The Kingdom of God: The John the Baptist Practice

Something can be two things at the same time.

A sunset can be beautiful yet at the same time indicate that a beautiful day is ending. Joy and sadness sometimes move together, like two dancers doing a waltz.

Well, the kingdom of God is two things at the same time. It is a reality not to be fully realized until Jesus’s return and it is a present reality inside each of us, able to be realized right here and now, albeit imperfectly. 

But what does this mean for our daily lives?

That is today’s question. What does the kingdom of God mean for my daily spiritual life?

As Christians living this side of Christ’s return, one of our most important tasks is to prepare the way for that return and the Kingdom of God Christ will usher in. We are all John the Baptists, preparing the way for Christ’s return!

That we are all John the Baptists preparing the way for the kingdom is key to our answer to how we live the kingdom of God ever day.

The practice of baptism is key, but baptism in ways that are more expansive than you might think. So, let’s look at the practice of baptism in its various, expansive forms and how they are helpful for our daily lives.

There are four forms of baptism I’ll look at this morning.

1.

The first form of baptism is the obvious one – baptism as a central sacrament of the church. We baptize folks into the church as we prepare for the coming kingdom! That’s the obvious form of baptism that we are to do here and now as John the Baptists, preparing the way for Christ’s return and the kingdom’s coming. As the church, we baptize people into the life of Christ and Christ’s church.

There’s a 2^nd less obvious form of baptism we as John the Baptists we are called to do, one maybe you’ve never thought about, a baptism you all can practice and maybe already practice daily.

2.

When you pray for someone, you are in the spiritual sense baptizing them in the living water that is Christ. When you pray for someone, you inundate that person in the sea of Christ’s compassion, you flood that person in the light, love, and living water of Christ, and allow that person to be, in turn, lifted up in and by Christ. Praying for others means being like John the Baptist preparing for the kingdom of God by baptizing others in the Jordan that is Christ.

Here’s another way prayer is a form of baptism.

3.

When in prayer to God you express where you are and where you want to go, your hopes, fears, aspirations, you infuse yourself in the living waters of Christ. And with your amen – which literally means, may it be so – you rise from your time in the living waters of Christ ready to meet your day. Having a prayer life, sharing your self with God, means being akin to John the Baptist, baptizing self in the Jordan that is Christ.

There’s yet another kind of baptism we might think about, one we’ll spend the rest of our time on for this meditation.

4.

As we prepare for Christ’s kingdom to be finally and fully realized on earth as it is in heaven, we should be about the sacred work of baptizing the present moment, immersing this moment and this precious breath in the living water that is Christ.

I love this Wendell Berry quote – “there are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.”

I would apply that to moments in our lives as well. There are no unsacred moments; there are only sacred moments and desecrated moments.

Moments begin their downward turn from sacred to desecrated when we fail to honor or when we dishonor the sacred moments afforded us.

Baptizing the moment means stopping this downward turn from sacredness to desecration by showering that moment in Christlike mindfulness.

What if the moments we know feel desecrated already, not sacred?

Well, baptizing the moment means turning desecration back toward sacredness by showering that moment in Christlike mindfulness.

How do we halt the wrong turn toward desecration? And how do we start the right turn back toward sacredness? We baptize the moment, honoring and drowning the moment in sacredness with our full, mindful attention, the kind of mindfulness Jesus and John the Baptist before him lived and breathed.

When we stop and, in stillness, baptize the moment as John the Baptists pointing to the way of Christ, we anoint what is already sacred right in front of us, as if baptizing a precious child already sacred.

And when we stop and, in stillness, baptize the moment, we re-sacralize what has been desecrated, redeeming it, as if baptizing a repentant youthful offender and their new start, the once-dead sacredness within now alive and sacred again.

Here’s an example of a 10-year-old me unknowingly baptizing the moment. I’m sure you’ve all experienced something similar. I’d love to hear about by the way!

The Blizzard of ’82 hit right around my birthday in April. The huge, paralyzing storm resulted in a couple of days off from school, which made us non-nerds happy. Before playing in the snow, shoveling had to happen first.

My friend and I were helping shovel, and by accident, as I threw snow with my shovel, the shovel hit my friend. It cut his chin. The cut was bad and would require stitches. He was bleeding as he was rushed off to the ER and I was left traumatized!

After the long, traumatic day, I decided to go back to the scene of the accident. The sidewalk was clear. It was dark by that time.  I dropped in a snowplow-created mountain straddling the sidewalk and began making snow angels. I eventually stopped with the snow angels and stared into the sky.

The night’s clouds were whitened by a full moon behind it. The white of the snowy earth and the white of the clouds made it seem like day. I heard the silence of the moon, clouds, wind and insulating snow. It was a stillness that was clear and moving. It was as if God was speaking to me with the visceral silence. I breathed in the scent of the snowy night. I was attent and content. So seemed the snow angels I had made. All of us, all of the universe, rested in the quiet of the snow’s insulation.

I didn’t know it then. But this was 10-year-old me baptizing the moment simply by being still and observing what was right in front of me.

This is a poignant example from my life. But maybe like me, you experience less dramatic but just as meaningful quiet moments in your day-to-day lives, moments when you note the beauty and sacredness right in front of you. That is baptizing the moment.

And we are to make a habit of this practice, immersing the moment in the sacredness of this God-given life.

So, let us prepare for the full realization of God’s kingdom when all will be enlightened by the love of Christ. Let us John the Baptists be about the work of baptizing all of creation, including earthly time, in the living water of Christ, and letting Creation rise from that living water instilled with new life in a new heaven and new earth.

When we do this, we glimpse the kingdom of God and actualize it here and now.