January 12, 2020 - Baptism of Our Lord - Life Under God's Rain (Reign)

This is an Epiphany Sunday, You can follow this link to read the epiphanies that came on last year's Baptism of Our Lord Sunday. (you may need to scroll up to read the enry).

This week, as I started to compose this blog about baptism, I listened to The Who song Love, Reign o'er Me. The second verse always struck me as setting up and delivering a prayer

Only love
Can bring the rain
That makes you yearn to the sky
Only love
Can bring the rain
That falls like tears from on high

Love, Reign o'er Me 
Love, reign o'er me, rain on me, rain on me

It is also raining today which brought a new epiphany. The clouds close us in. The sky on a rainy day doesn't lend itself to be called sky. You find yourself yearning for a brilliant blue sky and show white clouds. Yet the light grey on a rainy day is sky as well.  The lyrics to the song do speck to some great truth for me.

I have read that scripture scholars often translate the Greek word in the Gospel as the “reign of God” rather than the “kingdom of God.” “Kingdom” is a static notion indicating a place where God dwells whereas “reign” dynamically indicates a relationship with God. This scholarly preference shows that we achieve our salvation in the midst of a sinful world. We understand that our journey is embedded in lives that are largely insignificant to the world. Finally, the working of the reign of God quietly transforms both us and the world.

Baptism symbolizing purification or regeneration is often stressed but that is not what I feel when seeing a baptism. Ever since my son's baptism I have experienced this as a sacrament concerned with a dynamic relationship with God.

Pete Townshend's words equate rain with reign and love and God and tears. His prayer expresses what I feel at this moment. Heaven or kingdom of God move the mind far too quickly to some geographic place where there is a country with a ruler. Rain is capturing my imagination today. Rain is around us, we know the source is above us, yet we don't see that source and yearn for the sky. An expression of God is rain as tears from on high. Tears of empathy, tears that take away the pain and make us all equal. Rain falls on everyone.

Many say that God in the Bible is a God of the desert. God for me in my epiphany is not a God of the desert but a God that comes through the rain that satisfies our thirst. The rain that fills the well the Samaritan draws from and what Jesus is teaching her. 

Pastor Dayle always use to preach that she would try to remember her baptism when she splashed her face with water. Rain is reminding me of baptism today for the reasons I noted above. We are bound to each other by this life-giving element and God, through Jesus is bound God with us.

Baptism was drummed into me in the past as a sacrament of purity and I don't see that as the primary purpose anymore. Epiphanies each year are becoming joyous, pretty powerful, hard to distill in writing and allowing my faith to grow in unexpected ways.