Genesis 1:1-5; Mark 1:4-1
A Holy Wind
James Sledge January 10, 2021
Baptism of
Jesus, Bazile Castera Mural in Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral, Port-au-Prince,
Haiti from Art
in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library
My
wife and I have not had the best luck with wind since we came to Falls Church.
I can think of a couple of times when winds knocked the power out and it stayed
off long enough that we lost the entire contents of the refrigerator. And the
terrible derecho that came through Northern Virginia in 2012 struck the evening
before the moving truck arrived at the church manse with all our stuff from
Columbus, OH. The movers unloaded on a sweltering July day into a house without
AC. It was out for most of the week that followed. Fond memories.
This past week, and ill wind blew through Washington, DC, bringing sights I had never imagined, a wind that embodied fear, hate, racism, and privilege. And this wind was driven, in part, by the voice and tweets of our president.
The
wind blows and things change, sometimes in terrifying ways. But the wind also blows
in our Old Testament reading this morning. Those of you who learned the Genesis
creation account some years ago may recall it differently. Previous Bible
translations said something like In the beginning… the Spirit of God moved
upon the face of the waters. But in the newer translation we heard this
morning, a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
These rather different translations spring from the fact that in Hebrew, the same word means wind, spirit, breath. Deciding how to translate the Hebrew ruach is something of a judgment call. But over the years, as scholars learned more about ancient, biblical Hebrew, and more about ancient Jewish understandings of creation, a consensus has grown that the Genesis story depicts a strong wind sent by God. The picture painted by Genesis is not so much one where God shows up and creates from scratch but of God at work bringing order out of primordial chaos.
In Genesis, God created light and brought about the order of night and day. And if we had read just a few verses more, we would have heard how God separated the waters from the waters. By awesome power, God confined the swirling waters of chaos to their appointed places. And the wind sweeping over those waters as the story begins is reminiscent of the wind from God that swept back the waters of the sea and created a path for the Israelites to escape their pursuers when Moses led them out of slavery in Egypt.
Waters, not of chaos, but of the River Jordan, appear in our New Testament reading. John the baptizer is there, and all sorts of people are coming out to see him, receiving a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This is a baptism for a fresh start, a new beginning. Repentance literally means “changing one’s mind, turning around, starting over,” and John’s baptism speaks of that chance for something new.
Jesus himself comes to be baptized by John, and it marks a new beginning for him as well. As he comes up out of the waters he sees the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. I think that most of the time when I’ve heard Mark tell of Jesus’ baptism, I’ve noticed the Spirit descending like a dove and not really paid much attention to the more violent image of the heavens torn apart.
Curiously, Greek, the language of the New Testament, is like Hebrew in that the same word means wind, breath, spirit. Now clearly it is the Spirit spoken of in our reading, but I have to wonder if the violent image of the heavens torn apart doesn’t harken back to a divine wind forcing back the waters. There’s an awesome, creative power at work. Something is happening. Certainly something happens to Jesus. He seems to have lived a pretty normal, anonymous life to this point, but now the wind of the Spirit reorders his life.
John the baptizer has already alluded to the coming of this awesome power. His baptism of fresh starts and new beginnings pales by comparison. Says John, “I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” The Divine Wind will come with incredible power to change, redirect, throw back chaos and create life as God intends it.
That is all well and good, but I’m a little nervous about a Holy Wind stirring things up, spinning my life around. I’ve seen too much frightening wind already. I would prefer the Spirit stick with dove images, unobtrusive and in the background. I would love the Spirit to give me a hand now and then, but none of this powerful wind business. No tearing apart the heavens.
A recurring problem with religion is that it wants to tame the wind. It wants God to do our bidding. Too often, rugged stone sanctuaries become fortresses against the wind, insulating people from what God is up to in the world. That is why there is always a need, in every church, for reformation, renewal, change, for letting the Wind blow.
Ill winds are blowing in our country, but a Holy Wind is blowing, too, a powerful, unsettling wind, but also a creating wind that brings new life. I’m convinced that the tumult following the murder of George Floyd was stirred and aided by a Holy Wind. And I think a Divine Wind blew through Georgia this past Tuesday. Some Christians can’t see that. For them Christianity is too interwoven with the status quo and nostalgia for a sinful past.
The reason some evangelicals continue to support Donald Trump despite his being the antithesis of Jesus’ teachings; the reason people took “Jesus Saves” banners into the capitol last Wednesday, is because for them religion is about holding onto an old order. White supremacy was woven into the founding of this nation, and it was woven into the American Church. And far too many have never repented of this disgusting, hateful legacy.
Not that we more progressive Christians are off the hook. Our politics have often been more about mental inclination than getting caught up in a Holy Wind. Martin Luther King famously wrote that his movement was hindered less by the KKK and more by the white moderate who is “more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action…’ ”[1] I agree with you, but let’s not get the Wind involved.
The Wind is blowing, a wind of racial justice and reconciliation, wind that seeks to lift up the poor and hungry and oppressed, wind that would undo a long legacy of white supremacy and privilege. Along with the ill winds we saw this past week, a Holy Wind is blowing, and she longs for you to let her sweep you up and pull you into what the Spirit is doing, to do more than believe something or think something, but to find yourself acting in league with the awesome, disruptive, creation making power of the Holy Wind.
In your baptism, the Holy Spirit came upon you. A Holy Wind dwells in you. At your baptism promises were made to turn from sin and renounce evil and its power in the world and to follow the way of Jesus. In your baptism, you were called to new life as surely as Jesus was at his baptism. It is a new life that must turn from old ways of privilege and become part of a Holy Wind that would reorder our world, part of the work that so frightens those caught up in the ill winds we saw last week.
The Wind, the power of God that brought forth life from the chaos of the Big Bang, the Wind of Pentecost that set the Church ablaze and spread it across the Mediterranean world like wildfire, is blowing. Here and there congregations will huddle in their church buildings, hoping to escape its power. But those who seek the way of Jesus will welcome it, will spread out their arms, unfurl their sails, step out in faith, and go where the Wind blows them, fully alive as the body of Christ in the world, showing that world the true shape of the new world to come.
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