There are rocks in the baptismal font, not water, but rocks. The water has run dry and so it shall be for a time. It is the dry season of the church, the season of Lent.
During Lent, the church is on a pilgrimage, a journey of faith. We have left the safety of our well-traveled roads and are led off into the wilderness, the desert, to confront our own devils. The quiet pool in which we usually splash the heads of infants with clean, warm water has dried up and we all are dusty, our mouths are dry.
For generations and generations before Jesus, God’s people were led out into a wilderness to wander and to wait. Set free during the horrible night of first-born death, Moses led the people into the desert. There they confronted their own devils — their faithlessness, their constant complaints, their rebellion. For forty years they wandered from one dry wadi to another seeking water. But it was God who provided their water of life. Moses touched the rocks with his staff and fresh spring water flowed and the people were refreshed. Forty years of wilderness and desert and God to lead them into the promised land through the flowing waters of the Jordon River.
Generations and generations passed and a voice was heard again in the desert: “Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight. Make the rocky places smooth and the rough places a plain!” John the Baptist had appeared in the wilderness and all the people came out to face their devils — their faithlessness, their constant complaints, their rebellion. In the wilderness, John preached repentance and judgment. Matthew says that all were baptized by John in the Jordon, confessing their sin. Jesus was also baptized by John there in the wilderness.
When Jesus came up out of the water, immediately the heavens were opened and a voice from those torn heavens spoke to him saying, “You are my Son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased” — the same thing any father would say to a favored son. But then the Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove and she sank her talons into his still wet head from his baptism. She drove him into the wilderness to confront his own devils. For forty days and nights Jesus was in the wilderness tempted by the devil.
Each Lent, still dripping wet from our own baptism, the Spirit drives us out into the wilderness. For forty days, from Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday, we confront our own devils in the desert — our faithlessness, our constant complaints, our rebellion. The safety and the security of the ever-flowing baptismal font is behind us, dried up. Our lips are parched, our spirits withered, and we know that the only way back is through Jerusalem, through the rocky Kidron Valley to the Rock, the Place of the Skull, through to our own death with Christ.
Yes, there are rocks in the baptismal font and they will stay there for a time. We are in the wilderness to wander and to wait. We have many of our own devils to confront — to repent, to be reconciled with God and one another, to be renewed, to be washed clean once again in the waters of baptism to be raised again with Jesus on Easter morning.
During the season of Lent, I encourage each of you to bring a rock from your home and place it in the baptismal font as a sign of your participation in our Lenten pilgrimage.
Pastor Thomas S. Hanson
