Baptism Noir

Is anyone familiar with film noir? I recall Sunset Blvd., Humphrey Bogart, Orson Welles, or James Cagney…back alleyways and shady dealings, with actors constantly mumbling asides under their breath…mystery, intrigue and lots of smoking. Our scripture from today can be thought of as a film noir scene in the Gospel of John. As the encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus develops, we see a mystery unfold involving Jesus’ identity. Yet, Jesus uses this discussion to hint at what God has planned for humanity after Jesus’ ministry on earth is done. Specifically, this passage reveals the reality of new creation within Jesus’ disciples at the onset of the Holy Spirit. Underneath the dark, smoky, exterior of this story lay a great mystery, yet unsolved by the human mind.

The word “noir” means black in French, and thus, refers to the dark look of early crime drama. Our story for this morning, too, is set with a dark feel. John points out that Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. On the surface, night provides an opportunity for Nicodemus to dialogue with Jesus uninterrupted. Possibly, Nicodemus was embarrassed of his admission that Jesus carried the presence of God. Or, Nicodemus might have come to secretly question Jesus when Jesus had no supporters around. At any rate, this discussion between Nicodemus and Jesus is private, almost occurring as an aside in the Gospel text. These utterances are contemplative, drawing questions that will haunt the rest of the text…and the private setting of the discussion on lends to the mystery of its content.

As we plunge deeper into John’s Gospel, however, we find that the setting of this discussion in an important detail, as John tends to emphasize the contrast between darkness and light. One can imagine Jesus’ wisdom shining through and illuminating the dark night around Nicodemus’ soul. From the outset of the gospel, we hear things about Jesus being “light [which] shines in the darkness” and that “the darkness [has] not overcome it.” John generally associates darkness with the world, with confusion, and with the evil choices that humans make on a daily basis. John’s world is in need of light to overcome the darkness…and as Nicodemus approaches Jesus at night, he is simply one amongst many who live their lives in the dark.

I have noticed, recently, a change in cinema. I do not know when it began, but I do know that now, more than ever before, screenwriters seem driven to portray the idea that evil overcomes good. Veronica and I were recently discussing the patented Disney happy ending...which does not seem to occur as much anymore. I’m not sure if the world has given up, or if people find annihilation more interesting, but the worldview of contemporary cinema is getting darker every year. As Christians, I think that it is healthy to recognize that the world is currently plunged into darkness. There is something that rings throughout the human spirit which is dark, and broken, and twisted. However, if we concede that the story ends in this darkness, then we forfeit the power of the gospel. True, our happy ending must first take us through the shadow of the cross…but our savior mounts the cross, and goes one step further, conquering it and bringing life where there was only death…darkness gives birth to light, death gives birth to life.

And so we arrive at the mystery of the passage. This idea completely baffles Nicodemus…that one might be able to experience birth a second time. In Greek, the word following born can mean both “from above” and also “again”. Is Jesus speaking about His own divine origin, or is He talking about something that will happen to His followers? As the mystery unfolds, the rabbit hole seems to go deeper and deeper. Nicodemus cannot see that Jesus is connecting His own divinity with the renewal of humanity…but we cannot blame Nicodemus. Who can fully understand so great a mystery? That Jesus is born “from above” means Jesus has the very substance of God within Him. Surely Jesus does not mean “from above”, but what sense does it mean to be born a second time? Can someone crawl back into their mother’s womb? Once something is created, can it be remade into something completely different? If Nicodemus took Jesus seriously, he must have been extremely confused at this point. And yet, Jesus intended both of these meanings when He answered Nicodemus. Without either possibility, the world would remain in darkness.

Darkness recalls the beginning of time. In the ancient Jewish mind, water represented the chaos that reigned before God spoke order into creation. Imagine a raging sea…waves crashing upon each other, creating a surface that hides unimaginable depths. To brave the sea meant death for many in the ancient world, and even for those who survived, the sea was untamable by any man. At sea, one is at the fate of weather and currents…what man can tell the waves to calm themselves? And thus, we see God speak and call light out from the darkness…we see God separate land from water…we see God making a world that humanity is able to inhabit. We see mercy. The mystery which Jesus speaks is one that we still cannot fathom…Jesus is telling Nicodemus that Jesus Himself is that Word which parted the darkness and light. Jesus reveals that He will call into the waters and pull humanity from death into new life. With Jesus, we are to experience creation once again. As we learn a new detail, the mystery grows ever deeper.

In the waters of baptism, we encounter death. Yet, our death is a death of a different kind. Last night, Amy performed a beautiful dance to a song by Shane & Shane. One of the lyrics from the song accurately describes this baptismal death: “Let the vision of You be the death of me”. We meet God in the waters of baptism, and when we do, we cannot but burn away. There is no place in the heavens, or on earth, or even in the depths, where we can escape God’s presence, and so, as we dive into the depths, we meet God’s presence fully and we burn away into new life. Death and recreation happen in the baptismal waters…this is all a mystery.

Of course, the idea of water being involved in creation should come as no surprise to us. My mother was involved in Obstetrics for over 20 years, as a nurse and a midwife, so I grew hearing about (and at times, though regrettably, watching) the birth process. Over the 9 months in which a life comes together inside of the womb, the essentials for life are assembled in a pool of water. From the first moment in which we underwent our own miraculous process of being ordered, we were suspended in water. When we emerge from this pool, we gasp our first breath, and the mystery of life is revealed to the world once again. Water and breath come together to create a new life, and those around to welcome this arrival of new life are changed forever by the experience. So to, as we emerge from the waters of Baptism, we are changed by the experience of new life…real life…in Christ Jesus.

And thus, Jesus reveals to Nicodemus that the process of this re-creation of life happens by water and Spirit. What happens inside of the believer is a reoccurrence of original creation…a re-creation of life within the believer. Whereas flesh gave birth to this current body, the Spirit of God now breathes life into the soul of the believer, creating new, lasting life. As God once breathed into the nostrils of clay to form the first man, Jesus now breathes new life into bodies destroyed by the darkness of humanity. We are experiencing creation anew by the grace of God.

These last few weeks have been windy, which might not mean a lot to the common person, but means a great deal to those who spray dangerous chemicals. As I spray rose gardens, my greatest moments of frustration are when the wind picks up from nowhere, changes direction and blows spray back in my face. It is in these moments that God is (hopefully) developing my patience. It made me think this week that wind is a true testament that we cannot control as much as we want to. In a scene from the movie, “Tommy Boy”, Chris Farley is sitting in a tiny sailboat in the middle of a lake. The boat looks about to capsize, and his frustration grows as he is stranded in the middle of the lake with no wind to take him to shore. Wind is unpredictable, and we certainly cannot tell it what to do. In fact, we sometimes have trouble guessing which direction it will take. As much as we do to exert control over creation, some things will always be out of our reach. I truly believe that some things will always remain a mystery…and such is life itself. There will always be things that we will not be able to understand about life, much in the same way that we know not which way the wind blows, or where it comes from. Some things will always be out of our reach.

And in the same way, Jesus blows into town from some remote place in the near East, performing miraculous acts and speaking in riddles. Our suffering hero. The mystery of mysteries. And yet, Jesus is closer to us than we are to ourselves. This we forget in the darkness of the world, and as we draw close to Jesus, He illumines our paths once again. This is the Lenten walk that we are treading right now…calling out to Jesus from the depths to light the way. Lent is a time to turn back…a time to assess where we are in this act of new creation. Recall Genesis 1…God poetically, yet masterfully, order creation in a carefully planned series of moves from the first things to the last. Each step brings more diversity, more complexity, and yet, more wholeness…more shalom. In the same way, God is mining the depths of our soul, trying to order our innards from top to bottom. Where are you in this process? Are you still stuck on the surface problems that you became aware of when God first shone light into your darkness? Or is God moving ever-inward, unearthing vices rooted deep within you? I don’t mean to sound legalistic…the blood of Christ shelters us from that angel which seeks to destroy us. Yet, Lent is a time to evaluate our sincerity in this process of sanctification. We must nurture the new life that God has recreated within us, and not wage war against the work of the Spirit.

We are blessed to witness a sign that God is still creating new life amongst us today. In this process, I want to encourage the participants that no gift from God is meant for us alone, but these gifts from God are meant to spill out and rescue the world. This morning, I hope that baptism will rekindle a joy within us like when we first felt new life kicking in our depths. I pray that baptism will inspire us to remember our own death, and so, to let go of that old skin that still clings to the newborn life within. Finally, and utmost, I pray that baptism will draw our attention and affection once again to the only source of real life, and so too, that we will raise up this Son of Man as Moses raised up the serpent in the wilderness, so that all might know the source, and might experience creation and life for the first time.