Mr. Matt Read
Jan 11, 2026
Isaiah 42:1-9, Acts 10:34-43, Matthew 3:13-17
So as I mentioned to the kids earlier, John the Baptist has always been my favourite bible character.
My mom is also named Elizabeth, maybe we just have that in common?
Maybe I have always connected to the idea of the voice in the wilderness crying. The idea that the spirit of God is out there in the howling wind, clamouring to come in. That the spirit of God is in, not just the stranger, but, the, well, STRANGE. I could be a bit of a contrary child at times. I have this clear memory of hearing Pastor Steve one time talk about how Jesus is for everybody and it doesn’t matter what you look like or how you’re dressed. And from then on I drove my mom nuts refusing to get “dressed up” for Church. Y’all who attend here regularly and know me have probably noticed at some point that I routinely show up to church in old jeans and ratty t-shirts. But what is it with shorts …. ? <illustration>
But we’re talking about John the Baptist, wearing a camel hair coat, eating locusts and honey. I think that’s an important part of the story for me too. Because, while we talk sometimes about the early church admitting gentiles who didn’t keep jewish dietary laws. We are, most of the people here anyway, gentiles who grew up where eating pork and shellfish is just a normal thing people do! We don’t get that sense of, or as they say on the internet, the “ick” about including people who, you know, eat Oysters. The sense of the magnitude of what the community is being asked to do, when Paul says ya gotta include these oyster eaters, include and embrace radical outsiders. John on the other hand, God is working so powerfully through an icky outsider who has insect parts stuck in his teeth.
John finally is also, an agent at the intersection of the Wind and the Water. Both forces with enormous destructive potential. What did we read in Psalm 29 earlier. The lord over mighty waters breaks the cedars, shakes the earth, strips the forest bare. The forces behind tsunamis and hurricanes, the forces behind floods and tornadoes. But here in baptism, in the river with John, the water is still, the water is tame. Because water is not just a force of destruction, water is also life. Psalm 29 doesn’t end in destruction, it ends May the Lord Bless His People with Peace. John dips Jesus in the waters of the Jordan, and it is not the water of destruction that crushed Pharaoh’s army, it is the water of life, the water of the new covenant. Baptism is not destructive, it is affirmative. Then after the water, the wind! The skies open and the spirit of God, the breath of God, the wind of God descends. In Hebrew wind, breath, spirit, they’re all the same word, Ruach. English language preachers probably read too much into that sometimes. But then the gospel references Isaiah 42, “My beloved in whom I am well pleased.” And in Isaiah 42 the Hebrew writer uses Ruach, wind, spirit, breath, in parallel poetic structure.
John lifts Jesus up, out of the waters of the Jordan, and the Wind is over the Water. And the prophecy from Isaiah is fulfilled. And the Wind is over the Water, but it’s not stirring up a hurricane. The wind is over the water, but it’s not driving the river to flood. The wind is over the water, but what was the rest of the sentence from Isaiah. What is it, what’s coming? Another flood? A great storm? A new exile?
“He will bring forth justice to the nations.”
That is the rest of the sentence. That is the affirmation in Wind and Water at the baptism of Jesus. He will bring forth justice to the nations.
If you’ve been around here much before you probably know that the Presbyterian Church in Canada is a church where we baptise infants. Some other churches only believe in baptising adults who are old enough to understand it. Conversely some churches see infant baptism as imperative; to cleanse the child in the waters of life as a symbol of liberation from sin.
One of the reasons Churches in our tradition baptise babies is we see baptism as a sign not of an oath we make to God, but as an affirmation of God’s promise to us. An affirmation that he who will bring forth justice to the nations is our Lord today. An affirmation that the Lord of the Wind over the Water intends to harness those overwhelming forces for life, not for death.
Lutherans have a traditional saying for when times are tough, “remember your baptism.” Luther believed in infant baptism by the way, and it was a controversial topic during the reformation. The back and forth and rebuttals with the Anabaptists, being the people who believed in adult baptism only, kind of have this vibe where they read like the 16th century equivalent of teenagers sassing each other on social media. “Well yooooou say…”
Anyway, the phrase “remember your baptism” comes from a guy who baptised babies. And that makes it beautiful to me. Because it means, remember the promise God made to you before you could ever accept or reciprocate it. Remember the affirmation God made in you freely, full of grace, simply because you were born.
There’s an accompanying tradition that every night when you wash up before bed, you should splash your face with cold water three times, for father, son and holy ghost, and remember your baptism. Try it sometime.
So, these crickets are actually kinda growing on me, but how do we feel about whole snakes?
Ok see, the reading from Acts chapter 10 is a Sermon Peter gave at the house of a guy named Cornelius the Centurion. Just before Peter is summoned to visit Cornelius in a different city, he has a vision. And God presents before him on a sheet all manner of unclean animals, animals he’s not allowed to eat, and the voice of the Lord says to him, Peter, kill and eat. Peter says “no lord, I have never eaten anything unclean.”
The voice of the Lord replies, a well known bible verse I’m sure you’ve heard:“Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
The exchange happens three times, then the sheet ascends to heaven.
So when Peter preaches at Cornelius’s house:
“"I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every people anyone who fears him and practices righteousness is acceptable to him”
He’s not just going through the motions of a mission stop, this is a new, fresh revelation for him! God sends him this vision, then immediately sends him to a Gentile congregation. Where he witnessed that the spirit of the Lord is in them. He witnesses that the Wind and the Water are blowing and flowing through the town of Caesarea. And for the first time Peter baptises gentiles.
The wind and the water, the spirit and the baptism, carried the most devout of Jews in the church into the home of a Roman Centurion, because wind and water do not care about borders, the spirit of the Lord and the water of baptism are unrestrained by barriers made by people.
That was the end of this week’s message, but a woman named Renee Nicole Good was killed in Minneapolis on Wednesday, and I can’t say nothing about it. The conflict that led to Renee’s death is happening because some people drew a line on a map. We drew a line and said, on this side are the haves, on that side the have nots have to stay. We drew a line and said, on this side are the good guys, on that side the bad guys have to stay. We drew a line and said, on this side are the righteous, on that side are the unbelievers.
Renee died on Wednesday. On Thursday 11 year old Hamsa Housou was killed when a shell landed on her house in Gaza, three months after the alleged peace agreement began. Over 400 people have been killed in those three months.
Hamsa died on Thursday. Friday was the 1,000th day of the war in Sudan. At least 150,000 people have died and 12 Million people have been displaced in 1,000 days. The simple fact that Renee Nicole Good’s name is the only thing on my news feed, while I couldn’t find a single Sudanese name to honor is all you need to know about how the world has shrugged at Sudan’s plight.
What Renee Good and Hamsa Housou and 150,00 sudanese and 100,000 ukrainians and a quarter million russians have in common, is they died in conflicts that started because someone drew some lines, and said, the have-nots are on that side, the bad guys are on that side, the unbelievers are on that side.
Moses was found on the banks of the Nile river. The Nile flows through 11 modern African states. The ancient kingdoms that lined its banks are too numerous to list.
Jesus was baptised in the Jordan river. In 2026 the Jordan river flows in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine. The ancient kingdoms on its banks are too numerous to list.
The Wind and the Water, do not believe in borders.