The First Sunday of Epiphany
Genesis 1:1–5
Acts 19:1–7
Mark 1:4–11
Wind and water. Light and dark. Heaven and earth. The beginning.
There is a quiet joy about the opening of Genesis. Quiet, not because it’s only slightly exciting, but because we know at once that these are the soft opening notes of a theme that will grow and swell, rise and develop, until the whole orchestra has joined in with wild, exuberant harmony and counterpoint. Even that will only be the completion of the beginning. God saw that it was good. But there is more.
The wind of God sweeps over the waters. Difficult to know how much to hear in that phrase. ‘Wind’ is the same Hebrew word as ‘spirit’, or even ‘Spirit’; there is a good deal to be said for thinking that the writer, editor(s) and transmitters of Genesis 1 would not have made the finicky post-Enlightenment distinctions that we do. A full range of meaning is available, from ‘a mighty wind’ through to ‘God’s Spirit’. The wind blows where it wills, and we don’t know its origin or destination; so it often is with meaning. Best to spread sail and be carried along.
Not for nothing do we find John the Baptist in the Johan-nine prologue, up there along with light and life, part of the new Genesis. As Mark makes clear, John’s baptism is a signal of new creation: he appears as a prophet, a sign of renewal and restoration, both in his garb, his diet, his location, his message and his very person. Forgiveness of sins was not just what everyone knew they needed personally; it was what Israel needed, because [un-forgiven] sin was directly correlated in the corporate consciousness with the present parlous state of Israel’s national fortunes. The meaning of a royal pardon is not simply that the prisoner enjoys a good feeling of innocence restored, but that he gets out of jail.
Scarcely surprising that we find disciples of John in Turkey 25 years later. His message had spread far and wide. But you can’t stop with John. Just as Genesis moves forward, so does the story of which John knows himself to be a part. He prepares the water and invokes the Spirit, through which will come the judgement which is also mercy, the new Day which will show up the Night as ‘darkness’. (Notice how God saw that the light was good, and separated it from the darkness; think what that might have meant to a first-century Jew.) Then it happens. A figure emerges from the water. Heaven and earth are suddenly present to each other. Wind becomes Spirit, Spirit becomes dove; every section of the orchestra takes up the theme, and over it all is heard a solo voice. My son. My beloved. My delight.
God saw that it was good. What does he see now, at the start of a new year? Where are the signs of new creation? Where are the dark, formless voids that still await the rushing mighty wind?
N. T. Wright, Twelve Months of Sundays: Reflections on Bible Readings, Year B (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2002). 18-19.
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