“More Beautiful than Rose”
Mark 1:9-11
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
April 3, 2022
A wash cloth. A watering can. A water bottle. An eye dropper. A snorkel mask.
In my favorite children’s message about baptism, I use these objects to introduce our young people to the many layers of meaning behind the sacrament of baptism—the many promises of God revealed in the water. I ask the kids to each pull one out of my basket. The washcloth points us to the promise that God offers us a fresh start, over and over again, throughout our lives. The watering can reminds us that God will help us grow. The water bottle assures us God will quench our thirst. The eye dropper, which we use to drop tiny droplets of water into a bowl filled with water, reminds us that we are each individuals and we are part of something greater than ourselves—the church community. The snorkel mask represents the promise that God will bless us with renewed vision.
The snorkel mask is the one I have the hardest time explaining. I talk about how, when we dunk our heads underwater, everything seems fuzzy and murky. With a snorkel mask, it suddenly becomes clear, and we see beauty. It’s like looking at the world, I say, through the lens of God’s love.
No matter how careful I am in my explanation, it often comes across as though God wants us to see the world through rose-colored glasses—to be optimistic, to look on the bright side, accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, ignore the pain. No! No! I want to say. That’s not what I meant to say. This lens of love is about so much more than that. It reveals a world much more beautiful than anything we could see through rose-colored glasses.
The snorkel mask promise is the hardest to explain. It’s also, for me, right now, the one I most need to hear. I need God’s help to see hope for peace through and beyond the images of destruction on the news. I need God’s help to see hope for justice and transformation amidst the morass of our history of racism. I need God’s help to see hope for healing of our planet as we hear of tornadoes and wildfires and droughts and mudslides. What does it mean to see this pain-filled world through the lens of God’s love? How can I open myself to that new—or renewed—way of experiencing the world?
I have only used my mask to snorkel—comfortably floating on the surface as I revel in the brightly colored fish swimming beneath me. Our nephew Justin, in his extended gap year between high school and college, has become a master diver. He goes deep underwater, immersing himself in a world I cannot even imagine. It is a stunningly beautiful world—brilliant colors beneath the murky water, revealing an intricate web of life as vulnerable and as resilient as the one we see on land. It is a world of life hidden from our ordinary sight. Yet it is intertwined with our lives–impacted by our carelessness and greed, impacting the health of the entire planet.
Justin took hours and hours of training to get his diving certification. Every dive requires attention and care. To immerse himself in the ocean, he needs help breathing—so he carefully checks his oxygen tank to ensure it is properly connected. He needs companions to accompany him underwater—sometimes attached by ropes—, and others to support him above ground. He needs his dive mask to creates enough air space between his eyes and the water so the light refracts and he can see clearly.
To dive, Justin needs an oxygen tank, a support team, and a dive mask. Most of all, he needs courage to plunge into the unknown. When he claims that courage, when he arranges for the help he needs, he immerses himself in the ocean and sees the world in a new way.
That’s a bit like what Jesus asked his disciples to do. “Believe the good news,” he proclaimed. “The kingdom—the realm, the kin-dom—of God is at hand.” There is a whole world of beauty and hope and love you haven’t yet seen, he declared. It is here, breaking in right now. Dive in, he challenged them, and I will help you see.
For many, his words made no sense. All they could see was the kingdom of Caesar—the brutal exercise of power. All they could see was despair, suffering, injustice, isolation. For some, his words sparked a glimmer of hope. Even though they still couldn’t imagine what this kin-dom was like, they dared to follow, to dip their toes into this ocean of love, maybe even to plunge in head-first.
There were ah-hah moments, when they glimpsed that new world of beauty and hope and love—perhaps in a meal with strangers, through an act of healing, when someone shared a kind word. There were also moments they were overwhelmed and confused and forgot how to breathe in this new way of being. It took time to adjust their vision so they could see beauty and hope through the murky pain of everyday life.
It took a long time for them to discover that this kin-dom wasn’t beyond the struggles of this world but breaking through in the midst of the struggles. It took their whole lives to recognize that they were not just witnesses to this new world but called to bring it to fruition—as they dared to open their hearts to strangers and share meals with enemies, as they began to trust that God’s healing power was at work though their words and their hands.
It was a life-long journey of discovery for the disciples—a journey of learning to breathe, of figuring out how to tie themselves to each other, of seeing pain and despair and then seeing deeper to new life and hope emerging, of opening their eyes to new visions of power and new definitions of abundance. It was a life-long journey that began with a plunge, or maybe a toe-dip into the ocean of God’s love.
That is the promise of baptism—or the part of the promise represented by my snorkel mask. God’s love is like an ocean—vast, deep, essential for life, full of hidden beauty. Jesus invites us to enter that ocean—to dare to trust that God loves us just as we are, that God’s love is powerful enough to heal and transform us, that God’s love is at work through our acts of love. When we plunge into that ocean of love, God promises to send the Holy Spirit to help us breathe. God blesses us with community to offer support and safety. God prepares a dive mask for each one of us, so we aren’t just swimming in a murky morass of abstractions about love but can see beauty, hope and love in vivid color.
In a few minutes, Karen Nell and I will pour water from this beautiful pitcher into equally beautiful bowls. The water comes from our ice sculpture—a wave of the ocean of God’s love. It is God’s love, transformed from ice to water over the course of our Lenten worship. We will move through the sanctuary, using evergreen branches to sprinkle you as a reminder of the promises God makes to you in baptism.
I pray the drops of water will be an invitation for you to enter into the ocean of God’s love. If you’re ready to plunge, go ahead and leap in. If you need to take it slow, just dip a toe in and begin to imagine what might change if you dared to trust that God loves you just as you are. Don’t worry, you don’t have to do this alone. We—this church community—have promised to be with you, to plunge or dip or walk along the shore. The Holy Spirit will help you breathe. The teachings of our faith will transform your vision. You will see beauty and hope and love you never imagined was possible. Amen.