Wading in

I had some fun insights while reading the Bible yesterday. I love when my Bible reading gets re energized, especially after a long period of drought, and that is what seems to be happening now. I was reading Mark 1 in preparation for Tuesday's SEEK Class (we gave them Bible reading homework last week) and I noticed that when John the Baptist says "I will baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit" he is referring to an act that does not happen until after Jesus' crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension. We focus so much on Jesus' life and his teachings from his lifetime, and yet John's focus was really on what happened after he left us, what his death and sacrifice allowed to occur in the world. Jesus supports this himself, when he says "It is better for you that I go" later on, but this kind of strikes me as amazing considering so many of us spend so much of our time talking and thinking about Jesus's life and words.

Also, I noticed that Jesus' own baptism mirrors exactly what John predicts. When Jesus is baptized in water, immediately he is also baptized with the Holy Spirit, who descends like a dove, and God speaks love and calling over him - "This is my beloved Son, with him I am well pleased." I had never noticed that in Jesus's own baptism, God does for Jesus what Jesus will do for humanity much later - baptizing him with the Holy Spirit. This kind of confirms that Jesus is God, since they both do the same powerful thing with the HS, while also confirming that he is his Son, and he is somehow also separate from the Holy Spirit, which is also God, and himself. I love when I see layers like this in the Bible, it makes the words I've read so often seem so rich and new.

Considering this Leap of Faith season's theme of calling, I was thinking too yesterday about God's name - YAHWEH - I AM WHO I AM. It seems to me that naming is big with God. Naming has a lot to do with what your calling turns to be. Having the right name allows people who may have been on the wrong track to reorient themselves towards calling, convergence, and finally afterglow. God's own name strikes me as the ultimate name that personifies convergence. I am who I am - could you be more self actualized than that? This is encouraging to me - that God personifies what most of us yearn for - a calling or destiny that is fully realized and fully played out in your life and your spirit. I also like thinking about God's name in relation to the trinity. How does "I am who I am" layer in with my understanding of this triune God who has three fully realized aspects of himself, which are separate and yet the same, and all inherently relational with each other? How does it help me understand my own desire for balance between my work self, my spouse self, my parenting self, my daughter self, my faith self? How do my passions, or my calling, fit into this idea of reconciling different aspects of myself to all fully be me and yet be separate, and yet unapologetically revealed - made in the image of "I am who I am." It strikes me as the most revolutionary and encouraging thing ever to think about each of us as someone made in the image of a God who is, at the core of his own self three persons, all relational, all revealed, all converged, all perfectly exactly who they are.