**This sermon was given at The United Methodist Church in Madison on Sunday, January 19, 2014. I was inspired by Ben Lee, student pastor of the Oxford Colonial and Summerfield UMC's who first used the image of puzzles in relation to baptism.**
John 1:29-42
The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).
I have always enjoyed puzzles. Not just jigsaw puzzles, although I’ve spent countless hours over the years bent over a table, trying to fit tiny pieces together to create the image on the box. What I really enjoy are word or number puzzles. I think the only reason I ever picked up my undergraduate school’s newspaper was for the crossword puzzle, and it wasn’t even very good. If I could get my hands on an extra copy of The Baltimore Sun, I could usually complete the crossword puzzles for the first half of the week (my mom could do every day of the week- in ink!). My favorite homework assignment in elementary school was completing or creating word searches with the weekly vocabulary words. I was delighted when I found an app on the iPhone that has word searches! And I loved, loved, loved Sudoku. In my home growing up the newspaper always ended up in the bathroom, probably because that was the only place my mom could get a moment of peace with four daughters. I would go in the bathroom and rifle through the paper until I found the daily Sudoku puzzle. I would get lost in the numbers, trying to fill in the blanks without duplicating anything in each row and column--- sometimes I would get interrupted by a knock on the door. Just checking to make sure I hadn’t fallen in.
I think the first puzzles I ever did, though, were in the pews of the church I grew up in. You see, every week when we first got to church we stopped by the ushers and got two bulletins. The grown-up bulletin, with the order of worship, and the children’s bulletin. Oh how I loved the children’s bulletin! The front always had a picture of the Bible story that you could color in, and the back usually had a empty, framed space with some prompts for you to create your own picture. I always drew horses, no matter what the prompt was. Inside, there were puzzles. Word searches. Another kind of puzzle that I don’t know the name of, but where letters are assigned numerical value and you have to figure out what the numbers are spelling. Or there was another kind where there was just a jumble of letters, like a word search, except you had to circle every fourth letter, then put them together at the end and they spelled something, like, Jesus, or baptism, or Peter, or the Rock. And there were connect-the-dots. I think the connect-the-dots were really the first puzzles I ever did, successfully. How about you? Maybe you don’t think that counts as a puzzle, but I think it does. When you first look at a connect-the-dots, you don’t really have an idea of what you’re looking at, of what the finished product is supposed to be. It only comes to you gradually, as you find and connect each dot in the right order, until finally you have the completed picture. And then- voila! Everything makes sense! Every bump, every curve, each one has led you to complete the big picture.
I think life is like a puzzle. I think life is like a connect-the dots.
Don’t believe me? Look at our gospel lesson for this morning. In our gospel lesson we find John the Baptist, speaking to two of his disciples when Jesus walks by. And John calls out, “Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!” This is the one I’ve been talking about! I didn’t know it was him at first... When John first encountered Jesus, he didn’t have the full picture. All he knew was that he had been called to baptize with water, had been called to preach repentance, to prepare the way of the one who was coming after him, and that somehow, through his works, the Son of God would be revealed. John the Baptist has had many dots in his life that’s he’s been connecting, but then he finally connects the last dot once he has baptized Jesus, and seen the spirit descend and remain on him as a dove. That last dot completes the picture of John’s ministry, and allows him to proclaim, some days later to his own disciples that, “Here is the Lamb of God!” This exclamation made by John starts a whole new series of connect-the-dots for his disciples, who go off to see for themselves who this man Jesus is. It is a connect-the-dots puzzles that each of the disciples, and we as readers and hearers of the gospels, live out, piecing together puzzle pieces and connecting dots with every miracle, every parable, every teaching that Jesus says. As we journey through the gospels, we connect the dots, until that very last dot is connected, drawing the image to a close on Easter morning, with the big fat dot that is the empty tomb. And we realize that Jesus is the Messiah, the Risen Son of God, who even death cannot contain. Who is, and was, and is to come. With the realization that Jesus truly is the Christ, the one that we’ve been waiting for, we begin our own journey through life as his followers. Our own lives, that are each like a puzzle, filled with moments like dots just waiting to be connected in order to reveal a big picture.
For John the puzzle is completed the moment Jesus rises from the waters of baptism. For each one of us, the journey of connect-the-dots began with the moment the baptismal waters were sprinkled or poured over our heads, the moment when we entered into the community of faith that is Christ’s body the church. Our baptism is not the end, but rather the beginning, sending us forth on a life-long mission of loving God, loving one another, and loving all the world. Our baptism sends us forth with ears open to the voice of the Spirit; having been told that we are beloved children of God, with whom God is well-pleased, we are sent forth to follow the whispers and calls of the Spirit, often down roads that are challenging as we are called to bring forth justice for the least, the last,and the lost, to live lives of kindness, to act with mercy. Sometimes we rise up mountains and are filled with exuberance and joy. Sometimes we go down into deep valleys, and feel lost and lone. Sometimes we wonder why we’re doing what we’re doing, why we believe what we believe, and ask if it’s all worth it. It’s easy to get caught up in these moments and to see them as the big picture, as the end product, like the picture on a jigsaw box. But they’re not. They are only dots, each one connected to the one before it and the one after, each one helping to create an image that will be made clear to us, if not in this life then once we’ve passed through other waters and crossed over to the other side. And it all starts with that moment when we were named and claimed by God. It starts at the moment of our baptism.
And so, on this morning as we reflect on the places we’ve been and look ahead to the places we are called to go, we will also take a moment to remember where it all started. To remember our baptisms, and be thankful.
**Following this reflection we reaffirmed the Baptismal Covenant (UMH 50-52)**
