Easter 7(B) – 1 John 5:[6-8,] 9-13
We’ve been reading through the letter of First John this Easter season, and it’s a hard text to read. The author of the letter doesn’t exactly work in linear fashion, arguing like Paul for a particular theological interpretation of the Christ event. Instead, he deals in images and circular reasoning, coming back to ideas he’s only touched on before, wandering off in confusing asides, and really making it quite difficult to understand what he’s talking about. We get some of the worst of it today: The beginning of our second reading today insists that Jesus came “not by the water only, but by the water and the blood.” It tells us that the “Spirit and the water and the blood” testify to Jesus as the Son of God, and they agree. And if you have no idea what all this means, well, you’re in good company.
The Spirit, we know, is God’s presence with us. We heard a few weeks ago in the Gospel reading that Jesus promised to send his disciples “another advocate, who will be with you forever, that is, the Spirit of Truth…whom you know because he abides with you and will be in you.” Where Jesus came to be among us, the Spirit comes to be in us and work through us. It’s that part of God that instills in us our values and virtues, that helps us to follow God’s will and enact it in the world. The Spirit serves as a conscience, a comforter, a helper and friend. It alternately reassures us in times of distress and unsettles us in times of complacency—though to be fair, I think we have a harder time listening to it when we are complacent than when we are distressed. The Spirit drives us out into the world to end injustice and bring healing to those who are hurting.
It also makes itself felt in the connections we have with other people. When the Spirit lives in both of us, it becomes even more visible when we are together. It is the connection we feel to other Christians, and the spark of consolation that we share with one another in times of trouble. Ultimately, the Spirit is what binds us together into the body of Christ, that Great Cloud of Witnesses in every time and place. It makes us something greater than ourselves, and makes us able to accomplish far more together than we can alone.
The water is an obvious reference to Baptism. I often wonder how well we understand Baptism. It’s central to our faith, of course, but a lot happens in Baptism, so it can be confusing. As a result, we Lutherans tend to tuck our Baptismal fonts away in places where we can’t really see them. In my congregation growing up, the font actually was put in the closet on Sundays when we weren’t using it! Here at least we have it out and on display, symbolically placed where we enter in to the church, and I like that symbolic placement a lot… but it does make me a little sorry it’s not up here some place where we can see it all the time, and remember how central it is to our faith.
Baptism means a lot of things to us. (1) It’s the time when we become part of the Church—part of the Body of Christ. (2) We receive the Holy Spirit in Baptism. (3) It cleanses us of our sins. (4) In fact, more than that, it puts our sins to death, drowning—there’s a very physical image there—drowning us under the waters of Baptism. (5) Then it raises us up to new life in Christ. (6) Oh dear, I’ve run out of fingers! Anyway, Baptism is when we are claimed as God’s own, becoming adopted children of God. (7) It’s a time when we are called by God to our holy vocations in life as worker, parent, volunteer, creator, in so many things. There’s more that Baptism does for us, but I think that’s a sufficient list for now.
No wonder the water is a difficult and confusing image for most of us. It’s a little overloaded. For the early Christians in the community of First John, Baptism was of vital importance—and not the smallest reason was because of Jesus’ Baptism. For their understanding, his Baptism was what made Jesus who he was. Think of the story of Jesus’ Baptism. He’s there, immersed in the water by John, a Baptism of repentance of sins for he who had no sin. And what happens? He receives the Spirit, which comes down out of heaven upon him like a dove. That Spirit that we said before is a force that drives us out to do God’s will. And the voice comes from heaven, announcing that Jesus was God’s own Son. Begotten Son, we say, a different sort of sonship than our adoption as God’s children. For the recipients of this letter, Jesus’ Baptism was the moment that endowed him with all that he was.
But the letter of First John is very careful to make the point that it isn’t just the water, but also the blood, that testifies to the Son of God. And that might make us a little uncomfortable, too. After all, the Easter season is all about the resurrection, isn’t it? Jesus beat the power of death once and for all. But in order to do that, Jesus first had to die. We can’t have resurrection without crucifixion. And for the community of First John, the crucifixion is vital. It is a firm sign of Jesus’ humanity. If Jesus had just been divine, he couldn’t have died. He just couldn’t. That’s not something that God does. And while First John is careful to affirm Jesus’ full Godliness, it wants us to hear too that Jesus was indeed human and like us. And that it was in his humanity that Jesus came into the fullness of his power.
Crucifixion wasn’t just one of the methods of killing that were available to the Roman government. Crucifixion was brutal, painful, horrible. The pain of the experience, the chafing of the nails driven through the hands and feet and the slow collapse of the lungs over hours, was terrible. But even more than that, crucifixion involved a deliberate loss of human dignity, as the victim was stripped and hung up, mocked by all. This in a society that cared far more about honor and shame than we do—crucifixion was the worst possible way to die.
This wasn’t just God giving up a measure of his power to die for us. This was God evacuating every shred of power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing he had. And then utterly powerless, utterly defeated, he was still victorious over sin and death. It was scandalous, and it changed the world.
And ultimately, that victory over death is exactly the point of all this. Because that’s where the letter of First John winds up. “I write these things to you…that you may know that you have eternal life.” Not so that you may do what you need to do in order to attain eternal life. Not so that you might eventually come to eternal life. But so that you may know that you already have it! Eternal life is yours! The price is costly—it involves the Spirit and the water and even the blood. But the price has been paid for you already.
And the Spirit and the water and the blood still testify to it. The Spirit still whispers the name of Jesus to us when we gather together as a community of faith, week after week, to draw nearer to the God who loves us. The water still tells us about Jesus sonship even as the waters of Baptism claim us as God’s own. And the blood poured out at the altar meal each week proclaims Jesus’ betrayal and death, and finally his victory, as we share in the bread and wine.
This is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Come to the table, and receive the testimony to Jesus Christ. Amen.