As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water. Suddenly the heavens were opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and resting on Him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!”
Matt. 3:16-17
“In his human life Jesus becomes a pattern for man…”
Meister Eckhart
For churches that structure their lives around the human journey of Jesus, this last Sunday was the celebration of his baptism. In seminary, we reflected on the theological significance of this baptism, his identification with humanity, anointing by the Spirit, and fulfillment of righteousness in anticipation of his sinless sacrifice on the cross. In these latter years of my life, I am more resonant with the mystic Meister Eckhart, that the journey of Jesus is a pattern for our journey.
To fully appreciate the significance of Jesus’s baptism, we must understand where it occurs in the context of his life. He is 30 years old, roughly midlife for a person in his culture. Up to this point, his life has been rather ordinary. For roughly 15 years he has earned a living as a carpenter, owned a home, lived near his family in the same community, and been a regular participant in the life of his faith community, a synagogue.
All that is about to change. God is about to ask something special of him. He is inwardly impelled to take the thirteen-hour walk from his hometown to the Jordan river where he is baptized by John. That baptism was something more than a liturgical ritual; it was a spiritually transformative experience where he hears a voice: “This is my beloved Son…” This voice affirms his fundamental spiritual identity in relationship to his Father.
Jesus’s ability to internalize and walk in this identity will be critical. Every other source of his identity will soon be stripped away—or used against him. The people of his hometown have him locked into his role as a carpenter and cannot think of him in any other way. “Is this not the carpenter?” they grumble to one another. If Jesus is unable to shed the identity derived from his job, his standing in the community, his connection to his family, his home ownership, he will never be able to move forward into the next stage of life with any degree of positive engagement. He will be so preoccupied with grieving all his losses that he will have nothing left for healing the sick, liberating people from their various demons, or dealing with the resistance of people who insist on misunderstanding him.
I have now spent roughly 20 years engaged deeply with people who have been stripped of their earthly sources of identity. These are people who have lost or retired from their jobs, been cut-off and exiled by members of their family, lost their robust physical health, or are in relationships where they are repeatedly fed the message that they are defective—but can’t leave them. As a result, they often become disheartened and desperate, plagued by negative, or even suicidal thoughts, emptied of vitality and zest.
The core issue, simple, but oh-so challenging, is one of identity. They, actually we, (I include myself here), have struggled to do what Jesus had to do: shift our identity from an external source to an internal one, the voice of God within us. It is this shift that not only promises to revitalize us at an emotional level, it is what makes possible any contribution of positive energy to the world. If Jesus does not embrace his identity as Son, he has nothing to give. And neither do we.
How do we make this shift? It is going to be different for everyone but here are some thoughts:
First, we need to name the fact that it is an identity confusion that is at the root of our issues. Sometimes our depression, our lethargy, or our negativity is functioning as a symbol of a spiritual emaciation. That is not to say that we should resist getting help from a therapist or a physician, but we also need to address the identity issue that is at the spiritual root.
Second, we need to intentionally grieve the loss of external sources of identity. Healthy grieving, however, comes to closure. If it becomes a chronic condition, it is usually because we have not yet established a robust spiritual identity. Using a metaphor from the teaching of Jesus, our interior life is built on shifting sand.
Third, we need to establish a mental library of renewed thinking about who we are. For me, that library is built around select Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, particularly the teaching and modeling of Jesus: You are the light of the world. You are the salt of the earth. You are a city set on a hill. It can be built around the insights of other spiritual teachers. However, no one else can build your new internal library, and no one else can do the work of internalizing new thinking. Words can be spoken to you a million times, but if you do not speak them to yourself, nothing will change. You will find yourself constantly in need of a spiritual fix from one source or another, moving from teacher to teacher.
Fourth, we need to find a community that will embrace our spiritual identity and all the expressions of that identity. However painful it must have been, Jesus refused to remain in a community where he would forever be only a carpenter. Run from those who try to lock you in a box of past successes, past failures, or past ordinary.
Fifth, we need to find ways to remember those experiences where God made clear to us who we are. Jesus would need to walk a long way on the strength of the words from his baptism in his memory. A friend once said, “God doesn’t part the Red Sea every day, and so we must remember. We must take those special experiences and turn them into a mental gumdrop. We may need to suck on them a long time.”
Finally, we must say who we are. Carl Jung said, “The world will ask you who you are. If you say you don’t know, the world will tell you.”
The mystic Catherine of Siena wrote: “All the way to heaven is heaven, because Jesus said, ‘I am the way.’” In the Baptism of Jesus we are shown more of the way. Being stripped of every external shred of our identity is the ego’s hell, but it is the Holy Spirit’s beginning to create a life full of power and zest.
But we must begin.
Much love,
Fe Anam