1 Peter 3: 18-22 (New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition)
Mark 1: 9-15 (Common English Bible)
The Jordan River is the background of this gospel story. The enslaved people of the antebellum South created the song, “Roll, Jordan, Roll” as a hope for freedom and spiritual renewal. Water symbolized life-giving energy and also where God acts to bring about liberation, deliverance, healing and wholeness.
The image of the dove evokes a sense of beauty, grace, gentleness, peace and serenity. The term “Satan” simply means Adversary in the Hebrew language. The word “satan” didn’t become diabolical until the Jewish people in exile at Babylon copied ideas from the Persian religion called Zoroastrianism. Satan or the Adversary spoke to Jesus’ conscience, to use his powers to destroy enemies and win the world by force, power and bloodshed. By contrast, God told Jesus to create a reign of love. Jesus had to choose between the violence of the Adversary or the way of love from God.
We see Jesus connecting himself to every form of existence, from busy towns and in this reading even in the barren wilderness among wild beasts. This not only means Jesus is in a spiritual place of wandering and uncertainty, it’s also a reminder that Jesus was very much a part of the physical world. He was not a spirit or phantom as some early Christians believed. The fact that angelic beings cared for Jesus and he was confronted by the Adversary Satan, also shows Jesus’ awareness of the spiritual forces around him, which struggle for his conscience.
There are times for each of us, perhaps an illness, accident or tragedy when we are no longer in control of ourselves. Our status-quo is no more and our conscience is lost in a maze with no exit. But we may discover when all seems lost, it is the presence of Christ who stays with us and shares our pain. And out of that, through God’s grace, new possibilities and a new life can emerge.
In 1st Peter, the apostle writes about a new life beginning with baptism. He addresses his letter to the Christian exiles who lived in places like Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Bithynia and Asia Minor. These were places where modern day Turkey exists. When 1st Peter was written its author was aware of the persecution (“fiery ordeal”) that was taking place among his readers. No doubt this was the time the Emperor Nero began the Roman persecution of Christians. There is an emphasis in this letter on the suffering Christ faced. Peter makes it clear that Christ’s “passion” or torture is not something to imitate to get closer to God. There is no reason to wear a hair-shirt or have a friend nail you to a cross to show off your piety. And some of these crazy acts still happen in modern times. Instead Christ’s suffering, as horrible as it was, can be an example for each and every believer undergoing any kind of real suffering.
In this passage, Peter has several things to say about baptism. It should be remembered at this early part of church history we are dealing with adult baptism only. This was the baptism of people who had come straight from paganism into the Jesus faith who were embracing a new type of existence.
Baptism is a spiritual cleansing of the heart, soul and life. Peter called baptism the pledge of a good conscience to God (3:21). In other words, God is saying to the person being baptized, “do you accept the terms of my service?”
In his letter to the Roman church, the Apostle Paul writes, “We were baptized into the death of Christ, and just as Christ was raised from the dead, so we might walk in the newness of life.” The letter to the Roman church was an authentic letter written by Paul and it’s important to remember his authentic letters predate the gospels or anything else in the New Testament. At that time there was no heavy doctrine about baptism. Baptism was something you did to closely involve yourself with the Jesus Movement.
But several decades later, when 1st Peter was written, baptism was becoming more important. Baptism went from being an initiation to follow Jesus into an initiation to enter heaven. Taken to extremes, this can lead to the slippery slope of water regeneration where the emphasis is on the water and not Christ. In a real experience I personally remember, a person I knew got baptized by immersion and he got worried because he thought his nose had not been completely under the water! That is water regeneration taken to extremes. But the writer of 1st Peter does not necessarily equate baptism as a ticket to heaven. Instead he writes “baptism saves us as an appeal to God for a good conscience.” Christ is the one who makes us whole, not the water of any baptism. But what baptism does accomplish is to unite us more firmly within the Body of Christ to do justice and love as Jesus did.
The most mysterious thing that Peter writes about in his letter, is that Jesus between his death and resurrection went to the world of the dead and preached the gospel there in his spiritual body. Unfortunately, some Bibles like the KJV got it all wrong by calling the place “hell.” In 1611 the translators of the KJV didn’t yet have the oldest manuscripts of the Bible, so people in the English world were misled on this issue for nearly 400 years, until more accurate Bibles were published. Some Bible translations call this place that Jesus visited as “hades” which is not hell, it simply means the grave. The New Revised Standard Version Bible uses the word “prison” and that could be interpreted in several ways. Not all prisons are created equal. Compare the prisons in the civilized Scandinavian nations to the barbaric prisons in Mexico and even many in the United States I’m sad to say. Now the Buddhist religion believes all the dead have a temporary place after death to go to called the “Bardo.” There the spirits of the dead reflect on their former life before moving on to the next. Centuries later the Roman Catholic Church Christianized this concept into a place called Purgatory. It is a solid truth that religions are always borrowing ideas from other religions. If Christ descended into this Dead Zone and preached there, there is no corner of the universe into which the gospel cannot be preached in one form or another. The idea of Jesus’ descent into the dimension of death is a symbol that no person who has ever lived is left without the mind of Christ within their conscience, whether they lived in 200,000 BC or 2024 AD.
This reading from 1st Peter gives us three inspirational goals during this first Sunday of our Lenten journey to the Cross. First, we are invited to reflect on Christ’s suffering. Christ did this to show how evil humankind can be, even to the Son of God. Second, the water of baptism is a reminder for Christians to lead a life of good conscience. Choosing to do justice even if it may bring suffering for those who do want to bring heaven down to earth as Jesus prayed. And Third, the importance of water in both our spiritual and physical life. Water can sustain us and water can bring us into a closer relationship with Jesus the Christ.
When Jesus sent his Adversary packing after rejecting all his temptations in the wilderness, he went into Galilee. Jesus took his students to follow him when he cast out demons and performed healings. As we walk on our Lenten journey in our own wilderness, we should be assured we are not alone. We are following in the footsteps of the One who can sympathize with us in our weakness. We follow the One who suffered unjustly and we follow in his footsteps as he worked to bring healing and compassion to those most in need. May God bring us out of our comfort zones and keep us in the power of the Holy Spirit to seek out those who need the healing and the redeeming love of God.
AMEN
