Yesterday I met with a woman who had asked to speak to a minister because her husband is dying in a hospital several hours away. We talked at great length about life and death, faith and fear, and along the way she mentioned that while she is a believer, she was never baptized. We talked for a moment about the meaning of baptism and she asked me to baptize her in a few months when she gets settled into a new home. I am thrilled to be able to do this for her. She is 82 years old, reminding us that it is never too late to make commitments to the Lord.

Driving home, I remembered and marveled at the fact that Jesus himself was baptized. Do you remember this story? It tells us many important things about the sacrament of baptism and reveals something about Jesus’ identity … and ours.

Luke 3 (New Revised Standard Version)

²¹ Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened,²² and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

First, we are immediately struck by Christ’s humility. To submit to being baptized by a mere human is an expression of deep humility, and he did it for our sake. God is the agent of our baptism, God is at the center of this sacrament, God brings the cleansing of our sin and  the blessing and the new life that starts in baptism, and here is God, in the form of Jesus, being baptized by a man. He who was sinless submitted to being baptized by a man. I think Jesus’ humility was an act of courageous obedience to the will of God. He was baptized because of his obedience to his Father, and in doing so, sets the example for us. What God desires from us is humble obedience also. Jesus shows us how to submit to the Father’s authority in his baptism.

I am reminded of a story I heard about St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis lived a life of humility and wanted to be as much like Christ as possible. In the Legend of Perugia, there is a very revealing little notation. It seemed that as St. Francis was traveling and preaching to the churches there, it was noted that “he brought along a broom to clean the churches.” I love that! He brought a broom to clean. What a beautiful example of servant leadership.

Another amazing thing about this story is that it also reveals Jesus’ divinity, and it one of the few portrayals of the Trinity in scripture. Remember that the concept of the Trinity—God in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit-wasn’t developed by the church until a few hundred years after Jesus’ resurrection. And frankly, the Trinity is a very difficult thing to explain. How can something be one and three all at once? If I had the perfect explanation for the Trinity, I am sure I wouldn’t be here this morning, but rather I would be the Dean at Yale Divinity School or a famous Christian author. But the best analogy I can offer is that the Trinity is like water in the way that it can be flowing water, ice, and steam, but it is all water, just in different forms and functions. On the other hand, maybe we can just simply accept the Trinity the way children do…simply. Kids usually get things right. 

But for me today, the best part of this passage is that it reminds me that we are God’s beloved. In baptism, we are asked what our given name is: In other words, our first and middle names. Have you ever wondered why we don’t say our last names? Because we all share the same last name in that moment: Beloved. You are God’s beloved!

You are a beloved child of God. Go out today and act like it.

Christmas Lights by Kathy Schumacher