Westworth United Church

Rev. J. Clark Saunders,  Westworth United Church,  January 8, 2012

Genesis 1:1-5
 Mark 1:4-11

[Play C Major scale.]

That was a C Major scale.  If you were counting, you will know that it consisted of eight notes.  But the first and last notes were both “C”s – Middle C and the C above Middle C.

When you think about it that is the way the week works, isn’t it? Contrary to what some people seem to think, the first day of the week is Sunday.  When, according to the first creation story in Genesis, God rests on the seventh day, that would be Saturday.  And to this day the Sabbath – the Jewish holy day of the week – is Saturday.  The next day is a second Sunday, the eighth day.  And with it the cycle begins again.

But that second Sunday – the eighth day of creation – has particular significance for Christians.  You don’t hear people talk about the Lord’s Day very much any more.  But it referred to Sunday – the day when Christians worship, a day when – in the past, at least – there were certain things you should avoid doing:  shopping, going to movies, and so on.  And, of course, the reason that Sunday was – and is – the Christian day of worship is that the gospels describe Jesus as rising from the dead on a Sunday.  Easter was a Sunday.  And some Christians would say that every Sunday is like a little Easter.  And some people see a kind of symmetry, a kind of connection between the first Sunday of creation – the Old Testament idea that God began the work of creation on a Sunday – and the fact that Jesus was restored to life on a Sunday.  The day of resurrection, you might say, is the second Sunday, the eighth day of creation.  It begins a new order of things.

Well, I think this all has relevance for us this morning.  First it has relevance because this is the second Sunday and the eighth day of a new year.  It is a time when we are thinking of new beginnings.  Some may even have succeeded in keeping some New Year’s resolutions for an entire week.  So far, so good.

But on the Christian calendar today marks the Baptism of Jesus.  His baptism by John the Baptist was the story we heard in our gospel reading today.  And his baptism certainly marked a new beginning for Jesus.  It paved the way for his adult ministry.  And, of course, baptism marks a new beginning for every Christian who receives this sacrament.

When I became a minister at Knox-Metropolitan United Church in Edmonton, I was struck by the architecture of the building.  The church was constructed in 1942, in the middle of the Second World War.  That, in itself, was odd because no one was building churches in wartime when labour and material were needed for other things.  Well, the reason the church was built then was that the old church had burnt down on New Year’s Eve, 1941.  The thought and work of building something new began the next day – New Year’s Day.  A new church was constructed on a new site.  And this new beginning was marked by the construction of a building that featured the octagon as a recurring motif.  The congregation was not new; it had been around for decades.  But this building marked a new, second beginning – like a second Sunday, an eighth day that marked a new creation.

It was as I was researching the symbolism of the number “8” and the octagon (prior to reopening the sanctuary there after a renovation that added still more octagons) that I came upon the significance of something I had seen but had not fully understood.  If you have ever visited Italy you will probably have noticed that outside many cathedrals is a separate building called a baptistry.  The idea was that the unbaptized were not allowed into the cathedral.  Only after they had undergone baptism in this other building were they eligible to go into the church and join in the mass.  I had seen some of these baptistries, but now I understood why so many of them were eight-sided.  It is because of the idea that when we are baptized into Christ we become a new creation.  Having been created once, we are re-created.  Having been born once, we are born anew to a new life in Christ.  (And by the way, have you ever counted the number of sides there are on our own baptismal font?  There are eight.)

And that is an important thing to remember on a day when we celebrate the other sacrament that Protestants observe:  Holy Communion.  I was mentioning New Year’s resolutions a moment ago.  But New Year’s resolutions often imply gritting your teeth and trying hard and often failing.  But the newness of life that is offered to Christians is a more gracious thing than that.  Just as our first creation  expresses the grace of God (I mean the life we were born into was not  something we did anything to deserve), the new creation offered to us by Christ is an expression of God’s grace as well.  And we are reminded of that every time the bread and the cup are offered to us.  These things are gifts.  And we don’t have to earn a gift:  just reach out and take it.