Today as we celebrate the Baptism of our Lord we hear the familiar story from the first chapter of Genesis, the first words of the Bible, about when “God created the heavens and the earth.” From nothing God created time and space and everything that exists. Creation out of nothing, bringing something into being that did not exist before, an initial act which is also a foreshadowing and a promise of the final act of the gift of new life, is the first connection we have in this story to baptism. The second link to baptism in the creation story is what our text calls a “wind from God” that “swept over the face of the waters.” This wind is God’s spirit. In baptism we are not only incorporated into the death and resurrection of Christ and thus made a new person in him, but in baptism we are also given the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Let me make just a few more remarks about the creation story before we get to baptism.

Luther maintained that although the first chapter of Genesis is written in the simplest language, it contains matters of utmost importance and is very difficult to understand. “It was for this reason,” Luther says, “as St. Jerome asserts, that among the Hebrews it was forbidden for anyone under thirty to read the chapter or to expound it for others.” Luther added, “They wanted one to have a good knowledge of the entire Scripture before getting to this chapter.”

Luther makes an important point. One cannot even begin to unpack Genesis 1 by ignoring or treating as irrelevant the message and content of Scripture as a whole. If we don’t do this, then we get into these silly and pointless debates about creationism, intelligent design, and evolution. Most of the usually critical or dismissive arguments about the Genesis account of creation miss the point, because they fail to recognize how it fits into the larger Scriptural context. When we read Genesis as the first book of Scripture, then the question about Genesis as a scientific or historical record of how the world was created seems actually a diversion, because clearly the story is meant to distinguish God the creator from that which is not God but is rather God’s good creation. Its point is that all that lives and breathes owes its existence, is totally dependent on, and has been given its specific purpose and destiny by the God whose Spirit breathed over the waters and who chose Israel to be his own.

The current debates about creationism often remind me of what Luther says just a bit further on in his lecture on Genesis 1, where he deals with a slightly different question about what God was doing before he created the world. How should one handle such a question, Luther asks? He says that we should disregard it. To the question, “What was God doing before the beginning of the world?” Luther says that Augustine in his book, Confessions relates “that someone had answered to this effect: God was making hell ready for those who pried into meddlesome questions.” This is probably the kind of answer we should give to those who want to debate about creation, for the creation, which would seem to be such an open book, is actually a rather profound mystery that points beyond itself to an even deeper mystery beyond our comprehension. It points us to God. Creation points beyond itself, because it causes us to ask, How did all of this come to be? and, Why is there something and not nothing, and, Why are we here? We get hints of an answer to these questions when we ponder the wonders of creation where God reveals himself, but in rather vague and ambiguous ways. God reveals himself definitively in Word and sacrament to those who are open to his signs of grace and love, who struggle with what we call “faith”.

“Even if we should engage in endless speculation and debate,” Luther says, “these matters [about creation] nevertheless remain outside our comprehension….God does not manifest himself except through his works and the Word….God envelops himself in his works in certain forms, as today he wraps himself up in Baptism, in absolution, etc. If you should depart from these, you will get into an area where there is no measure, no space, no time, and into the merest nothing.”

The point about the creation story, as Luther sees it, is that apart from God, creation is empty and meaningless, the merest nothing. On the other hand, creation’s beauty and promise are revealed vaguely but in a very real way, in nature, and even more clearly, pointedly and specifically in the continuing story of God’s dealings with his people Israel, culminating in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Thus creation’s fulfillment, promise and beauty are fully disclosed, not in our idle speculation about it, but in Word and sacrament.

Now what does all this have to do with baptism? The thread running through our readings today is the gift of the Spirit. The first reading tells of the wind that swept over the face of the waters. This wind symbolizes God’s Spirit; and as the story connects that wind with the waters of creation, the church saw this as an obvious reference to baptism. This story is foundational, for baptism is a new creation that points forward to creation’s ultimate renewal and fulfillment in Christ through the Holy Spirit. In the second reading from Acts, when Paul lays his hands on the newly baptized, the Holy Spirit comes upon them, giving them a new life in Christ. And in our gospel reading, just after Jesus is baptized by John and as Jesus is coming up out of the water, the heavens are torn apart and the Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove. Our baptismal liturgy, perhaps you will recall, emphasizes the Spirit’s role and work at several key points: in the blessing over the water when we pray, “Pour out your Holy Spirit so that those who are baptized may be given new life”; and later at two additional points where we lay hands on the head of the newly baptized and pray for the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit, and then again immediately after that when, using oil, we trace the sign of the cross on the forehead of the baptized saying, “child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked by the cross of Christ forever.”

Creation and baptism are ultimately about God who has a purpose in mind for his creation, and thus a purpose and a destiny in store for each and every one of us. That purpose and that destiny are to be found in the story of Israel, and thus in Israel’s true prophet, priest and king. We are drawn into his story in baptism by the Holy Spirit, who forms us into a new creation by incorporating us into Jesus’ death and resurrection.

And yet, one must admit: life doesn’t seem like or feel like a new creation; no, it does not. Still, at the heart of the creation story, with the first words of the Bible, we are asked to look beyond what we currently experience, and anticipate creation’s fulfillment as we hope for its perfection, a vindication of God’s faithfulness and abiding love for his people and all creation. God’s handiwork is good, because God promises to make it good, pledges to redeem and renew it with his love. You are God’s new creation, because you being renewed every day, soon to be redeemed as Israel will be redeemed by its God who is ever-faithful. You are now a part of the story of sin and forgiveness, of death and resurrection. As a new creation in Christ you are living signs of what humanity can be and will be like in him who is not only true God, but also a true human being. We are not yet truly human as he is. He has achieved the promise of humanity, and he comes to be not only our savior but our brother, he comes to perfect all things. The fulfillment of creation’s promise is still on the horizon, its purpose still to be realized, its beauty yet to be revealed. Creation’s promise, purpose, and beauty is precisely what the Holy Spirit brings us and leads us towards in baptism. Baptism brings us into the presence of God’s Spirit that moved over the waters of creation, that breathed life into the first human beings, that raised Jesus from the dead, and that comes to make us whole in Word and sacrament. With these gifts of the Spirit we don’t just become what we already are. We become what we will be by the grace and mercy of God.

-Amen-