Sermon preached by The Reverend Linda Dean on August 19, 2007, at the Parish Eucharist with Holy Baptism in St.Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill, London NW3.

Jeremiah 23.23-29 Hebrews 11.29-12.2 Luke 12.49-56

In the name of God our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen

From our Gospel reading today: ‘I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!’

How strange it seems to hear such a modern word as ‘stress’ put into the mouth of Our Lord by our Bible translators! If you look up the word ‘stress’ on the Internet, you will find that it is generally defined as ‘the way we feel when we are under too much pressure’. There can’t be many of us here today who have not occasionally felt under too much pressure in one way or another.

The word ‘stress’ comes from the Latin ‘stringere’ – ‘to draw tight’. We can all recognise that feeling of the knot in our stomachs, the tensing of our neck and shoulder muscles as if they are being pulled by a string. Many things (or the anticipation of them) can provoke stress: worries about money; arguments and family conflicts; threats of physical violence; divorce; bereavement; unemployment; moving house; pressure to perform at work, at school or in sports. I certainly had butterflies in my stomach, as we say, climbing the pulpit steps just now!

Research suggests that a moderate amount of pressure in our lives can be positive, making us more alert, helping to keep us motivated and making us perform better. Prolonged pressure, however, leads to stress, causing physical and emotional problems.

Among the many symptoms that people under stress display are anger and agitation. Is it taking things too far to suggest that Jesus Himself, as portrayed by Luke here in his Gospel, is agitated? In our reading from the prophet Jeremiah today, God speaks of His word as ‘like fire’, and here is Jesus, the Word of God, He who advocates peace and love, saying: ‘I came to bring fire to the earth, not peace, but division!’. Under stress, Jesus has a prophetic vision of how His teachings will set people one against another, even in the same household. We have only to look around at the world-wide Christian Church today, to see that Jesus was right in His prediction.

Jesus is under stress because He can foresee His ‘baptism’ of suffering and death. The pressure He is under will be dramatically revealed in the Garden of Gethsamane, where He will sweat blood as He wrestles with the ‘fight or flight’ mechanism we all have within us. If Jesus fights against His Father’s will, or rushes away in panic-stricken flight, the world will be held forever in the grip of sin and death. How can Jesus escape this terrible pressure?

The modern remedies suggested for stress are many. Among them are:

• delegating or sharing your responsibility and work - but Jesus’ disciples are not ready yet to lift much of the burden from Jesus’ shoulders
• avoiding confrontation with difficult people - but the Scribes and Pharisees seek Jesus out and try to provoke Him
• taking regular exercise - Jesus walks many miles, but He is often hemmed in by demanding crowds and cannot walk freely
• never taking on more than you know you can cope with - Jesus has to trust in God His Father to be with Him at all times, and this trust will appear to falter during His terrible hours on the cross
• talking to friends or family, and sharing thoughts and fears - Jesus’ family do not support Him, and His disciples are slow to understand His words. Perhaps He is able to talk confidentially to the ‘disciple whom He loved’.

Perhaps Jesus was able to find peace and serenity in the time He spent away from everyone else, wandering alone in desert places. The poet, Wendell Berry (1934 - ) writes of ‘The peace of wild things’:

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Because Jesus, of His own free will, took upon Himself the sins of the world, and suffered death, even death on the cross for us all, we can be not only at peace, but full of joy as we see little Jaeden brought to Holy Baptism this morning.

The death he will suffer is, thanks be to God in His mercy, is the symbolic death of sin, as he is washed in the water of the font three times - the sign of the Trinity and the symbol of Christ’s three days in the tomb before His glorious Resurrection. Jaeden will belong to Christ, an heir to the kingdom of Heaven and everlasting life. As he grows up, there will, of course, be times when he is under pressure, but he will never be alone because ‘underneath are the Everlasting Arms’ and God in His grace will hold Him safe - just as He brought His Son through the dark shadows of death into the wonderful light of that Easter morning.

We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song. Let us therefore, as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews exhorts us: ‘run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of God’.

There is a lovely tradition from the Hebrides that the sun dances on Easter morning. Behind this lies the belief that the whole of creation is changed by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not only the human race, but every tree, plant, flower, and every creature of the earth, the air, the sea is raised with Christ. We are all invited to join the dance of creation today and to rejoice in the risen Lord. Amen