If you ask me, one of the most challenging aspects of learning a new language is understanding the use of prepositions. Prepositions are difficult enough to grasp in English, but having navigated their ambiguity in one language, it’s no easy feat to learn the intricacies of prepositions in another.
In my recent efforts at relearning Spanish, I still get confused about when the English word “at” needs to be translated as a Spanish “a” or “en.” There’s a long list of other confusions that I have, too. Part of the challenge is simply learning idioms and how they are used in another language. But there are times when knowing the many different uses of prepositions in one language can open new vistas of meaning.
I find this especially interesting in Biblical Greek. One Greek word that ordinarily means “with,” can also be translated as “along with,” “after,” or even “behind.” In John’s Gospel, when he says “the Word was with God,” it could also be translated towards God. This describes a completely different orientation of the Son towards the Father. Even though you must pick one option for the translation, knowing its other potential meanings makes the word all the richer. So, what’s in a preposition, we might ask? Well, sometimes, a whole lot indeed.
And there’s a whole lot going on with prepositions in St. Mark’s account of Jesus’s baptism by John, which tells us a great deal about just what this baptism is but also a great deal about what this means for us. Mark’s account of Jesus’s baptism is the only one of the four Gospels that describes the baptism quite so vividly. Jesus goes down into the water, and then he comes up out of the water as the heavens are torn apart and he’s proclaimed as God’s beloved Son. Jesus’s baptism is not the same as our baptism, but our baptism is into Jesus’s baptism.
And I bet you didn’t catch the preposition that I just used twice. In that preposition is the real meaning of today’s celebration. We won’t get this preposition from the rather innocuous translation we’ve just heard. But Mark is clever. John the Baptist may be baptizing people in the Jordan River, but when Jesus is baptized, he’s baptized into the Jordan.[1] Jesus’s baptism effects a new, fuller, Spirit-filled baptism. The preposition is a Greek word that means “in,” but it can also mean “into.” And I wonder if Mark uses different prepositions to tell us just what this baptism is.
This baptism is no sprinkling with water on the forehead. This baptism doesn’t need to take away any sin from Jesus, for he has none. This baptism is both an epiphany of who Jesus is as God’s unique, only-begotten Son, and a revelation of the depth of that baptism. In this movement into the water, Jesus goes down, as if he were descending into the depths of hell after death, and then he rises up, out of the water. Down, then up. Into the waters of chaos, and out into the fresh air of a new creation. Into the parted Red Sea and out into the land of freedom. Into the River Jordan that was crossed by God’s chosen people as they exited the wilderness of forty years and out into the Promised Land.
And when Jesus goes into the Jordan River and rises up out of it, the Spirit is vividly present and immediately propels him into the desert for a time of temptation. The good news will soon be hurtling like a comet into the world to turn it upside down.
All this means that when we go into the water of baptism ourselves, we go into the Jordan River, but also into the Red Sea, and into the waters of chaos at the beginning of time, and we rise out of it again, changed forever, with a seal of the Holy Spirit marking us forever as God’s children. We rise out of the water, empowered for ministry and for setting out like human comets into the ends of the world to share that good news.
But what has happened to the power of that baptism? What has happened to a baptism into dangerous waters and out into a world in need of baptismal energy? Why has baptism become more like a gentle boat, merely skimming the surface of the water? Have we forgotten what it was like to go into the water, to get our hair wet, and to emerge out of it, gasping for air?
We were baptized, like Jesus, into water, but not just into water, but into his life, death, and resurrection. His life has passed into ours. His breath has passed into our breath. His power has spread through our limbs to set us on fire with the Holy Spirit and to live as if we have gotten our hair wet and not just sprinkled with a few drops on our foreheads. To go into the water and not merely float on the surface means that we’ve been baptized by Christ’s very life in the Holy Spirit.[2] Not just with it, but in it. Our spiritual DNA has been altered. Our hard hearts have been softened. We’ve been altered forever. We’ve plunged into a new life with Christ. And because we were baptized into that water, we must rise out of it to go into the world.
And under the water, when we dive into it, there is an amazing world. Like a scuba diver who breaks the surface of the water, we find new, vibrant life below the surface, with fascinating microclimates and exotic environments. Our perception of the world changes. We find a wholly different civilization below the surface when we dive into the water and don’t just stay on the shallow surface. In that underwater dwelling, everything and everyone is on fire with the Holy Spirit.
Somehow, though, this doesn’t seem to be the world in which we live. When’s the last time you heard someone talk about the Holy Spirit’s presence in their life? How often do you see Christians living as if baptism has disturbed nothing in their lives? How many baptisms have you attended in which it was a social occasion or cute rite of passage rather than a risky life-altering movement into the waters of the deep?
It may be that what our world needs—indeed, what the Church needs—right now is a deeper understanding of how Jesus’s baptism into the waters of the Jordan shapes our own baptismal identity. If we can go bravely into the deep, we will find that place of transformation that causes us to breathe differently with the Spirit’s very breath and sends us out with great power to breathe that breath into a world struggling for oxygen.
If you’ve spent enough time here at Good Shepherd, I hope you’ve seen evidence of that deep downwards movement into the water and out into a transformed life. I certainly have, nearly every day. It’s manifested in a hearty faith that takes the sacraments seriously and church seriously. It’s present in a commitment to show up weekly for Mass, to grow in faith through formation, to venture out into the community to seek out the lost. Above all, it’s revealed in a desire to make God alone the center of our lives. And in a day and culture that treats God as a dispensable option, this is no small feat.
We’re not meant to stay on the surface of the water. On the surface, we’re told that politeness is the equivalent of being a good Christian. On the surface, we’re told that we can be a decent Christian without going to church. On the surface, we’re told that political conformity is better than righting injustice. On the surface, we’re fed with shallow claims.
But the Church’s call is crystal clear, no matter how much she might forsake it. Dive deep. Go into the waters, despite how scary it may be. If we dive deep, into the water, we will be changed forever, and we’ll learn the truth that sets us free. Breathe in that truth deeply, learn how to breathe differently, and never stop breathing that breath of the Spirit into a world that is struggling to breathe. Then, God’s very breath of the Holy Spirit, our very breath, will help us carry that truth into a world that needs to be turned upside down.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The First Sunday after the Epiphany: The Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ
January 7, 2024
[1] This point is made in Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988), 129.
[2] See David Bentley Hart, The New Testament: A Translation, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2023).