The Rev. Joseph Farnes
First Sunday after the Epiphany / Baptism of Christ, Year C
All Saints, Boise
While it’s been a few years since the Boise foothills have been on fire, we here are no strangers to the threats of fire. Year after year, as the heat of summer climbs to yet another terrible record, the air gets thick with hazy smoke from fires to the west, dying the blue sky a shade of brownish-orange and making it harder to breathe. We watched last summer as beloved parts of Idaho north of us and toward Redfish Lake were eaten up by hungry flames. We watched as Eastern Oregon saw acre after acre consumed by wildfires. And this week we watched as Southern California was hit by wildfires fueled by the intense Santa Ana winds.
And here we have this Sunday’s reading from Isaiah: “when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”
What do we do with it?
Whenever tragedy strikes, whenever something outside of human control cuts through a community, there are always folks who want to attribute blame. Some say that the tragedy is God’s punishment for something, and they point to the many verses in the Bible that do just that. It’s always a convenient interpretation, though; it just so happens that the people suffering are people they hate already.
And on the flip side – those who suffer may find themselves rightly asking, “where is God?” as they look around at the devastation. They look and wonder why this could happen, where is God in the midst of it. If God was punishing, then why them – were they guilty, or caught in the crossfire, collateral damage? In human war, innocents and civilians are supposed to be protected from the ravages of war, though so often that rule is violated by ruling the civilians “guilty” anyway; is God just as heartless and undiscerning as so many political and military leaders?
This question haunts humanity. What are we, and why do we suffer so?
No wonder the Bible does not speak with one voice. Justice demands the guilty be punished – and yet the guilty go free, and the innocent suffer injustices. We see holy, virtuous people oppressed, cut down, martyred. We see wickedness elevated and honored with riches and glory.
And, in all of it, we want to understand. We want to understand why.
And no answer will really satisfy. Whenever we sit down and decree this is why there is suffering, we’re left with so little room for our heartache and pain. “It’s just the way it is,” or “it must be God’s will,” or “it’s all for the best” or any other multitude of platitudes do not make room for the painful and bloody experience of suffering. Human suffering, human pain is not a mathematical equation that, once solved, will make all of the pain go away. That’s just not how it works, nor should we want it to work; how many people have been “comforted” by well-meaning friends that there must have been a reason why? (This would be the plot of the book of Job in the Bible, by the way)
So what do we do? We turn to Jesus on the cross, and we remember his baptism.
On the cross, Jesus suffers unbearable pain in his body and the unbearable pain of feeling abandoned in his spirit. He cries out on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” the words of Psalm 22 on his lips. Jesus, our Lord and Savior, fully human and fully divine – he suffers the pain of abandonment. Abandoned by friends – feeling abandoned by God the Father. On the cross, it is right for us to see our pain and suffering embraced here – Jesus feels our pain with us in real time. Flames, sickness, despair, fear – all that we suffer is gathered in the body of Christ on the cross.
And who is he, this Jesus Christ? He is the Beloved. His identity at baptism is not negated or destroyed in his suffering. He is the Beloved. He comes up out of the waters and is greeted with that everlasting pronouncement: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Jesus shares in our suffering; we share in his Belovedness. He suffers just as we suffer; we are beloved just as he is beloved.
It is not nice, neat, tidy. It does not settle our suffering into a nice, orderly system of thinking. But what it does do is put us squarely into the personhood of Jesus Christ. Our suffering and our belovedness, his suffering and his belovedness, knit and woven and baptized and crucified together.
As he takes on our suffering, we take on his belovedness. A living, beating, broken heart looking with tenderness and mercy out from the heights of the cross; a joyous, unshakeable eternal dignity as we are lifted up out of the waters of baptism, greeted with delight by the voice of our God.
The belovedness keeps our suffering from hardening us into stone or from withering away in despair. To be beloved is to be alive, to be living flesh, living heart, living spirit. To be alive like Jesus Christ. And if we are alive as Jesus Christ, then we do the works he does. We heal the sick. We bring good news to the poor and the imprisoned. We speak truth where there is falsehood and despair. The Gospel life is belovedness in action – a belovedness that does not give up while suffering, a belovedness that does not stop at the cross, a belovedness that is not consumed or destroyed by any fiery trial. Amen.