EPIPHANY 1

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
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SEASON: EPIPHANY 1
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: January 13,2002

TEXT: Matthew 3:13-17 - And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Isaiah 42:1-9 – Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations . . . . I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to pen the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, and from the prison those who sit in darkness.

ISSUE: Jesus is born and declared Son of God in a public ceremony for all to witness. His identity is given to him, and he accepts it. He lives out being the man of peace, neither breaking a bruised reed nor quenching a dimly burning wick. He becomes the light to the nations of the world. In baptism we join in that calling as the people of God, and we need to be aware of our identity and live into our baptism with Jesus Christ. Children need the guidance that leads them into that calling and seeking of their identity and gifts as the people of God.
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We have been in recent weeks exploring the meaning of the birth narratives of Jesus, and their relationship to our lives. In Luke, the infant Jesus is honored by angels and acknowledged by the simplest Jewish shepherds to be the child of God. In all simplicity Christ comes to his people in love and beautiful simplicity. In John’s account of the birth of Christ, Jesus is the light of the world, God’s light incarnate in the flesh. He is the reason and rationality of God, which is based and founded in love. Jesus is the Word, the expression of what God has to say to his people: love one another and love God with all you’ve got, and you know salvation, hope, a deep inner peace. And then Matthew’s Gospel tells of the star shining on the Christ and leading the Gentiles to Jesus. He is a new king of love initiating a new kingdom of love unlike the kingdoms of this world, symbolized by the evil Herod.
All four of the gospel accounts record the fact that John baptized Jesus in the River Jordon the Baptist. The accounts have some slightly different details but they are basically the account of Jesus coming to John the Baptist to be immersed into the River Jordon and God makes a clear response to the event.
The baptism of Jesus by John was something of an embarrassment for the early church. If Jesus was without sin, why did he need the baptism of John for repentance? There are some relatively reasonable responses to that question. If Jesus is really the incarnate Lord, and truly human, his immersion into the waters of Baptism identifies him with the human condition. Gathered there on the Jordon River bank with all the brutal soldiers, extortionist tax collectors, the prostitutes and the outcasts who are being baptized by John, Jesus himself identifies with them in this act of repentance.
We need, I think, to be regularly reminded that repentance is a matter of being changed, renewed, turning over a new leaf. Jesus identifies with those who come to change and renew their lives.
I cannot help but believe that the baptism of Jesus is another form of a birth story, that had a very special significance for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The baptismal event is as if Jesus is being born with the assistance of John the Baptist who is a kind of mid-wife forerunner of the coming of the Christ. Just as all of us were born out of the water in our mother’s womb, Jesus is born out of the water and is raised up for all to see. What was extraordinarily important was that a child be claimed by his father. When Jesus is raised up out of the water, God the Father is right there saying: ‘Ah Yes, this is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.’ Jesus is claimed, born in the spirit into the world and claimed by God as His Son. A great honor is bestowed upon the one who associated with all the children outcasts of God – tax collectors, prostitutes, outcasts, poor, and rejected. The baptism of Jesus makes it clear as to whose son he is. That he is indeed honorable, and baptized in the Jordon River which had so much meaning for the Hebrew people as the gateway to the Promised Land, and now the Gateway to the new Kingdom of God in following Jesus Christ.
In that Jesus is baptized in the Jordon in deep water would suggest that the baptism came at the close of the winter and the beginning of the spring. The water would then have been deep and cold. Cold water is awakening, refreshing, renewing, jolting. Jesus is the fresh new awaking renewing hope of the world. His identity is being proclaimed. He is like Isaiah’s anticipated servant. He is hardly a warrior type like what might have been expected, but one who comes in new peace for the world. He is the one who will not break a bruised reed or blow out a dimly burning wick. He is the new light for the nations, opening the eyes of the blind who have not been able to see the beauty of God, and leading oppressed people to justice. Something radically new has been born into the world, a new child of God who knows the human condition and will minister to it with determination and patience.
On this day that celebrates the Baptism of Jesus, we are also baptizing a beautiful baby girl. What’s more, we are all renewing our own Baptismal Covenant, our baptismal agreement. Therefore, understanding what the meaning of Jesus’ baptism was all about enable us to understand more fully what our own baptism, and what the baptism of Lauren Anne means for her and her parents and Godparents.
For a long time, many Christian people have had the idea that Baptism is washing up babies from their sins because Adam and Eve ate an apple. Baptism is hardly so trivial as that. Baptism is about being born into faith and trust, loyalty to, Jesus Christ and walking in his way. It is about being a child of God’s. At Lauren’s baptism today, and yours the voice of God is saying: ‘Ah Yes! This is my beloved son, daughter, child, my beloved Lauren with whom I am well pleased!’ The Fatherhood of God claims her, and God is declaring her legitimacy as his own. And, each of us are declared as his own.
We are given our identity as Christians. We join with him as a people seeking peace in the world. We join him as reaching out to the poor and the oppressed. We join him in loving, respecting, honoring the God of Love through praise, prayer, and worship. We honor God by finding our ministries. We look for ways to serve in the community of Christ all the folk in need of love, whose lives have been touched with illness, or rejection, or loneliness. We join with Christ in seeking his call for us to serve human needs and concerns. Parents and Godparents, and participants in this congregation are called to bear witness to our children through our regular worship, prayer, adoration, and respect of God. We are example to them and their teachers. They have to see in us the spirituality that has been given to them to be developed and nurtured and nourished.
Our baptism, and our renewal of Baptismal Vows, and the witnessing of Lauren’s baptism is for all of us an experience of being immersed ourselves into the cold shocking waters of conversion into being the children and servants of God. We need to keep praying and asking God to lead us into ways of serving and find ways to be focused on some specific mission that gives dignity to other human beings, that communicates the love of God to others, that treats people of all races and creeds with justice. Be mindful of the fact that we believe, we trust that there is a loving father, God, that there is Jesus Christ who came into the world to live and sacrifice his life in love, and to be the very Word of what God has to say. Accept and believe, trust, that the Spirit of God does and will, and continues to come to us to strengthen us for service. Lauren has yet a ways to go to continuing growing into Christ. Some of us have moved along the way through our lives, but never beyond the point of needing the sustaining grace and love of God and God’s spiritual presence. Rejoice in being a child of God with whom God is well pleased.