In the Name of God:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Beginnings.  Beginnings can be wonderful things, can’t they?, filled with joy and hope as they often are.  We all know about beginnings, don’t we?  We’ve all had lots of beginnings in our own lives.  Today we celebrate the baptism of Christ, which is generally regarded as the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.  I wonder what it was like for him . . . this particular beginning.

Think of some of your own beginnings . . . a graduation . . . a wedding . . . the first day at a new job.  What were they like?  Thinking about beginnings this week, I’ve come to the conclusion that while they can be wonderful, hopeful events, they are not simple things.  Beginnings often appear to carry conclusions with them . . . lots of beginnings seem to mark the end of something else.  Other events often considered to be beginnings, upon some reflection, don’t really seem to be the beginning of anything new after all.  I’ve found it hard to think of a beginning that is TRULY and ONLY a beginning.

I didn’t pay much attention to my school graduations . . . I didn’t even attend my high school or college ceremonies.  These events may have been called commencements, but they never felt like beginnings to me . . . they always felt like the end of something . . . the end of years of study and hard work.  And because I was pretty ambivalent about my time in high school and college, I didn’t need a ceremony to finish off the experience . . . I was simply glad to be finished and on my way.  However, I loved my time at seminary as I’d never loved school before, so I was happy and proud to go to that graduation ceremony . . . my first!  But even then, the event felt more like a conclusion . . . like a way to tie a great big beautiful bow around the seminary experience . . . than it felt like a launching into a new life.

Weddings are an entirely different kettle of fish.  Lots of the weddings I’ve worked on have not really felt like EITHER a beginning or an ending at all.  Maybe it’s because these days so many couples live together before they’re married . . . maybe it’s because lots of weddings these days are really pageants that require an awful lot of planning and work, but not a lot of reflection and prayer . . . but for whatever reasons, a lot of weddings these days don’t often feel like real beginnings . . . like they’re the start of something completely new.  Don’t get me wrong, every wedding I’ve ever worked on has been filled with joy . . . but these days a wedding often feels more like a marker on a couple’s journey together than it feels like the beginning of something brand new.

See what I mean?  Beginnings are complicated!  I think it’s hard to find one that’s TURLY and ONLY about beginning . . . .

There IS one time in my life that I felt a real sense of beginning . . . I’m thinking of my ordination to the priesthood.  Actually, I’m thinking of a particular moment during the service at the cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, which I’ve probably told some of you about.  After the actual ordinations came the peace, and then the offertory and the setting of the table.  During this portion of the mass, we ordinands were ushered to some throne-like chairs at the side of the sanctuary to wait for the beginning of the Great Thanksgiving.  It was then, sitting on my little throne, that I had a moment to breathe . . . just a moment . . . but during that moment I was able to experience fully a sense first of, “It’s done!  I’m a priest!”, and then, “Oh my, this is just the beginning!”  I hadn’t anticipated that sense of ‘beginning’ and was overwhelmed by it.

Thinking about that moment this last week, I began to realize just how rich and full REAL beginnings are.  You see, my very clear sense of a new ‘beginning’ at my ordination was firmly rooted in the fact that so much had gone before . . . my entire life, in fact.  In many ways, I feel like all of my preceding life was a preparation for ordination . . . even though I resisted the call for a long time.  Once I surrendered to the call, things didn’t immediately become simple and clear.  In fact, because I’d done everything backwards according to the official diocesan process, my journey to ordination was even more complicated than it is for most priests.

That moment during the ordination service when I felt that sense of ‘beginning’ was not a moment of saying goodbye or of leaving anything behind.  Nor was it simply a marker or a signpost – no matter how important – in my relationship with God.  But it was a moment in which everything felt entirely new . . . because, I think, the moment seemed to contain EVERYTHING . . . my entire life.

Do you know the Four Quartets by the poet T. S. Eliot?  One of them is a poem called “East Coker” and a section of it goes like this:

 . . . As we grow older

The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated

Of dead and living.  Not the intense moment

Isolated, with no before and after,

But a lifetime burning in every moment

And not the life time of one man only

But of old stone that cannot be deciphered.

The poem begins with this sentence:  “In my beginning is my end.”  And concludes with this sentence.  “In my end is my beginning.”

I think THAT’S what Jesus’ baptism was like for him.

Perhaps this was a moment he had consciously planned and studied for.  It certainly was a signpost on his journey with God.  But I suspect that it was even more than these things . . . I suspect that Jesus’ baptism was a moment in which it was clear that Jesus’ beginning was his end, and that his end was his beginning.  I suspect that Jesus’ baptism was a moment that contained an entire lifetime . . . and not just Jesus’ lifetime, but the lifetime of the world . . . of the whole universe.  I suspect that Jesus’ baptism TRULY contained EVERYTHING.  OF COURSE, a heavenly voice pronounced, “You are my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”  Now THIS was a beginning!

This morning we will renew our baptismal vows . . . we will have a chance to give ourselves to Christ once again . . . a chance for a fresh start, a new beginning.  If we look honestly at our own attempts at making new beginnings, despite all the joy and hope that we may bring to them, I suspect that we’ll have to admit that they’re not always completely successful.  We may admit that after a graduation . . . or a wedding . . . or the start of a new job . . . we have a feeling of “let-down”.  Oh, maybe not right away . . . but after a few weeks or months, we may have a feeling of “so that’s it?”  Despite graduating summa cum laude, we still have to find a job.  No matter how much we love our spouse, a wedding ceremony won’t erase his or her most annoying little habits.  And there’s always a co-worker, even at the best of jobs, who can drive us nuts.

Maybe part of the problem is that with each new beginning we hope we can leave something behind that we don’t like.  Earlier I said that beginnings often appear to carry conclusions with them.  We often begin something new hoping that something else will end.  And the let-down comes because, despite all of our preparation and work and prayer, the thing we hoped to leave behind us is still with us in some form or other.

Sooooo . . . thinking of Eliot’s poem . . . thinking of the possibility that a REAL beginning occurs when we bring EVERYTHING to it . . . let’s repeat our baptismal vows today bringing all of ourselves to them.  Our past, our present, our future . . . our regrets and sorrows and sins, along with our hopes and dreams and prayers . . . let’s each of us try to bring the whole kit and caboodle with us as we renew our vows to God.  Don’t worry about how bad you’ve been.  Don’t worry that you’re not good enough.  Don’t try to hide your worst failings.  And don’t be shy about your talents and strengths and goodness, either!  Let’s bring it all . . . bring it all to God as we make our promises again.  Perhaps then we’ll experience a moment containing a lifetime.  Perhaps then we’ll have a sense of true beginning . . . renewal . . . transformation.  Perhaps then we, too, will be able to claim fully our identities as children of God . . . children with whom God is well pleased.

Happy beginnings!

Amen.

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