The picture book, “Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom,” is the Coretta Scott King Award winner and a Caldecott Honor Book for 2006. It tells the story of Harriet Tubman, who came to be called “The Moses of Her People.” She had been born into slavery, but escaped; and then she used her freedom to become a conductor on the Underground Railroad. Between 1850 and 1860, Harriet made 19 trips back into the south and freed 300 slaves. She never lost a passenger.

The picture book imaginatively tells the story of Harriet’s own escape—and it opens us to the ongoing conversation between Harriet and God. And you can *see* who’s talking just by looking at the page. Each voice has a different font. The storyteller’s words are in ordinary type. Harriet’s prayers to God are in italics. And God’s words to Harriet appear in huge capital letters, but in a fainter color. Sometimes they curve and curl around the page. God whispers.

For example, “A boatman rows her upriver. Back on shore, hounds snarl, sniff for Harriet’s trail. She races as fast as she can. ‘Lord, I can’t outrun them.’ God speaks through a babbling brook: SHED YOUR SHOES; WADE IN THE WATER TO TRICK THE DOGS. Upstream, the barking ceases and fear washes away. ‘Thank You, Lord.’ ”

“Wade in the water,
wade in the water, children,
wade in the water,
God’s a-goin’-a trouble the water”:

on the surface, a scriptural reference to the healing pools at Bethesda in Jerusalem, where the angel of the Lord would come down periodically to stir up the water. *Under* the surface, words that save life. Words that make the difference between slavery and freedom, between an existence that’s a living death and one filled with gratitude and joy, that reaches out and risks itself that others might be free.

Wade in the water.
The voice of God is heard over the waters.
I have taken you by the hand and kept you; given you, as a covenant, as a light—to open eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the darkness, from the dungeon.

The voice of the LORD is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders.
The voice of the LORD bursts forth, shakes the wilderness, strips the forest bare.
The voice of the LORD overturns railroad cars in Harvard, Illinois, and decimates whole neighborhoods in Poplar Grove.

The ancient Mesopotamians—neighbors of the Israelites—worshiped Enlil, the storm god. And Israel borrowed this sort of language to sing about God. When our lives are shaken by the force of wind over the waters—a tornado or some equally mighty “voice”—we tremble in awe. We recognize in our very bones that there’s power greater than our own, over which we have no control.

Destructive power elicits shock and awe—cowering fear—submission—but it’s incapable of eliciting *love.* If you really want to get somebody’s attention, you whisper. If what you want from them isn’t merely allegiance but love, what you want to use is gentleness, not force. If you value and love even wicks that burn dimly and reeds that are battered and bruised, then instead of snuffing them out or breaking them in pieces, you shelter the flame with your hands, giving it a little space. You cradle the reed in your arms, holding it with tender care. You *could* quench and shatter quite easily; but you choose not to.

Here is my servant, my chosen one, blessed with an abundance of strength: he will not grow faint or be crushed. One who uses God-given strength to encourage those who lack it, to build up those who are acutely aware of their struggles, their bruises, the dimness of their efforts to shine.

My chosen one will not cry or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street. God whispers. God communicates with us quietly. You are my beloved, my chosen. God—not in the earthquake, not in the fire, but in the still, small voice at which the prophet Elijah hid his face. The voice of the LORD over the waters—in actions that speak louder than any words.

At the end of his ministry, during the final supper he will share with his friends, Jesus chooses to take on the form of a slave. He takes off his robe, girds a towel around his waist, and kneels in order to wash their feet. Peter objects: Lord, you will never wash my feet! And Jesus answers, Unless I wash your feet, you have no part in me. Peter: “Then my head and my hands as well.” Jesus doesn’t act the part they expect of him.

And at the very start of his public ministry, in today’s gospel, we hear of another startling reversal of roles, another instance where Jesus insists on mutuality. Jesus comes to the Jordan and asks John to baptize *him.* John, taken aback, demurs; but Jesus reassures him. The very words he will tell his disciples at the end he could well address to John at the beginning: “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

Into the water they wade, together. Jesus choosing to cast his lot with every bruised reed and dimly-burning wick; with the prisoners who sit in darkness, with all whom death holds captive. Into the waters Christ wades with us. Into the danger, into the drowning, into the passage unto freedom.

Wading in the water, Christ speaks to us without words. No. His actions *are* words that are inaudible, but no less powerful than the loving message that he also utters, that we also hear. The voice of God over the waters: over the foot-washing bowl, as a servant. Over the River Jordan, taking the part of a humble penitent: “Let it be so.”

Christ comes to be with us, takes our part, takes us by the hand and calls us into righteousness, into covenant. Makes us light for the nations, people who open eyes and dungeon doors. Who in his name and by his example faithfully bring forth justice. And on this day when we celebrate the baptism of our Lord, we likewise renew our own baptismal vows. We return to our beginning. To the God who whispers to us over the waters.

Our seminary in Hyde Park—the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago—in recent years underwent huge building renovations. At the center was creation of a worship space that wordlessly expresses what we believe. Now at the center of campus and encircling both sides of a wall of glass is a baptismal pool where we not only *may* “wade in the water,” but we *have* waded on some occasions when we’ve celebrated God’s gift to us of Holy Baptism.

In Jerusalem at the pool of Bethesda, the angel would step into the waters to stir them; but we’re not relying this morning on our baptismal angel to get up and move around! (It could happen, but we haven’t planned for it.) As we receive the splashes of sprinkled water, we may imagine wading *in* the water, throwing off our scent whatever menacing influences hound us and seek to hold us captive. Wading in the water with Harriet, with Jesus, with John, with all the saints who have gone before us—walking wet, washing clean, journeying together into freedom.

The novel “Gilead” by Marilynne Robinson is set in western Iowa, which had been a hotbed of abolitionism before and during the Civil War. The time period of the novel is the 1950s. The voice of the novel is that of an aging Congregationalist pastor—probably in his sixties or seventies—writing reflections to his little son for when the boy grows up and outlives him. Here is part of what he writes:

Ludwig Feuerbach says a wonderful thing about baptism. I have it marked. He says, ‘Water is the purest, clearest of liquids; in virtue of this its natural character it is the image of the spotless nature of the Divine Spirit. In short, water has a significance in itself, as water; it is on account of its natural quality that it is consecrated and selected as the vehicle of the Holy Spirit….’ Feuerbach is a famous atheist, but he is about as good on the joyful aspects of religion as anybody, and he loves the world.” (pp. 23 – 24)

That mention of Feuerbach and joy reminded me of something I saw early one morning a few years ago, as I was walking up to the church. There was a young couple strolling along half a block ahead of me. The sun had come up brilliantly after a heavy rain, and the trees were glistening and very wet. On some impulse, plain exuberance I suppose, the fellow jumped up and caught hold of a branch, and a storm of luminous water came pouring down on the two of them and they laughed and took off running, the girl sweeping water off her hair and her dress as if she were a little disgusted, but she wasn’t. It was a beautiful thing to see….I don’t know why I thought of that now, except perhaps because it is easy to believe in such moments that water was made primarily for blessing, and only secondarily for growing vegetables or doing the wash. I wish I had paid more attention to it. My list of regrets may seem unusual, but who can know that they are, really. This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.”
(27 – 28)

Epiphany. The season for epiphanies. The voice of God. The eloquent actions of love. Wade in the water. In its splashes and sprinkles, discover life and freedom and joy.

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“Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led her People to Freedom,” illustrated by Kadir Nelson and written by Carole Boston Weatherford. Hyperion Books for Children, 2006.
www.hyperionbooksforchildren.com/board/displaybook.asp?id=1733

“Wade in the Water”: tune and text: African American spiritual. “Evangelical Lutheran Worship” Hymn # 459. (ELW: Minneapolis, Augsburg Fortress, 2006)

Angel stirring the waters: John 5:2 – 9

Jesus washing the disciples’ feet: John 13: 1 – 9

For fleeting glimpses (within slide-shows) of the baptismal font at LSTC, go to
http://www.lstc.edu/chapel/index.html or http://www.lstc.edu/chapel/sermons/index.html

“Gilead,” by Marilynne Robinson. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004. Picador (paperback) edition, 2006. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize; winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.