The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
January 13, 2002

God’s Great Do Over
Matthew 3:13-17

Here we go again. We stand once more on the banks of the Jordan River. The Gospel reading for this Sunday has brought us back to that little Middle Eastern stream of such Biblical significance. Each year on this first Sunday after the Feast of Epiphany, the Sunday readings bring us down to the bank to watch as John the Baptist baptizes Jesus. This is the story that all the Gospel writers consider essential.  

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all make sure that we stand here on the banks of the Jordan to watch Jesus’ baptism, and why not, the special effects alone are worth the three days hike down from Jerusalem. When Jesus comes up out of the water, the heavens are opened and the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus in a mighty way, which Matthew describes as being like a dove fluttering down and alighting on Jesus. Then a voice booms out from the sky saying, “ This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” 

What an impressive scene. It’s a very familiar Bible story too, perhaps a little too familiar. Any time we encounter one of the greatest hits of the Bible, a Bible story sure to make all the Bible storybooks, there is a danger of not really listening to how God is speaking through the story. We can get a sense that we have heard all this before.  

Well in the case of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, the elements of the story were all familiar before Jesus’ baptism ever happened. The story of Jesus’ baptism really retells a couple other greatest hits of the Bible stories. 

Consider this: The name Jesus is our English version of the Hebrew name Yeshua, which was what Jesus was called in his own lifetime. Yeshua means Yahweh’s salvation. It was a common name in Jesus’ day. It had been a common name ever since the Hebrews had first come into the Promised Land lead by the first Yeshua. You see, the Hebrews were led out of Egypt by Moses, we know that from Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments and the more recent Prince of Egypt. But Moses never entered the Promised Land.  

By the time the Hebrews entered Israel, forty years later, they were led by Joshua, Son of Nun (that’s Nun as in a name, not none as in son of nobody). Joshua is what we call him in English, but the name in Hebrew is Yeshua. Yeshua led the Hebrews across the Jordan River into the Promised Land of Israel (Found in the Book of Joshua, chapter 3). The fulfillment of God’s promise of a homeland came as Joshua, Yeshua really, came down to the Jordan River to lead the people to a new future. It was a brand new start in a whole new land. 

See how our story today repeats two of the same elements. Jesus, Yeshua really, is in the Jordan River. Starting his ministry in that place is so significant. Yeshua in the Jordan rings deeply of history in Israel representing a whole new start for Israel. God’s redemption was coming to his chosen people in a way that echoed of the past. 

There is one more echo of the past in today’s Gospel. There are a few other elements in our story that are familiar from another Bible story. Try this quiz. What Bible story features prominently the voice of God speaking as the Spirit of God hovers over water? It is another new start, in fact it is the original new start. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was a vast waste, darkness covered the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water, and God said, ‘Let there be light.’” (Genesis 1:1-3a in the Revised English Bible) 

It may seem like a bit of a reach, but there in the creation story we have God speaking and the spirit of God hovering over the waters just as we have when Jesus comes out of the water in after his baptism. Maybe you’re more willing to give me a break on two Yeshuas in the same Jordan being connected, but trust me on this one, Jesus’ baptism is very much connected to the story creation.  

Jesus baptism is the start of his ministry and Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection are God’s great do over. Do over. You know those great words of grace on the playground and among friends. It goes like this, “Let me show you this new trick I just learned on my skateboard.” You try the trick, it doesn’t work and then you say “do over.” Friends let friends do over. It’s the way life should be. You really blow it with someone by saying all the wrong things at the exactly wrong time. With a friend, you should be able to say, “Can we just do over?” But sometimes we aren’t all that forgiving with each other.  

Sometimes your friends won’t let you do over when you need to. But God is more dependable than that. The Old Testament describes God in several places as “the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6 NRSV). God is so merciful and so gracious that God allows do overs. We can always go to God and say, “God I have really messed up. I want to turn my life around, I just need do over.” God will always honor that prayer. 

God is so inclined to do overs that God doesn’t wait on us to suggest it first. God made all the creation and then called it good. That’s the way that first creation story turned out by the way. God made it all, looked at everything and called it good. But we humans took our free will and turned from God. You’ll read in the Bible how God offered people a chance to do over again and again. The prophets of the Old Testament had the job of calling the people to do over.  

God even gave the whole nation of Israel a chance to do over. After God led them out of Egypt, the people turned their back on God in the desert. Moses said give them a break and God gave them a do over. When Joshua led the Hebrews out of the desert into the Promised Land, it was a chance for all the people as a nation to get a fresh start, a do over. 

In time, they would blow that chance too, but God continued to use the prophets to call the people to change, to turn back to God and make a new start. Then came God’s boldest plan, the great do over. God sent his only Son in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection were the big plan. In Jesus, we have the best chance to see that God loves us and wants a relationship with us. Through Jesus, we have a chance to cry out to God “do over,” and God will give us a fresh start.  

The Apostle Paul saw this fresh start as such a radical change that anyone who is in Christ is a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). There it is again, that connection of creation and Jesus ministry. And it all started here on the banks of the Jordan. Up until now, Jesus has lived a pretty normal life. However, that day at the Jordan, the spirit of God came hovering over the waters of the Jordan to alight on Jesus and God’s voice boomed out with the authority that created all that is saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Jesus ministry began. God gave us our greatest, clearest, loudest call to do over. 

Each of us has a chance to turn our lives over to God and get a fresh start. That fresh start can be marked with our baptism, where we take the story of our life and make it one with God’s story, just as Jesus was faithful to God by being baptized, we too can be faithful through baptism and get a fresh start, becoming a new creation.  

Yet, we know that baptism is not the be all end all to our chances to wander off from God. Each of us can find ourselves getting increasingly cut off from God. We go to church less often or drop out entirely. We spend less time in reading the Bible or prayer. We stop turning our problems over to God and try to take them all on ourselves. When we cut ourselves off from God, life can get pretty tough. We all make mistakes, but the further we get from God, the easier those mistakes come.  

Nevertheless, you can never get too far from God. No matter what happens, we still have the loving God that Moses described as “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” Whenever you cry out to God “Do over!” God will hear and give you that fresh start, a chance to change and begin again with a clean slate. The same God, who possessed the fullness of the Holy Spirit in Jesus, wants to give you that same Holy Spirit for comfort, strength, and power. The same God who looked at all creation and called it good wants to look you in your eyes, love you, and call you good. It is God’s great do over and it’s there for the asking.

Amen.