Riding the dove
This week's holy tidbit comes from Matthew 3:16:
For those of you who only know doves in the context of candy bars and soap, a dove is kind of like a really clean looking pigeon. They're apparently really good to eat, but I wouldn't know. They're really soft, gentle-looking birds. According to Wikipedia, which we all know never lies, they were the only bird kosher enough to be acceptable as a sacrifice.
So Jesus gets baptized, and the Holy Spirit descends like a dove. That's the last time that gets mentioned, ever. It was a one time thing. There's no mention even of Jesus reacting in any way to it, except to notice it. It was there to be observed, and to deliver its message in the process.
I think we miss the Holy Spirit when it moves like that. Modern worship is more geared to interactive spectacle than quiet intimacy. If the spirit descended like that in a modern church, I think you would have people trying to climb onto it and ride it, people screaming out "NOOO!!!! MIGHTY DOVE!! DON'T GO!!!!" clinging to it, trying to get it to carry them into the heavens. People would be gluing birdseed to themselves and hanging out in parks. Christian bookstores would be selling stickers that look like bird droppings for Christians to put on their cars and identify each other through them. Not every move is a movement. Not every manifestation of God requires vivid, passionate, outward expression to make it meaningful.
The descent of the spirit after Jesus' baptism was as close to a physical manifestation of the still small voice as you can get. It was subtle. It was intimate. It was unique, non-repeatable, and probably non-merchandiseable. It takes a real connectedness to spot something like that in the flicker of the moment. It's like a wink from God, or a shared inside joke between the visitor and the visited. I think a lot of people would miss the encounter nowadays, unless the spirit descended in a more attention-getting form, like perhaps that of an angry siberian tiger.
What if Jesus had been caught in the dove rut? If he'd decided that the dove was the way God expresses himself, and is the highest form of God's intimacy with us? What if he was like Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite, stuck in one glory-era of his life, longing to relive that baptism, or just trying to get others to have the exact same packaged encounter as he did? How much would we have lost from his time on earth, if he'd mistaken that tiny thing for a movement? If he'd built a church on the spot, bought a flock of doves, and had baptism conferences for the rest of his life?
God is so big, and so infinite, and so creative, that he can meet us in any way he wants. Sometimes that's loud and noticeable, or predictable across time and geography, but other times it's almost like he just pops in for a moment to say hi. In order to really experience the full richness of our relationship with him, we need to be ready to recognize and appreciate all of the ways God touches our lives. They don't all work the same, and that's what keeps it interesting.
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him.
For those of you who only know doves in the context of candy bars and soap, a dove is kind of like a really clean looking pigeon. They're apparently really good to eat, but I wouldn't know. They're really soft, gentle-looking birds. According to Wikipedia, which we all know never lies, they were the only bird kosher enough to be acceptable as a sacrifice.
So Jesus gets baptized, and the Holy Spirit descends like a dove. That's the last time that gets mentioned, ever. It was a one time thing. There's no mention even of Jesus reacting in any way to it, except to notice it. It was there to be observed, and to deliver its message in the process.
I think we miss the Holy Spirit when it moves like that. Modern worship is more geared to interactive spectacle than quiet intimacy. If the spirit descended like that in a modern church, I think you would have people trying to climb onto it and ride it, people screaming out "NOOO!!!! MIGHTY DOVE!! DON'T GO!!!!" clinging to it, trying to get it to carry them into the heavens. People would be gluing birdseed to themselves and hanging out in parks. Christian bookstores would be selling stickers that look like bird droppings for Christians to put on their cars and identify each other through them. Not every move is a movement. Not every manifestation of God requires vivid, passionate, outward expression to make it meaningful.
The descent of the spirit after Jesus' baptism was as close to a physical manifestation of the still small voice as you can get. It was subtle. It was intimate. It was unique, non-repeatable, and probably non-merchandiseable. It takes a real connectedness to spot something like that in the flicker of the moment. It's like a wink from God, or a shared inside joke between the visitor and the visited. I think a lot of people would miss the encounter nowadays, unless the spirit descended in a more attention-getting form, like perhaps that of an angry siberian tiger.
What if Jesus had been caught in the dove rut? If he'd decided that the dove was the way God expresses himself, and is the highest form of God's intimacy with us? What if he was like Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite, stuck in one glory-era of his life, longing to relive that baptism, or just trying to get others to have the exact same packaged encounter as he did? How much would we have lost from his time on earth, if he'd mistaken that tiny thing for a movement? If he'd built a church on the spot, bought a flock of doves, and had baptism conferences for the rest of his life?
God is so big, and so infinite, and so creative, that he can meet us in any way he wants. Sometimes that's loud and noticeable, or predictable across time and geography, but other times it's almost like he just pops in for a moment to say hi. In order to really experience the full richness of our relationship with him, we need to be ready to recognize and appreciate all of the ways God touches our lives. They don't all work the same, and that's what keeps it interesting.
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