tamilio
We are stuck in between two days. Epiphany, the day that the Magi come to the manger to present their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, was last Thursday, and since we do not have worship on Thursdays, we commemorate this twelfth day of Christmas today. On the liturgical calendar, however, today is the Baptism of the Lord. This marks the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry: when he was about thirty years old and ventured to the banks of the Jordan River to be baptized by his cousin, John. Add to this the fact that we are fresh into a New Year and it seems as if this is one of those “many-themed” days.
I was particularly drawn to the Hebrew Bible Lectionary reading for today — the one Gloria shared from the prophet Isaiah a moment ago. You would be hard-pressed to find a piece of Scripture where God’s presence is promised more than here. In this passage, Yahweh is speaking to Israel — his chosen people who have been in bondage. Israel was the Northern Kingdom and Judah the Southern. Both were taken by foreign captors: Israel by Assyria and Judah by Babylon. Yahweh is promising his people that even though they have suffered, they are not alone. God is there to redeem them, to conform them, and to remind them of his love.
That love never ends. It is constant. A parent may be disappointed in his or her child. The child may even need to be grounded or sent to a time-out, but the parent does not stop loving the child. This is what Christians refer to as agape love: it is unconditional, self-giving, and constant.
That is God in this passage.
That is God in our lives.
I was driving home from the church the other day. I took an alternate route, because of the traffic. I drove by one place. It must have been a COVID testing center because the line of cars stretched around the building and snaked around the parking lot. It was incredible. It looked like a traffic jam on the expressway. I was imagining, “How long is the wait for the people at the end of that line?” They must have been there for hours, wasting gas at about $3.20 a gallon. People need these results to prove that they are “negative” in order to travel or go to school. Many local municipalities require vaccination cards to go to the theater and other indoor facilities. As the Omicron variant continues to spread, we will see more and more of these requirements and restrictions. There are some who feel as if COVID is one of the signs of the end-times as detailed in the Book of Revelation. Although I do not think that this is the case, I do fear that the world as we know it is changing.
But God is present with us, no matter what.
Shortly after COVID arrived in March of 2020, a study out of Harvard University said that this virus would be with us, and we’d still be needing masks, until 2022. Well, 2022 is here. We still need these.
But God is present with us, no matter what.
The psychologist Abraham Maslow is known for his theory called the hierarchy of needs. You may have studied this if you took a psychology course at one point in your travels. Maslow’s basic needs are obvious. We need air to breathe; we need water to keep us hydrated and food to nourish our bodies; we need sleep (some more than others); we need clothing; we need to feel safe, and we need shelter. Again, these are the basics. We want, we desire, and dare I say we actually need much more. I would add that among our basic needs is love. We are only complete as human beings if we love and are loved in return. Scientific experiments with monkeys have shown how their development is grossly impeded if they are raised in isolation from one another. We’re no different. We need touch. We need to hug and to shake hands. We need to love one another.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March of 2020 — can you believe it’s been almost two years — when the pandemic hit, the thing I missed the most was being able to greet people properly. Something is missing (something big) when we cannot embrace one another or extend a welcoming hand. The sense of isolation that the pandemic has wrought is second only to the loss of life. In that case, the absence of touch is permanent.
Sustaining us throughout the pandemic, though, was the assurance that we are not alone. Even though we are still in the midst of close to two years of a frightening new norm, we know that God has been with us as our guide and stayed all along, and he will continue to be so for us.
But what does that look like? How do we know that God is there, surrounding us with his love when everything else seems down and dour?
I came across an article about the passage that appears just before the one Gloria read from the Hebrew Bible today. Adele Ahlberg Calhoun and Kelli Trujillo ask, as the title of their piece, states, “How can we know when God is present in the moments of our lives?” Part of the problem is with us. They state that “so often we’re so rushed and busy that we simply don’t pay attention” to God’s ever-present love for us.[1] So often, when people seek a closer relationship with God, we tell them, as these writers confess, to “Read your Bible and pray, go to church on Sunday, try a mission trip, memorize Scripture.” We use this as the sure-fire solution for everyone seeking to grow spiritually.
The truth is that we each have a unique relationship with God. Calhoun and Trujillo say that “what you’re doing at a certain point in your relationship with God may be different from what I am doing in my relationship with God, and that’s okay.” We experience the peaks and valleys of our spiritual life at different times and in different ways. God is going to meet you where you are. He is at the place you are going before you get there.
There is no easy answer to increasing our knowledge of the love of God, because, as Calhoun and Trujillo claim, everyone is different. But maybe, for all of us, it begins with focusing on Jesus. He is the one in the manger today. He is the one baptized by John in the Jordan. Isn’t it interesting that John tries to get Jesus to change his mind, arguing that he (Jesus) should baptize John? Jesus refuses because I think he is saying you will find me in the simplest and ordinary of places. You do not need to roll out the red carpet. God becoming like us through the Incarnation means that sometimes we need to see God at our level: as a brother, as a companion, as a friend. God is with us as one who ministers to us, heals us, and loves us.
Look for the child. Look for the one who rose from the water and is about to begin his ministry. Look for the one who loves you. Amen
[1] Adele Ahlberg Calhoun with Kelli Trujillo, “How can we know when God is present in the moments of our lives?” taken from Christian Bible Studies (online): published February 21, 2012.