An Intimate Encounter with the Spirit
On Monday, I parked my car in front of the Old Mill, in North Little Rock, to take my dog on a long walk around the lake. We do this almost every Monday, it’s how I like to start my week. Before I turn off the engine and get out of the car, I scroll through my phone to find a podcast episode to listen to. My dog wishes I would do this at home instead of wasting his precious sidewalk-sniffing time.This week, as I sat with my car idling, my dog whining, and my phone in hand, something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. I looked up, and there, to my surprise, was the most beautiful bird I’d ever seen perched on my sideview mirror.
Time seemed to stand still as about a million thoughts raced through my mind. How long had it been there? Did I have time to snap a picture? Had my dog noticed it as well? When he did, would he bark and frighten it away? What kind of bird has so many colors in its feathers? Why had I never seen a bird like this before? After about ten seconds, the bird flew away and I was left wondering if I’d dreamed the whole thing. But I knew who to call.
Ragan, the resident Christ Church bird expert, introduced me to an app for my phone that helps to identify birds. I entered my approximate location, answered a few questions about the bird, like it’s size and prominent colors, and then, like magic, the bird appeared on the screen. A European Starling. I was so delighted to see it again and to have my strange and wonderful experience validated.
I couldn’t help but think that that little bird had been sent just for me. Perhaps other people saw me in my car or heard the bird’s song, but those few moments we spent looking appreciatively at one another were ours and ours alone. It was as if the Spirit descended like a Starling to tell me I’m beloved, reminiscent, of course, of the Baptism of our Lord.
This intimate encounter with the Spirit, which I myself had a taste of this week, is unique to Mark’s telling of the story. Unlike in Matthew and Luke, in Mark’s Gospel, the actions surrounding his baptism happen only to Jesus. The text tells us that Jesus sees the heavens torn open, and Jesus sees the Spirit descending like a dove. God speaks directly to Jesus. We don’t know if anyone else present hears or sees these things, but it doesn’t matter. Those few moments seem to be meant for Christ and Christ alone.
In a way, all baptisms are like this. It’s important for the community of faith to gather and witness the initiation of its newest members in baptism, but the call that God places on the life of the baptized is unique to every human being. We alone can hear what God is calling us to do, who God is calling us to be. Being marked as God’s beloved is perhaps our most intimate encounter with the Spirit.
But of course, the encounter is not just about the gentle, birdlike descent of the Spirit. It’s also about the heavens being torn apart. Usually when I imagine this scene, there’s a subtle opening in the clouds and a ray of sun shines through as the bird appears. But this is not what our Gospels are trying to convey. Instead, the supporting fabric of reality as we know it is ripped apart in a thunderous, visceral way. Unfortunately, this isn’t difficult to imagine, either.
On Wednesday, a group of people who are angry about the results of the presidential election violently stormed into our nation’s house of democracy, disrupted the democratic process, replaced our national flag, endangered the lives of our elected officials and government staff, and injured and killed American citizens. As I watched these events unfold I could think of no better way to describe how I felt than torn apart.
How could such a feeling have anything to do with that gentle, birdlike Spirit that descended on me at my baptism? It helps to remember that we are in that season between the Epiphany and Lent when we celebrate all the ways that God’s true nature in Christ is revealed, made manifest to us. I recently heard it explained in this way: the heavens have broken open, and God is on the loose. It’s not comforting or reassuring when the rug gets pulled out from under us, but tears in the fabric of our reality are where God enters in to reveal the living Christ, to show us how the world ought to be, and to call us to the work of bringing about the Kingdom.
The events at our nation’s capitol on Wednesday pulled the rug out from under me in a thunderous, visceral way. A great deal was revealed to us about our world, about the vast political divisions in our country, about the safety of our system of government and the people who embody it, and about the injustice in the standards of behavior, even the standards of existence, for people of color in America. And in the midst of this pain and chaos, the Spirit descends upon the baptized to remind us that we are God’s children, and that we are called to action in Christ, each in our own distinct way.
In the aftermath of this week, I have a new appreciation for how Christ might have felt when the heavens were torn open at his baptism. It was revealed to him that this sinful and broken world was his to save. The appearance of a dove must have been little comfort with a call like that. But then I remember my Starling, the intimate feeling that he’d been sent just for me. In spite of the tearing apart of the heavens, or perhaps, because of the tearing apart of the heavens, the Spirit descends on each of us to remind us that we are beloved and called, and marked as Christ’s own, forever. Amen.