The Baptism of Our Lord
Matthew 3:13-17; Acts 10:34-43; Isaiah 42:1-9
It begins at an early age. At our house I remember shortly after our third son was born being asked to write a sign for the door to the two older boy's bedroom that they wanted to read. "Boys only. No babies." A short time later the qualifying phrase was added. "Except Parents." Our lives are filled with coming to various understandings of inclusion and exclusion. Most children pass through the "boys only" or "girls only" years which then leads to various forms of best friends, cliques and clubs. In each case there are those who are in and those who are out. As we move on in sports and academics there are teams made and those that were not. Tryouts that lead to invitations to participate further and auditions that end in disappointment. High school and college years bring shifting patterns of affiliation. Groups to be in and groups that exclude. Various professional associations, fraternities and sororities There are some groups that we can choose to be a part of but there are many more that we have very little control over. We establish our boundaries, define our borders, build our fences and gated communities in an attempt to claim some sense of security in an insecure world. To hold on to some sense of identity in the confusion of a diverse society. We build barriers that we hope will bring peace in the midst of the world's terrors. Our world is increasingly viewed in terms of the categories for inclusion and exclusion. There is the citizen versus immigrant and the illegal alien. There is the law-abiding member of society and the felon. There are ethnic, racial and cultural distinctions. To say nothing of the economic classes of wealth versus poverty, employed versus unemployed. There are the developed nations, developing nations and third world nations. So many ways to divide the world. And then there is religion.
Few of us were ever asked to choose from the great faith traditions of Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist. Parents, family, community and friends ultimately led us to center our faith identity in most cases before we fully knew what faith it was we were embracing. Even within the faith community where we initially found ourselves we rarely had any choice about being Conservative or Reform, Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant, Sunni or Shi-hite. It is always interesting to talk with members of this congregation about their faith journeys. Most of our members have come from a variety of faith back grounds. Most of them Christian but with a certain element of the exclusive in them. There is within most faith communities a belief that a certain view of the world and God is maybe a little truer to God's desire than any other faith expression. We are each inclined to believe that God leans at least a little more on the side of our faith community. Among Christians there are a variety of exclusive truth claims. Each faith community striving to see itself as having the best understanding of God's intent for the world. Roman Catholics are all right but I was raised to believe that God prefers Protestants. And among Protestants the Presbyterians and Episcopalians are okay but the truest expression of the protestant faith is being a Lutheran. And if you press real hard you'll find some who are quite certain that it is the Minnesota born Lutheran who ranks first with God. (Certainly having at least one of your pastors being such a person offers some comfort.) The accidents of birth geography, ethnic and genetic origin, even economic opportunity if not advantage, have much to do with where we begin our life and faith journey as well as the ease or struggles we have as we encounter the world. But there comes a moment when it is no longer the world that is dictating the categories of our lives.
There comes a moment when we lay claim to the identity that we believe to be true for us. This is an epiphany moment. A revelatory experience that may be found in an instant. In a moment of in-sight and self-discovery. One of those ah-ha moments that comes upon us. Often unexpectedly when suddenly everything that has gone before is cast in a new light. In scripture we see such epiphany moments revealed by God's Spirit. The creative Spirit of God that moved first in the opening verses of the Bible. In Genesis 1 the Spirit of the Lord moves upon the face of the chaotic waters and God calls forth light and life. This same Spirit touched the lives of various prophets and leaders of old, providing moments where the promise of God's Word and gifts turned the people to consider a new center for their hope and very life. This same Spirit inspired the first century hope for a messiah who would deliver the people and nation from the chaos of occupying armies and foreign rulers. A hope to be a people more fully blessed by God. In our Gospel lesson for today we encounter that same Spirit moving over the waters of the Jordan River as Jesus steps forth following his baptism. And as the Spirit descends upon Jesus the voice of God once more declares the arrival of a new light and new life for the world. For Jesus this was the beginning of his ministry. He was embraced by the very power of God. The Word incarnate. He was revealed as a voice of life and hope come into the world. He touched people's lives with miracles of healing. But even more. He opened the future promise of life beyond this world with a loving God. Most important. from the moment of his baptism Jesus never looked back. His life became centered on revealing, doing and fulfilling God's will for the world. It all begins with His baptism, which is one reason why this day is set aside to celebrate the baptism of our Lord For those of us in the Christian community.
Our understanding of our faith begins with our baptism. We are invited this day to also remember our own baptism and what that means. Unfortunately for most of us, Baptism is a common and relatively unexciting memory. Something most of us have little or no memory of since it occurred while we were infants. Yet the truth be told, none, or at least very few of us should have ever been baptized. The earliest record of those who were baptized as reported in the book of Acts were members of a very select group. They were all Jews by birth, ethnically and religiously Jews. In the earliest days of the emerging Christian community if you were not a Jew and you wanted to be baptized it seems to almost be assumed by the disciples that you would first study to become a Jew before being allowed to be baptized. First your bar or bat mitzvah. then your baptism. Our second lesson for today from the book of Acts presents a critical "ah-ha" moment for the early Christian community and for each of us. The text is a sermon by the Apostle Peter. delivered in the home of a Roman centurion stationed at Palestinian Caesarea. This is one of the earliest recorded sermons delivered after the death of Jesus and its opening words proclaim a bold and amazing truth. Peter proclaims. "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him." Translated literally this means that God accepts from every nation and every religion those whose manner of life is devout even though they live outside the boundaries of Israel. Peter had baptized the Gentile military commander Cornelius, a Roman centurion. He had done so because God had provided him with a dream in which he came to realize that God did not just create and care about one selected group of people, but all humanity. And God came into the world in the form of Jesus to save all humanity.
The Gospel writers who wrote several decades after Peter's sermon knew this. The story of the Epiphany celebrated just this past Friday, the 12th day after Christmas, is a celebration of the incarnation. The story that is told on that day is the familiar one from the Gospel of Matthew recalling the visit by the magi. By tradition the Three Wisemen or kings came from the East, maybe Persia, the region of modern day Iran and Iraq. And the tradition strives to affirm the universality of Christ's coming by usually identifying each of the wisemen as being of a different race and age. One is black. One is white. One is yellow. One is young. One is middle aged, and the third is old and hard of hearing. Jesus was born to save all. Not Jews only but also Gentiles. Not people of one race but all races. Not persons of one culture but all cultures. Peter reminds us of what we already know when we says, "You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ". We are not surprised by these words for we are the baptized. We are the proof some 2000 years later of Peter's vision. The question is not where are the boundaries, but why are there still divisions. I have been thinking a lot these past weeks about the year just past and where the coming years will be taking us as a congregation. This past week I received an e-mail from the Presiding Bishop of our Lutheran church. He shared his struggle with a similar question. As he phrased it--"How shall we as the ELCA be church in 2005?" His answer was to recognize that we do nothing to create the church. It is God who calls the church into being. Our Lutheran confessions provide the simple definition of church as anywhere the Gospel is proclaimed and the sacraments rightly administered. We believe that through the means of grace, baptism and communion, the Holy Spirit is at work bringing us to faith and unity in Christ's Body.
Bishop Hanson recalled the words of Professor Mark Allan Powell who reminds us that "we do not need to strive to become the Body of Christ. We are the Body of Christ. We are all part of one body... What happens to one of us affects the whole body whether we realize it or not. The mission of the church...is not to achieve unity, but to act as the united entity we are." The recent tragedy of the Asian tsunami has demonstrated again the wholeness that humanity is capable of finding when the barriers and boundaries are collapsed by common concern for human suffering and need. From the chaos of the water's destructive force we have seen a new spirit move rebellious Tamil Tiger fighters in northern Sri Lanka to lay down their weapons to bring food to their enemies. We have seen nations and peoples unite in acts of generosity and sharing. Hundreds of designated dollars from this congregation alone. The children of the Tuesday LYFE program voted this past week to designate $322 from their fall fund raising activities to provide food, water and shelter to survivors of the tsunami in lands that few of the children can even pronounce. The Spirit moves and for a moment the vision of wholeness without regard for national or religious boundaries is glimpsed. This is the Gospel to which Peter declared we are called to bear witness. This is the Word incarnate for the whole world. This is the creative Spirit moving again among God's people bringing new life from the chaos that threatens to destroy that which God created good. Sadly this day will pass. Soon the united commitment for wholeness and life will be replaced by political posturing and territorial conflicts. The suffering and needs of South Asia will be replaced in the media by the next human tragedy. Just as the tsunami temporarily removed the news stories of war's destruction and African AIDS epidemic from the headlines. But for the children who witnessed to their faith. who were moved by the Spirit to glimpse hope and promise. For those who gave to the greater witness of the church as one body, there will be a strengthening of the Spirit's presence and promise.
As I look to the coming years of Holy Spirit's ministry it is clear that for the baptized of this congregation that the prophets of old speak a very present word. Centuries before the Christ was born God moved the prophet Isaiah to rejoice in this vision of newness that God invites us to proclaim once more today. We are Christ's body. We are the ones of whom it may now be said. "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights." We celebrate through our baptism the new creation God calls into being through us. As we work for justice and peace and healing and wholeness we do so empowered by the Spirit who proclaims through us. "See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them." The world is God's creation. All are welcome. No one is excluded. Let us proclaim this day of the baptism of our Lord that we are God's new creation. Let us invite those who may be outside this room, outside this fellowship, outside this faith. To join us in sharing the peace and power of the God incarnate. The God who shows "no partiality."
Amen