I longed to be able to enter a machine that would send me back in time. Being a lover and history and not much into science fiction, my time machine would take me back in to the past. This past week I was reminiscing with a member of the parish who spoke fondly about the open air trolley cars that used to run down Rhode Island Avenue and take government workers to downtown Washington. What fascinates me about many all of these stories about imaginary time travel is that often an underlying moral emerges. Though the externals look different means of transportation, ways of dressing and speaking the fundamental mystery of the human experience doesn t seem to change all that much over time.
People love, dream, sin, live, triumph, fail, remake themselves, and people die.
Each year as the Christmas season ends, the church celebrates the feast of the baptism of Jesus on the first Sunday after the Epiphany, which falls on January 6 th . We mark the day with baptisms and by renewing yet again our own baptismal covenant. What a perfect day to do so. We read from the first chapter of Mark how Jesus came from Nazareth and was baptized by John in the Jordan River. Just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.