I preached at the LTS chapel service yesterday at noon. I used the assigned texts of Zechariah 2:1-6 and Mark 10:35-45. I used my personal testimony to unpack the vision given to Zechariah. Note: A first year requirement of the Liturgy class is to organize a “Paschal Retreat” – students are broken into groups and assigned Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil and Easter services. Over the course of one day the student body is taken through this emotional and spiritual experience. I reference this event which took place at LTS last week.
“For I will be a wall of fire all around it, says the LORD and I will be the glory within it.”
Most of us have a fascination with fire. Campfires. Candles. Fireplaces.
I discovered one of the pleasures of fire while I was on internship in the Georgian Bay area. Many homes have woodstoves because snow squalls often knock out the Hydro. I would go into people’s homes and their wood burning stoves radiated a great heat … the kind of heat that permeates your entire being.
Some of you may have experienced the horrors of fire. The great forest fires in northern Saskatchewan, … the smoke blowing all the way down to Regina … it makes you wonder how people who live in the north can possibly cope with the inferno.
Fire is both beauty and danger … fire sustains and extinguishes life.
This past week, I’m sure you enjoyed gathering around the bonfire for your Easter Vigil. I know in my first year there was something very special about the quiet gathering on that cold crisp evening. Gathering in silence with friends… around the fire. ….. Over the course of one day, we are immersed into this intense experience of the Passion. How was it that we could be in such grief and sorrow at the death of our Savior ……. in the middle of November? In our silent solitude around the fire, watching the flames leap, and the embers glow, there was security and comfort knowing we were in the presence of God.
God knows how life sustaining … and life threatening fire is in our lives. Yahweh gives Zechariah a vision of a wall of fire surrounding Jerusalem. Humanity has a long tradition of putting up walls to protect what is valuable. Yaweh reminds Zechariah that the only true source of security and hope is Yaweh ….. and human walls cannot stop anyone from approaching the LORD …… or the LORD approaching them.
Yaweh is the boundary between creation and non-being … for it is Yaweh who is the fire. So immeasurable is the size of this ring of fire … that there is room for all people and all creatures … not a small, geographical space defined by humans. God’s glory is in the fire and we worship and praise our gracious Lord.
A ring of fire surrounds you. At your baptism, a deep fire was placed within you. The ember glows … and is fanned by the faithful. The flames of Pentecost …. the baptismal Spirit, … gives us an image of the circle of fire that our Lord puts around us. Jesus sends the Spirit to protect us … cleanse us … and to lead us into holiness.
There have been times when I have come forward to receive the body and blood of Christ and I experienced a sensation of heat radiating from within me. I profoundly needed the reassurance of being forgiven … of being within the bounds of Jesus’ love.
When I hear Jesus ask James and John, ….. “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” … I want to shriek at them to say “No!”…….. Say “No!”
Did James and John have the slightest idea of what they are actually saying “Yes” to? It’s a dangerous business that they are saying “yes” to. Have they been listening at all when Jesus has been predicting his death?
I did not believe in Jesus when my children were born and I was adamant that I would not be a hypocrite and have my children baptized into something that I did not believe.
At my home congregation, we have baptisms every second Sunday. In my first months of being at that church, I saw the baptisms as this ritual of families getting together at church and then going out for lunch afterwards. As I began to grow in faith and come to have an understanding of what Christ meant in my life, I was quick to want to have our children baptized.
On the Sunday that my husband and our children were baptized it was as transformative experience for me. I saw that they were marked, they were branded with the cross of Christ forever. The fire of the Holy Spirit was promised to their lives. Ever since that day, when I am present for the baptism of any person, I have a profound sense of the presence of God.
I’ve stopped yelling “No” to James and John. I understand that the response of faith is to say “Yes” and trust that Jesus will sustain the journey.
Being an atheist, I did not have to make any responses … for I had smothered the ember that God has placed in my life at my baptism. What I had not realized was that I did not have the power to extinguish that Spirit. That is only God’s power.
Sometimes we place a wall around ourselves. At different times in our lives we carry a heavy heart … for the daily demands that distract us from loving those are dearest to us … for those who grieve … for those who are ill … for a world that is tearing itself apart with poverty and war … for where there is no justice. We rest assured that God will burn up all that is from the side of chaos when it tries to cross God’s boundary. We give thanks for this judgment and by faith trust in our Saviour’s mercy and goodness.
“For I will be a wall of fire all around it, says the LORD and I will be the glory within it.” Be thou my vision!
Beauty is the fire of God. May it permeate our very being – now and always. Amen