Jesus’ baptism

From the Waters

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Matthew 3:13-17 (Baptism A)

13Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16And 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. 17And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

This Sunday is Baptism of Christ Sunday.  On this Sunday every year, the Sunday following Epiphany Sunday, we remember Jesus’ Baptism.  We also remember our own since the two are inextricably wound together.  And many of your pastors will celebrate by tossing water at you.  I always loved tossing water.  It’s playful and I think worship should always have some remnant of play.  But, more than that, it’s joyful. 

The reading begins simply: “Then…”  It is such a common connector, that we probably sort of gloss over it.  But look a little more closely.  It wasn’t just the thirty years that Jesus had waited to commit to public ministry.  It was the centuries upon centuries and ages upon ages that all of Creation had waited for the dawn to break.  In essence, from that very moment when we are told in the first chapter of Genesis that God’s Spirit swept over the face of the waters, Creation has been groaning and straining for this very moment, the very moment when life would emerge from the water. 

Thirty years was, in fact, the traditional time that a rabbi waited to be committed to God.  In those thirty years, Jesus would have been caring for his mother, and making a living, and preparing himself for ministry.  I don’t really think that, contrary to what some may say, Jesus was confused about these roles.  He was always serving God.  But now…then…the time had come.  And as eternity dawns, Jesus is ready to begin.  And so, he goes to John at the Jordan to be baptized and for a very short amount of time was then actually a disciple, a follower, of John’s.

Because Jesus was from Nazareth, he would have had to make a trip of about 70 miles in order to arrive at the Jordan.  This was in some sense a sort of “mini-pilgrimage”, an intentional journey to be baptized by John.  Now, according to the Matthean version of the Gospel, John knew who Jesus was.  So, you can imagine, how uncomfortable he might have been at actually baptizing Jesus, at actually accepting this Son of God as part of his following.  But Jesus reassures John.  “Let it be so now.”  Now is the time.  It is now.  “And,” asserts Jesus, “this is the way to fulfill all righteousness.”  This is the way to fulfill the will of God.  At this moment, in an odd twist of events, Jesus and John become partners in carrying out God’s plan for salvation.  And so, just as each of us received the gift of water in our own Baptism, Jesus kneels in the Jordan and John bends over him and baptizes him.  And from the water, the work has begun.

From the water, the heavens are opened and the Spirit emerges.  And we hear what all the world has always been straining to hear: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”  Even though the writer of the Gospel has presented Jesus as the Son of God in the birth story, it is not until this moment that the title is actually conferred.  From the water, comes Jesus Christ as Savior and Redeemer of all of Creation.   From the water, comes life.

So, with this story, we consider our own baptism.  I don’t remember mine.  I was about 7 months old.  But I know it happened.  And, see, “remembering” your baptism is not merely a recounting of some hazy memory; it is rather remember who you are, remembering that from those waters came life.  It is not as important for us to remember the day of our baptism as it is that we remember that we were, that we or someone on our behalf affirmed who we were—a daughter or son of God, the Beloved, with whom God is well pleased.  That’s what it’s about.  Our baptism is not our becoming.  We were already there.  God had already imprinted blueprints of who we would be deep into our being.  Our baptism is when we begin that long and somewhat arduous journey of joining with God in living into who we are.

Caroline Westerhoff says that “at baptism we are incorporated into Christ’s body, infused with Christ’s character, and empowered to be Christ’s presence in the world.  [And then], ministry is not something in particular that we do; it is what we are about in everything we do.”[i]  In other words, our own Baptism sweeps us into that dawn that Jesus began.

Jesus was still wet with water after John had baptized him when he stood to enter his ministry in full submission to God.  As he stood in the Jordan and the heavens spilled into the earth, all of humanity stood with him.  We now stand, wet with those same waters, as we, too, are called into ministry in the name of Christ.  As we emerge, we feel a cool refreshing breeze of new life.  Breathe in.  It will be you always.  Something has happened.  Maybe we can’t explain it; maybe we don’t even understand it; but in the midst of the noisiness of life, in the midst of things that we don’t think can lend to our spiritual walk at all, in the midst of everything we know and everything we don’t, God takes ordinary, everyday water, wet, cold, nothing special and from the water, we emerge with new life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ:  through the sacrament of baptism we are initiated into Christ’s holy church.  We are incorporated into God’s mighty acts of salvation and given new birth through water and the Spirit.  All this is God’s gift, offered to us without price.

Remember your Baptism and be thankful…

The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.  (Rainer Maria Rilke)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

[i] Caroline A. Westerhoff, Calling:  A Song for the Baptized, (Cambridge, MA:  Cowley Publications, 1994), xi.

The Wilderness is Where We Found Who We Are

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Diving into watersScripture Text:  Mark 1: 4-11

4John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of  sandals. 8I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”  9In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10And 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. 11And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

So Jesus was born in the wilderness.  So Jesus, even as a small child, was whisked off into the wilderness to surely save his life.  And now, Jesus goes into the wilderness and is baptized by John.  You see, Jesus wasn’t baptized at the beautiful marble or wood font that is in the front of your sanctuary.  Jesus wasn’t baptized surrounded by the comforts of air conditioning and pew cushions.  When Jesus knelt, there was no altar cushion beneath his knees.  There was no celebratory lunch after his baptism.  Jesus went into the wilderness and made his way into the cold water of the Jordan, feeling it first with his foot and then slowly, ever so slowly, making his way to the place where John stood.  And as he walked into the water, his clothes and his body were consumed by the waters and the chill overwhelmed him.  And then John, clothed in stinky wet camel’s hair with a sagging leather belt around his waist, gingerly took Jesus and pushed him beneath the swirling waters of the river.  “In the Name of God, I baptize you.”  And as Jesus rose out of the water, gasping for breath, he looked up and the heavens were torn apart, torn apart never to be put back in quite the same way again, never capable of going back to the way they were.  And from this gaping opening in the heavens, the Spirit seemed to descend like a dove.  And they all heard it.  “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

In that moment, there in the wilderness, Jesus found who he was.  There in the wilderness with the wild animals and the blowing sands and the swirling waters of the river Jesus found who he was.  There in the wilderness where life is wild and unpredictable, where the path is not as worn as the one we frequent in the city, where the dwelling place is open to the sky and not walled in, where nothing can be controlled and nothing can be held, Jesus found who he was.  It seems to me that Jesus keeps returning to the wilderness, keeps returning to the place where we don’t expect him to be.  Perhaps our cue is that we are called to do the same.  Perhaps the wilderness is where we find who we are.

You see, in the comforts of our homes, in the security of our lives, in the places where we close our doors and lock them off to the world, we are told what we should be.  We are told that we should pursue success and affirmation, that we should climb the ladder with our accomplishments and our resume’.  We are made to believe that if we mingle with the right people and show up in the right places and post cute little pictures and statements on social media, we will get somewhere.  But in the wilderness, where the pathway is unpredictable and not well-trodden, where we experience some discomfort and disillusionment with who we are, where we experience crises of identity and crises of faith, where we feel like we don’t fit and we don’t belong, where we feel, sometimes, like we can’t even connect with God there, there, we find who we are.  We are pushed down into the waters of unknowing and we emerge with a new perspective.  We are immersed in something that we do not control and cannot stop and find new ways to be.  And the heavens open and the very Spirit of God spills onto us.  And we hear it.  We hear who we are, a daughter or son of God, God’s Beloved, with whom God is well pleased.

Maybe we’re beginning to see a pattern here.  Jesus’ life was not exactly charmed in the worldly sense of the word.  It seems, rather, that the wilderness kept cropping up, somehow pulling him into its grip.  I don’t think it was a test.  I think it was God’s way of pulling us toward freedom, God’s way of releasing us from the expectation of others, from the assumptions that the world hands us of who we are supposed to be, that there is a certain path and a certain way that our life has laid out for us.  Jesus’s life was mostly about walking in the wilderness, walking the way that was not the expected, that was not the norm, walking the way that opened himself to being immersed so that, finally, he could find who he was.

Perhaps that’s the point of our Lenten journey.  It is not just a denying ourselves of something; it is not just doing something different, walking a different walk for a short season.  This Lenten journey forces us into the wilderness, with cold water and murky pathways and hands us a mirror so that we take a good hard look at our lives and finally, finally find who we are:  A daughter or son of God, God’s Beloved, with whom God is well pleased.  And knowing who we are, everything has changed.

It is in the act of offerings our hearts in faith that something in us transforms…proclaiming that we no longer stand on the sidelines but are leaping directly into the center of our lives, our truth, our full potential. (Sharon Salzberg)

FOR TODAY:  Let yourself go into the wilderness.  Immerse yourself.  Find who you are—a daughter or son of God, God’s Beloved, with whom God is well pleased.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli