Discovering Walter Brueggemann opened up the Old Testament in ways previously unforeseen. I have since tried to get my hands on as much of his work as possible. Alongside his work as a Old Testament scholar, he is also a preacher and writer of prayers. Below is a prayer written about the baptism of Jesus on reading John 1.29-34.
We celebrate that splashing moment at the Jordan,
less muddy than the river is now.
John the Baptist, voice of demand and challenge,
and Jesus submitting to him.
John recognizes him before the rest of us do.
He called him, “Lamb of God,
who takes away the sin of the world.”And then he plunged him into the waters of the river.
he is a lamb who suffers and saves;
he loves the world;
he addressed the skewed, distorted way of the world;
he comes up out of the water and makes new.We become aware, out of his baptism, of a new world,
a world of grace and goodness,
a world of freedom and opportunity,
a world of justice and mercy and forgiveness,
all from that moment of water … and the dove and the name and the power.And we remember our own baptism
when we were named and claimed,
and called to newness.
In our moment of water, like his,
our world began again:
we are grafted to God’s new governance;
we are summoned into new obedience;
we are rooted in fresh goodness and forgiveness.We hear the splash of water and pause,
and begin again …
not burdened by what is old,
not bewitched by what is failed,
not cowed by what threatens us.
Now is our time for newness and hope
and love and forgiveness, and we,
after him, reenter your newness yet again.
Walter Brueggemann, Prayers for a Privileged People (Abingdon, 2008), pp.161-162.
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