Muddy Waters

A sermon for Epiphany 1: the Baptism of Our Lord
January 12, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

I’ve only been snorkeling a few times. I’m sorry to say it wasn’t in some crystal-clear water in the Caribbean, or in some beautiful coral reef. No, I went snorkeling in a muddy creek in Missouri. It wasn’t my idea. A friend of mine went all the time and loved it, so I went with him and his dad. We pulled the car off the state highway by a bridge and hopped into the very muddy water. You couldn’t see a thing. The water was brown and dirty, and full of who knows what. Before we got in, my friend’s dad warned us to watch out for cottonmouths. He then told us three or four stories of coming snout to snout with cottonmouths that were at least seven feet long. I learned later that he liked to exaggerate. But it didn’t matter: from the moment I stepped foot in the water, I was concerned about what I would meet. 

The Jordan River had a reputation for being kind of like that. You wouldn’t want to snorkel in it—it was way too dirty. And who knows what you would find in there. In antiquity the river would have been used for everything, from cooking, to laundry, to waste disposal, and yes, to baptism. 

But that’s where we find Jesus today, in the middle of those muddy, dirty waters. Like the crowds, Jesus goes out to be baptized by John in the muddy, dirty, filthy waters of the Jordan. 

The fact that Jesus was baptized by John was a point of embarrassment for the early Church. They puzzled over it quite a bit. Jesus’ baptism is recorded in all four gospels. It’s one of the few things that is. That means you can’t get away from it. You can’t squint really hard and try to make it disappear. Jesus was really baptized by John in the River Jordan. The early Church was embarrassed because they taught and believed, as we do, that Jesus was the Son of God. Why would the Son of God need to be baptized at all? There is no sin to wash away. Why does his ministry need to start at his baptism? 

The answer is this: Jesus came to earth to get into the muddy water with us. Jesus came to live and die as we do. Jesus came to share in everything. So Jesus goes and dips in the muddy Jordan. 

Sometimes our lives can feel like that muddy river. We can feel bogged down, bogged down with waste. Our lives can be a little like my snorkeling experience. We can’t see anything in front of us, and we’re terrified somethings going to pop out and get us. Life can be scary and dark and messy and filthy and muddy, just like that river. But Jesus gets in it with us. When God became man, he did not shield himself from the worst parts of our lives. No, God became fully human. 100% human. That means God in Christ shares in all of our humanity, even the parts that are difficult and gut-wrenching and downright muddy. 

Our lives are like that because of sin. Because of our own sin, because of the sins of others, and because we live in a sinful world. Sin separates us from God and our neighbor, it muddies up the waters. It’s been that way since the beginning for us.  

Jesus Christ gets in the muddy waters with us. Jesus wades out into the middle of it all, and tells us, I’m going to save you from all of this. Jesus wades out into the muddy waters, he looks around, and he says, I see what you’re going through. I see that you’re bogged down. But I’m here to change all of that. Ultimately, Jesus gets in the muddy waters to drag us out, to take us to clean, fresh, clear water. He gets into the muddy water to invite us to a life in those new waters, those restored waters, the waters of baptism, the clear waters of heaven streaming from the City of God and into our hearts. And there, at those waters in a humble font, we too hear the voice of the Father: This is my son, my daughter, my child forever, my beloved; with you I am well pleased.

I’ve never really been snorkeling in anything other than that muddy creek. But the friend I went with has. He used to go snorkeling in creeks all the time to look for crawdads or interesting rocks or whatever. He loved it and didn’t care about the cottonmouths much. But a couple of years ago he flew to the other side of the world for a snorkeling expedition. When he came back he gave me a call. “I’m never going snorkeling in a muddy creek again,” he said. “I’ve seen the light. I’ve seen what snorkeling is actually supposed to be about. And I’m never going to those muddy Missouri creeks again!” 

The waters are ready; they are fresh and abundant, and they will make you new, and they will open your eyes to know what life is really about: communion, true communion, with God, one another, and all of creation. So come on in; the water’s fine.