Under Water

Isaiah 43:1-7; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

When I was teaching kayaking on Lake Michigan before seminary our daylong classes always began the same way.  After fitting everyone with boats, paddles, and safety gear, we’d go out on the water and tip the boats over.
The very first safety lesson in kayaking is how to come out of the boat when you’re upside down underwater – because that’s the first step in getting upright and back in the boat for beginners.

And in every single class, that exercise unleashed a flood of near-drowning stories. I heard about brothers and oceans, swimming pools and rafts, lakes and rivers, boats and tubes…. An astonishing number of people remember a time when it felt like water was killing them.
How about you?
Do you remember a time when you felt like you were drowning?

My own story is about a family vacation in Delaware.  It was the first time my brother and I had a chance to play in the Atlantic Ocean, and we took turns trying to surf on a blow-up raft; the sort you get at KMart.  It was a lot of fun - and then one wave, bigger than the rest, tipped me over.

I felt my foot catch in the rope around the edge of the raft as the raft was tumbled on top of the wave – and I was tumbled into it. 
Suddenly, there wasn’t any up, or any down.  No way out, no air; just the overwhelming force of the water shoving and tumbling me.  I remember knowing I was about to die – and I have absolutely no memory of how I wound up breathing air on the beach again.

I do remember rushing tup the beach to tell my family – and their easy assurance that I hadn’t been in any danger.
Hey, people, I was drowning!!!
That sense of the indifference of my family burned worse than salt water in my sinuses.

Decades later, with a lot of kayak instruction under my belt, I realize that I’d probably only been underwater for seconds, if that long.  I wasn’t actually drowning – I’d never really inhaled water and it probably all happened between one glance and another for my parents, who were paying plenty of attention.
But it’s different when you’re under the water.
And so I knew what my students meant, and what they couldn’t say, when I stood beside them in Lake Michigan and encouraged them to tip their boat over and fall out.

Water is powerful.  Especially when it’s bigger than you.
A river, with current tugging at your body.
A deep pool, dark at the bottom.
A lake or ocean with tossing waves.
All this can be joyful, refreshing, and awe-inspiring.
But when you’re deep inside the water, surrounded on all sides; when you know you can’t breathe, and you know you’re out of control, even if you don’t inhale water, it’s a bit like dying.
And that first breath of air, that assurance of life – it’s like resurrection.  At least a little.

It’s not just water we drown in. 
Finances, relationships, work, fear, loss and grief can tumble us the way the Atlantic Ocean tumbled me all those years ago.
And it often seems like no one notices we’re going under.  And when we finally come up for air, full of reaction and release, sometimes it feels like we’re all alone with the drowning and the relief of breaking free.
If we get stuck in that sense of aloneness it can lead to despair and bitterness.
But we’re not alone.
That’s what today is about.  That’s the story of the gospel, and the promise of Isaiah.  It’s the story of our baptism.

The baptism is almost invisible in Luke’s gospel story – a story full of John’s preaching and other details. The whole process of drowning and rising, of Jesus submerged in the current of the Jordan River, all the way under and waiting to breathe; Jesus rising again with the water pouring off him – it’s all hidden under a word or two; almost easy to miss.

But as Jesus comes to the shore, and prays, the Spirit of God swoops from heaven like a dove in flight, and God claims him with pride and delight:  You are my Son, my Beloved; With you I am well pleased.

Maybe no one else noticed that, either. Maybe only Jesus saw the dove and heard the voice.  Or maybe everyone did. But Jesus practiced death and resurrection in the Jordan River that day - noticed or not - and God claimed him in love and power.

Every time you or I start to drown, in water or work, in details or in grief, even when no one else notices, God is there: holding us, claiming us.
That’s a promise God made through the prophet Isaiah:
Thus says the Lord, who created you, who formed you:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you.  I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
[for] you are precious in my sight, and… I love you.

That’s the thing about baptism – it’s drowning and rising, but it’s drowning and rising in the love of God.
And that’s why we practice it over and over, renewing our own vows as we bring new people to the water. We practice baptism over and over, because over and over in our lives we’re going to get submerged in forces we can’t control,
and maybe no one else will notice,
but God’s love is with us in the water,
and God’s there, claiming us in pride and delight, as we gasp for breath and hope.

All those summer days on Lake Michigan, I stood next to people taking an enormous risk; people confronting their fears, risking the disorientation and power of water in the hope of doing a new thing.
And when they finally tipped the boat, and they tumbled underwater and back to the surface, they came up glowing,
breathing in victory and resurrection,
and ready for adventure in a way they’d never expected.

It’s true for kayaking and it’s true for faith: the water is always going to be bigger than you.
So you have to practice drowning and rising, immersion and salvation.
All the baptismal vows we make with Paulina today, and renew for ourselves at every baptism, are the floats, the rafts, the boat and the paddle - the things we hold on to underwater, and the things that pull us up and out, over and over, breathing in hope and victory,
so that we can start anew,
ready for life beyond what we once imagined.

So take a deep breath… and let’s take the plunge!
Amen.