Preaching at Saint Mark’s Church
The Baptism of Our Lord
The First Sunday after the Epiphany
12 January 2020
“The Baptismal Servant”
Isaiah 42:1-9
Psalm 29
Acts 10:34-43
St. Matthew 3:13-17
INI
In May of 1945 I was born at Southern California Lutheran Hospital just east of downtown Los Angeles. I was a breach baby, and a bit blue because of that. Apparently, my father, who was quite worried whether either I or my mother would make it, went home and came back to the hospital with a small cut glass bowl. With it, he baptized me in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. We still have the bowl. Arthur often threatens to use at as a receptacle for a nice fruit salad, and then demurs. But that thought is really the point of this sermon – the practical aspect of Baptism and the theology that surrounds it.
In the film, 1917, the main character, reluctant at first soon is baptized into the task that he must accomplishes and in midst of several adventures soon discovers his self, his power and determination. In this progress he both wins and is defeated, gains and loses, is accepted and dismissed. And in all of this he begins to know himself.
Usually I like to work through the lessons, beginning with the first from the Hebrew Scriptures, sometimes moving onto the Psalm, then looking at the second reading, and ending with the Holy Gospel. This morning I’d like to begin with the Gospel, because it so fully sets the tone of what I’d like to give to you this morning. In Matthew’s account of the Baptism of Jesus, we become witnesses to something that I think the crowds that surrounded him were unaware. They would have seen the Baptist greeting his cousin, would have heard the running water as he immersed Jesus in the Jordan flood, and perhaps a gasp of breath as Jesus was raised up out of the waters. Of what they would not have been aware was the intense internal and personal experience that Jesus had – the heavens opening up, the appearance of the dove/Spirit, and the Voice that proclaims Jesus as beloved Son, in whom God is well pleased. Jesus is given a vision of himself and his mission. Jesus is baptized into a life and a servanthood. Like the prophets who preceded him he is given the Spirit, and understands the Voice that greeted us in the psalm for today. They will become tools as he begins his own journey that ends in Jerusalem.
Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, in his book Being Christian, Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer, concludes his chapter on Baptism with a series of questions for reflection. The first is right on for our purposes this morning. He asks, “In what ways did Jesus immerse himself in the depths of God and humanity, and in what ways might you follow his example?”[1] To that I would add the Greek adage as well, “Know thyself.” God, neighbor, and self – the three aspects of knowledge that come with Baptism. As it came to Jesus, may it come to each of us as well.
When God decided to begin creation, God spoke. God gave God’s breath, God’ word, God’s logos. In the psalm we meet the God enthroned on the waters, having victory over the chaos of before time. God speaks and creates, and goes on creating. The psalm describes an on-going nature to creation – the voice of God on the waters, the voice of God in the forest, the voice of God like a fire, the voice of the people crying “Glory!” Voice (words) and water met us at our baptism. Our name, our new identity in the Trinity, our new sign (the cross), and our new healing and cleansing (oil and water). What the psalm calls upon us to realize is that like Creation, Baptism is an on-going process, a constant coming of age, a continuing gift of the Spirit – Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel (Right Judgment), Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and the Fear of the Lord. The Spirit in our Baptism leads us forward, always meeting us in the water, and in the future of our being servants.
The second of the Isaiahs introduces us to the Servant in the first reading for today. One wonders who this servant might be. With Christian lenses on we see Jesus, but in its time, it might have been Cyrus II, the Medo-Persian king who freed the Jews kept in exile, allowing them to return to the land of their fathers and mothers. Another option is that the servant is really an idealic rule, something like David, who would lead and guide Israel. What is left is that the servant might be Israel itself, the people who have suffered God’s judgment and have learned God’s righteousness and justice – who have discovered themselves in their exile. We have a small hopeful clue in God’s message to the people, when God describes not only the gift of creation, but the gift given to the people, “who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it. The breath (ru’ah) is the Spirit. Like the prophets, the Spirit alights upon them. As with Jesus, the Spirit comes.
Finally, in the second lesson, we meet a Peter who is finding out what he will need to know as his ministry in the risen Christ continues. In the text before our reading this morning, we meet Peter on a roof-top, resting. He has a vision of a net being let down with all kinds of animals in it. They are unclean, lobsters, pigs, shellfish - you name it. The Voice comes to Peter and says, “Take and eat.” Peter objects, all the rules he had known from his childhood rising up and cautioning him from doing what the Voice had invited. The Voice recreates Peter with an observation, “What I have made clean you shall not make unclean.” Was Peter like Jesus at his baptism, hearing and seeing new things, challenging things? What follows is Peter’s meeting up with Cornelius, Roman, but a believer. Peter preaches a sermon at Cornelius’ baptism, a sermon that is something like a creed, describing Jesus, who he was, and what he did. Finally he comes to the belief that he now confesses to all who witnessed the baptism. “All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins, through his name.”
In her book on Baptism[2], Robin Jensen describes Baptism as essentially two acts, cleansing, and the giving of the Spirit. We have in our practice emphasized the former while forgetting the latter. If there is anything that I should like for you to take home with you today it is this understanding of the continuing nature of Baptism, and its gift to the self. Jesus once reiterated the law, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” The assumption here is that we love ourselves and that we can then love our neighbor as well. Baptism, the continuous Baptism that I am talking about, teaches us to know and love ourselves, and to recognize in ourselves the gift of the Spirit.
This understanding for me comes from deep within my childhood and years of parochial school where we memorized Luther’s Small Catechism. There in an article on the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, he asks the question. “What then is the significance of such a baptism with water?” And then the answer – “It signifies that daily the old person in us with all our sins and evil desires is to be drowned through sorrow for sin and repentance, and that daily a new person is to come forth and rise up to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”
And, as every Lutheran kid learned to respond. “This is most certainly true.”
SDG
[1] Williams, R. (2014), Being Christian, Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI, page 18.
[2] Jensen, R. (2012), Baptismal Imagery in Early Christianity, Ritual, Visual, and Theological Dimensions, Baker Academic, Grand Rapids, 239 Pages.
