On January 12th this year, most churches will celebrate Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptizer. It is common to have a rededication of your baptismal vows on that Sunday, where we contemplate what was said by us or by our parents. The charge from the pastor is, “Remember your baptism and be thankful.” I am thankful that my parents had me baptized as a baby in the Huntington, Pennsylvania Methodist Episcopal Church many decades ago. Do you remember your baptism?
One of my favorite parts of the liturgy is this:
We confess Jesus Christ as our Savior, put our whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as our Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races.
These are great statements for us to consider today. Do you confess Christ as your Savior and promise to serve him as Lord? That means more than just receiving the benefit of being saved. I mean, everybody likes that first part! But it also requires making him Lord of your everything: Your attitudes, your resources, how you spend your time, what you post on social media, how you speak to people who don’t agree with you, how you drive on the freeway, how you tip servers… if you take this seriously, you are promising to make him Lord of your everything.
It also asks if you will serve Christ in union with the church with everyone who is sent to you. Think about your church participation. Are you actively serving, or are you just a spectator? If you take this seriously, you are promising to serve God in a meaningful way.
But the best part is when we affirm that we are putting our whole trust in his grace. Think about that for a minute. Is there anything that is more trustworthy than God’s grace? People, institutions, governments, relationships, etc. will all let us down. But not God. We understand grace to be the unmerited favor and unconditional love of God for us. Do you know what that means? It means that you can’t earn his grace, but neither can you lose it if you return to him with a repentant heart. If you take this seriously, you are making the bold choice to put your whole trust in God’s grace.
As you go about your day, ponder this. Christ invites us to love him with our whole heart. Are you worthy of that trust?
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.
What do you believe happens in baptism? Your answer will likely reflect your denomination’s beliefs on the subject. In the United Methodist church, we believe this about baptism:
Christ constitutes the church as his body by the power of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13, 27). The church draws new people into itself as it seeks to remain faithful to its commission to proclaim and exemplify the gospel. Baptism is the sacrament of initiation and incorporation into the body of Christ. (United Methodist Church Book of Discipline, paragraph 216, page 156.)
So, we understand the sacrament of baptism to be a beginning point, or an “initiation” into the household of God, from which we will grow in our understanding of God, increase our faith, participate in the life of the church, and confirm our hope for the kingdom of heaven as it is on earth.
In our passage from Luke today, we observe Jesus’ baptism, which was also an initiation point for him. His ministry began in that moment. Heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him with power and purpose:
Luke 3 (Common English Bible)
21 When everyone was being baptized, Jesus also was baptized. While he was praying, heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit came down on him in bodily form like a dove. And there was a voice from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.”
Immediately the Spirit led him straight into Faith Formation Bootcamp, where he had the opportunity to grow in his knowledge of God and have his strength and purpose defined by his battle with the devil there.
Jesus’ temptation
4 Jesus returned from the Jordan River full of the Holy Spirit, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.
After completing his cross-fit strength training, he immediately went about the task of telling the people who he was, and more importantly, whose he was.
Jesus announces good news to the poor
14 Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news about him spread throughout the whole countryside.
Are you baptized? For what purpose? Are you actively engaged in your own Faith Formation Bootcamp, or are you ignoring your mission and allowing others to do the work of the kingdom?
All of us are called to God’s purpose, which is confirmed through our baptism. Heaven opened up the day you were baptized! God looked upon the baptismal waters and claimed you by saying, “You are mine. In you, I find happiness.”
Canadian geese are mean. These beautiful, majestic creatures return to the waters of the Outer Banks every year and make their home here. When they come in great number, the “residue” of their presence is all over our docks, driveways, and lawns. Every spring I watch the parents teach their fuzzy babies how to swim and it brings me joy. But I know better than to get anywhere near them. Geese can be aggressive, territorial, and visicous. When my dog was smaller, a mother goose chased her across her own yard to keep her away from the nest, honking and pecking at her backside until she ran into the house. Like I said, they’re mean!
Did you know that the Celtic symbol for the Holy Spirit is the wild goose? While the descending dove is prominent with other faith systems, the Celts adopted the wild goose as their symbol for this part of the trinity. I think there is some genius in that. The mighty, fiery, powerful presence of the Lord of Creation truly is more like a strong-willed goose than a mild dove.
Luke describes the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in three different places in his Gospel. The first was when Jesus received the Spirit at his baptism, when he was named and claimed by God:
Luke 3 (Common English Bible)
21 When everyone was being baptized, Jesus also was baptized. While he was praying, heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit came down on him in bodily form like a dove. And there was a voice from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.”
Then we see the Spirit again as Jesus, filled to the brim with baptismal Spirit, was led to the wilderness to combat the devil’s temptations over 40 lonely days:
Luke 4 (Common English Bible)
1 Jesus returned from the Jordan River full of the Holy Spirit, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.
And now tested and tried, he returned in power to begin his ministry on earth in earnest:
Luke 4 (Common English Bible)
14 Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news about him spread throughout the whole countryside.
The image of a strong and unrelenting wild goose resonates with these three passages, doesn’t it? When I consider how hard God came after me to correct me, woo me, and save me from my sin, I see how much of a wild goose chase I put us both through. Thankfully, I am caught.
Are you still running away? Are you being chased by his Spirit, thinking you can outmaneuver God? Take it from one who knows … you can never outrun, out love, out give, or out power the God who loves you so much, he sent his only son to die on the cross for you.
If you’ve ever had a campfire, you know that the drier the wood, the better the blaze. Indeed, keeping logs dry in rainy weather is a constant challenge in the woods. When the wood gets wet, there will be no lovely evening fire to warm the hands and feet.
The metaphor of dry, dead things being burned up and tossed away occurs several times in the Bible. This word picture would have been very relevant for a nomadic people who depended on fire for cooking and warmth. In Jesus’ great “I am the True Vine” statement, he warns that the vineyard’s branches that have dried up and are useless for producing fruit will be gathered up and burned. Likewise, in today’s passage from Luke, John the Baptizer explains that the true messiah will come and bring a baptism of the Holy Spirit that will consist of a fire that will burn the useless husks so that the wheat might be spared. John said this in response to the people wondering if he himself was the Christ. In a spirit of humility, he tells the people that he isn’t even worthy enough to untie the true Christ’s sandals.
Luke 3 (Common English Bible)
15 The people were filled with expectation, and everyone wondered whether John might be the Christ. 16 John replied to them all, “I baptize you with water, but the one who is more powerful than me is coming. I’m not worthy to loosen the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 The shovel he uses to sift the wheat from the husks is in his hands. He will clean out his threshing area and bring the wheat into his barn. But he will burn the husks with a fire that can’t be put out.”
John’s humility was admirable. He had a huge following, was born of a miraculous birth himself, was a powerful preacher, and was fulfilling God’s prophetic destiny for his life. But he recognized the power that was yet to come in the true messiah. This outpouring of the Holy Spirt through baptism would purify and destroy in a way that his baptism of repentance never could. Jesus’ baptism would bring a transforming power that would burn away all falsehoods and divide the sheep from the goats. It was a baptism that would endure from generation to generation as a function of the New Covenant through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus warned about the chaff and dead wood that will be burned. God can’t use dead wood. Scripture tells us, “If you don’t remain in me you will be like a branch that is thrown out and dried up. Those branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire and burned” (John 15:6). This Scripture reveals the standard by which the Vineyard Keeper judges the viability of the branch. Can it, or can it not, produce the fruit of love?
That is the standard by which the church is held. Are we a people who grow love, or are we dead weight? Are we good wheat that can produce a bread of life that sustains people, or are we dried up chaff? Good wheat and fruit are the things that God can use for his glory. As a church, and as individuals, may we guard our hearts and minds against becoming dried out and useless for the kingdom.
December is nothing if not a season of preparations. Now, I know some of you have had your Christmas tree up since the day after Halloween (I’m looking at you, daughters!!) but the real rush begins as soon as the calendar moves from “11” to “12.” Now begins the time for shopping, decorating, cleaning, ordering, wrapping … I’m tired after just typing that.
Our lectionary passage today speaks of the preparation that happened just before Jesus’ full divinity was revealed. His cousin John was instructed to go out into the Jordan River region and prepare the people for what was about to break forth on earth … the revelation that the Messiah was walking among them. You will see that baptism was the means of getting ready to receive him:
Luke 3 (Common English Bible)
3 In the fifteenth year of the rule of the emperor Tiberius—when Pontius Pilate was governor over Judea and Herod was ruler over Galilee, his brother Philip was ruler over Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was ruler over Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas—God’s word came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 John went throughout the region of the Jordan River, calling for people to be baptized to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins.
This is a gentle reminder to us, as we hurry and scurry over the next few weeks getting ready for Christmas, that a cleansing and changing of heart was the first way that people got ready for Jesus. What does that say to us today? Do we need to take a pause on the prep work and consider changing our hearts and lives, and ask God to forgive our sins?
4 This is just as it was written in the scroll of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
A voice crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight. 5 Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be leveled. The crooked will be made straight and the rough places made smooth. 6 All humanity will see God’s salvation.”
John had the privilege of announcing the way of the Lord. He knew the prophecies of Isaiah and felt the strong call to go out and preach a repentance of sins as the path straightener for Jesus’ arrival. He anticipated a time when Jesus would burst forth and make the crooked places straight and the rough places smooth. He looked forward to the time when all humanity would see God’s salvation. But not before the people came clean.
Many years ago I participated in a baptismal rededication in the Jordan River while on a trip to Israel with 14 travelers. As the officiating pastor, I had to be in the cold January water for everyone’s immersion, and the last fellow to come was about 6’5, and weighed in at 280 lbs. When I dunked him over, the chill of the water and the power of the Holy Spirit combined in that moment, and he completely lost his footing. Hard as I tried, I could not pull him up. I then lost my footing and found myself under water, pushing him back up on his feet. After a bit of floundering, with both of us going downstream for a few minutes, he finally popped up and yelled, “Holy Mackerel!” I don’t know what the mackerel had to do with it, but it was a holy moment for sure. It took me about a week to warm up.
In our Luke passage today, we see Jesus at his baptism at the very same site where I almost drowned the big fellow. All four gospels record this momentous event, which signaled the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Luke tells it in a very compact way, beginning with the people wondering if John was the messiah, to which John responds that the one more powerful than he will come and baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. And then a few sentences later, Luke simply says this:
Luke 3:21-22(New International Version)
“When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized, too. And as Jesus was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in boldly form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
That’s kind of amazing, isn’t it? To think people were actually there at Jesus’ baptism! Christ’s baptism is important to us for several reasons.
First, we are immediately struck by Jesus’ 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 was 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, set 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.
Another amazing thing about this story is that it reveals Jesus’ divinity, and it is 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 sitting here writing this, 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 these three things are 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.
The word Trinity does not appear anywhere in the Bible, but at Jesus’ baptism, we see all three persons of the Godhead present. Jesus is in the water, the Holy Spirit appears in the form of a dove, and God speaks. This is important, because we are taught by Jesus himself that anytime we see him, we are seeing a mirror image of God. While fully human, Jesus is also fully divine, and this gives us an accurate picture of the character of God. The picture we see is a picture of divine love … a perfect and complete love.
But for me, the best part of Jesus’ baptism is that it helps us understand our real identity. This passage brings us that “I yam what I yam” moment, to quote Pop-Eye the sailor man. Part of the baptism ritual is something we call “naming and claiming”. We say to the parents, ”What name is given this child?” Or to an adult, “What is your given name?” and the name is spoken aloud. Then we claim that person as a child of God, and in a closer context, a member of this church family. We claim them as God’s, and we claim them as their own. In doing so, we all receive our identity.
Remember that Jesus’ baptism was the beginning of his earthy ministry, like an initiation moment that sent him out to do God’s will and God’s bidding. He was about 30 years old, and to that point had probably been working as a carpenter, like his father Joseph, and probably took over that family business when Joseph died. We know that as a young boy he stayed behind in the Temple when his family went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, that he was obedient to his parents, and he grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. But now, at his baptism, the heavens open up, the Holy Spirit descends as a dove, and God says, “You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
You, my friends, are the children of God. You are called to live a life worthy of that title. You have been named and claimed by the great and mighty King. Today is a day to remember who we are, and Whose we are. We are called to humble obedience to God’s will and purpose in our lives, so that all who see us may see our good works and give thanks to our Father.
We are Christ’s body at work in the world, reminding the world that it is loved.
I had a surprising conversation last week with a young man whom I have known for years. He wrote me an email to let me know that he had recently been baptized. I cannot tell you the joy that exploded in my heart. This is a fellow who has had a strange and encumbered journey to this decision. He has been seeking peace all of his life, but many of his own choices in the past have taken him far afield of anything resembling peace. This decision came after a lot of deep soul searching and some very excellent discipling from a young pastor and a faithful church that has embraced him in his wanderings. I feel like he has finally come home.
This Sunday, we will remember the baptism of Jesus. It may surprise some folks to remember that Jesus was baptized. Since he is the totality of the forgiveness of sins and the One who brought the cleansing needed for new life, it is amazing to think that he himself was baptized by John. What a powerful reminder of the humility it takes to be a servant of God!
Luke 3 (Common English Bible)
21 When everyone was being baptized, Jesus also was baptized. While he was praying, heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit came down on him in bodily form like a dove. And there was a voice from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.”
The Common English Bible version is the first time I have seen the words, ”in you I find happiness.” What a marvelous take on that Scripture! Can you hear God saying that to you in those moments when you choose him over the world? ”In YOU I find happiness.” Hallelujah!
My young friend is working his way through what baptism means. He has expressed doubt that he was ”good enough” to be baptized. Oh, that we could somehow understand that there is no such thing as being ”good enough” to have a relationship with God! You can never be good enough, but the opposite is also true: you can never be ”bad enough” to be disqualified from his grace. Grace means that we are offered the unconditional love and unmerited favor of God, based NOT on our behavior, but on his amazing love for us. Period.
We understand baptism to be an initiation into the household of God. Initiation. That means that baptism is a place where we start our process of growing in Christ, not a place where we present some completed version of ourselves. It is the threshold of a lifelong journey where we study, pray, meditate, serve, and worship in our pursuit of understanding who God is, and whose we are as his children.
So keep growing. Keep learning. Keep praying. Keep striving. Keep putting yourself under the authority of God’s plan for your life, and never stop seeking the peace that he offers. You are God’s child, whom he loves!
At Water’s Edge 