Date:
January 10, 2010, Baptism of our Lord
Author: Pastor John Linn
Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
In the span of a couple weeks the lectionary moves from Jesus birth to Jesus in the temple at twelve years of age to Jesus at his baptism at thirty years of age. Today we celebrate the Baptism of our Lord which marks the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Have you ever wondered why Jesus was ever baptized in the first place? I have. What is the purpose and significance of Jesus getting baptized? It’s difficult, don’t you think, to fit Jesus’ baptism into the framework of our understanding of the purpose and benefits of baptism? After all Jesus is sinless, God incarnate, Savior of the world. Why does he need to be baptized? Followers of Jesus have been confused about this going back to the earliest days of the church. Much has been written about this.
In Matthew there is an explanation: “Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”
Suffice it to say this has not proved to be a fully satisfying answer. “To fulfill all righteousness” leaves a lot of questions unanswered. To be righteous is to be in right relationship with God. We affirm that Jesus was already in right relationship with the Father. But what about humanity’s relationship with God through Jesus?
Karl Barth (Bart) in his massive thirteen volume Church Dogmatics gave this explanation of Jesus’ baptism: “Jesus became one of us, unashamed to call us brothers and sisters to all eternity. With us he obeyed the call for conversion. With us he confessed his sins. His sins? Yes: faced with our sins, he did not let our sins be ours, but caused them to be his own sins, confessed them, bore them on himself, and thus won forgiveness. No one who came to the Jordan was as laden and afflicted as he. He stands alone in this, he who was elected and ordained from all eternity to partake of the sin of all in his own person, to bear its shame and curse in the place of all, to be the man responsible for all, and as such, wholly theirs, to live and act and suffer. This is what Jesus began to do when he had himself baptized by John with all the others.”
Calvary not the Jordan is the place associated with Jesus taking on the sins of humanity. The cross is where our redemption was won, the place where we were made right with God. As First Peter says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”
But it’s not difficult to see Jesus being washed by John in the Jordan as something done not for Jesus’ benefit but for ours. It’s certainly a compelling image: “faced with our sins, he did not let our sins be ours, but caused them to be his own sins, confessed them, bore them on himself, and thus won forgiveness. No one who came to the Jordan was as laden and afflicted as he.”
The purpose of Jesus’ baptism is perhaps a question we can ask Jesus when we see him face to face. The purpose of our baptism and what we can take from this story is much clearer.
On baptism Martin Luther writes: “We must learn why and for what purpose baptism has been insitituted, that is, what benefits, gifts, and effects it brings. Nor can we better understand this than from the words of Christ, “The one who believes and is baptized will be saved.” This is the simplest way to put it: The power, effect, benefit, fruit, and purpose of baptism is that it saves. To be saved as everyone well knows, is nothing else than to be delivered from sin, death, and the devil, to enter into Christ’s kingdom, and to live with him forever. Here again you see how baptism is to be regarded as precious and important, for in it we obtain such an inexpressible treasure…No greater jewel, therefore, can adorn our body and soul than baptism, for through it we become completely holy and blessed, which no other kind of life and no work on earth can acquire.”
My liturgy professor Gordon Lathrop makes this connection between our baptism and the baptism of Jesus: “Every baptism into Christ thus participates in the meaning of the stories of the baptism of Jesus himself: the candidate goes into the water with Christ, the Spirit descends and the voice of the Father calls this one a beloved child, a participant in the body of Christ. Such is baptism in the name of the father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
The connection between Jesus’ baptism and ours, the descent of the Holy Spirit, the proclamation of God’s love for us, it’s precious and beautiful. “The candidate goes into the water with Christ, the Spirit descends and the voice of the Father calls this one a beloved child, a participant in the body of Christ.”
In Charlotte, North Carolina, there’s a Lutheran church that has a unique baptismal font. The baptismal font is dove—shaped and it is suspended near the ceiling of the sanctuary. When it’s time for a baptism the font is electronically lowered to the floor. How’s that for a powerful reminder that God is present and active in baptism, the Holy Spirit descending in bodily form like a dove upon the baptismal candidate?
The promise of eternal life given us in our baptism into Christ is transformative. It changes everything. This journey of faith that we’re on is the process of discovering this truth... It’s the life long process of appropriating for ourselves the blessings given to us in baptism and then sharing the blessings with others…Blessed to be a blessing. This is our calling as people of God.
In baptism we’re given an identity—child of God—an identity that can never be stolen… an identity that can never be taken from us no matter what happens to us in our lives. It’s a profound gift to know who you are and whose you are. How many people are searching desperately for this?
This past week I watched a program on OPB called “Rethinking Happiness.” It was one of a three part series titled “This emotional life.” The premise of the program “Rethinking Happiness” is that new research has shown that people often incorrectly predict what will bring greater happiness. The program highlighted just how huge the self help industry is in this country. Something like five billion dollars are spent each year on self-help materials, books, seminars, etc. As you’ve probably seen yourself the self-help section is among the largest and most popular sections at bookstores.
In one segment a woman in her eighties, a giant of the self-help industry, was shown lecturing to a hall that had well over a thousand people. The people were hanging on to her every word. The woman was a mind over matter proponent who asserted that success in life is all about thinking the right thoughts. If you think good thoughts you will succeed and your life will go well. If you have a crappy life it’s your own fault. If you get cancer it’s because you weren’t thinking the right thoughts. Unbelievable as it is this is what she teaches. It’s mind boggling to me that anyone would pay money to hear her speak. But the fact that they do and given the five billion spent annually on self-help materials in this country, I believe this is confirmation that many are searching for something they believe is missing in their lives.
The vast majority of these people who are fueling the five billion dollar self-help industry would put their money into other things, I believe, if they knew who and whose they were. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying some self-help books don’t have a place. I’m simply saying that some of the sales are generated by people who feel unworthy, who feel they do not measure up. They want to feel good about themselves which is a noble thing and they’re searching for something to give them this feeling. They’re looking for that which will give them a sense of self-worth. I know because I’ve been there, done that.
In my late teens and early twenties I searched for my identity. My sense of self-worth was severely lacking and my self-confidence was shredded. What changed everything for me was not self-help but God-help. God’s grace inviting me into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ and through this relationship I discovered that I had been given an identity in baptism, an identity that I had not understood nor embodied up to that point in time. The identity that I had been given, and that all who are baptized into Jesus Christ are given, is based solely on relationship with Christ. I’m a sinner, redeemed by Christ, and loved for all eternity. That’s who John Linn is. And that’s who every Christian is.
In baptism we are washed clean of our sins and we’re given an identity as children of God. We’re told that we are greatly loved…that we are cherished and that we are precious in God’s sight.
I want to close by sharing something from the late Henri Nouwen who spoke on this theme in the context of his work with the Daybreak Community in Toronto:
I would like to speak to you about the spiritual life as the life of the beloved. As a member of a community of people with mental disabilities, I have learned a lot from people with disabilities about what it means to be the beloved. Let me start by telling you that many of the people that I live with hear voices that tell them that they are no good, that they are a problem, that they are a burden, that they are a failure. They hear a voice that keeps saying, "If you want to be loved, you had better prove that you are worth loving. You must show it."
But what I would like to say is that the spiritual life is a life in which you gradually learn to listen to a voice that says something else, that says, "You are the beloved and on you my favor rests."
You are the beloved and on you my favor rests. Jesus heard that voice. He heard that voice when He came out of the Jordan River. I want you to hear that voice, too. It is a very important voice that says, "You are my beloved son; you are my beloved daughter. I love you with an everlasting love. I have molded you together in the depths of the earth. I have knitted you in your mother’s womb. I’ve written your name in the palm of my hand and I hold you safe in the shade of my embrace. I hold you. You belong to Me and I belong to you. You are safe where I am. Don’t be afraid. Trust that you are the beloved. That is who you truly are."
I want you to hear that voice. It is not a very loud voice because it is an intimate voice. It comes from a very deep place. It is soft and gentle. I want you to gradually hear that voice. We both have to hear that voice and to claim for ourselves that that voice speaks the truth, our truth. It tells us who we are. That is where the spiritual life starts — by claiming the voice that calls us the beloved.
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