Whose Are You? A Sermon for the Baptism of Jesus Sunday Part 1 of 2: A Series on Discipleship Scriptures: Isaiah 42:1-9, Matthew 3:13-17
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1 1 Whose Are You? A Sermon for the Baptism of Jesus Sunday Part 1 of 2: A Series on Discipleship Scriptures: Isaiah 42:1-9, Matthew 3:13-17 This week I m beginning a two-part sermon series on the notion of discipleship. I believe that the scriptures of these two Sundays following Epiphany have a message for us about the relationship with God we all are called to, which Jesus embodied. I believe this happens right away after the stories of his birth because Jesus coming to earth is about connecting us with God, about helping us understand our relationship with the Divine. Today, I am focusing on what I consider to be the first half of discipleship, which is, that we are chosen by God and we are loved, first. The second half, ah, well that will wait until next week. So let us turn to the scripture of today. The baptism of Jesus. Why do you think we tell the story of Jesus baptism the week after Epiphany? We just heard of the Christmas stories of Jesus birth, and we hear of the 3 wise men arriving after their long journey and paying the baby Jesus homage as a King, one who will change the world. They bring him gifts, we are told, that are symbols of royalty, holiness, burial. The portents around his birth are such a big deal that King Herod is very afraid of this child, worried that he will indeed make all things new. The gospel writer is telling us, wait for it! This guy is going to be BIG. Now the very next set of text, we jump to Jesus being an adult, and this is the very first story we are told. It would seem that the writer of the Matthew gospel believes that the baptism was Jesus first significant act in his ministry, something powerful which heralds what is to come. Why is that? Why would Jesus need to be baptized?
2 2 I think we are being invited right away to consider seriously the humanness of Jesus. This is one of the biggest issues the early Christian church wrestled with, how to understand what it meant for Jesus to be God and human - and frankly, I believe it is still a big question for us today. Jesus humanness is something, by the way, that distinguishes Christianity from other of our sister faiths. At seminary, when I was in interfaith classes, my Jewish peers told me they were deeply struck by how intimately Christians experienced God through Jesus, something very different from their own experience. We are told by our faith tradition and the scriptures that Jesus was God-with-us, Emmanuel, an embodiment of the One Creator in our own flesh and blood. So we might think, well God wouldn t need to be baptized, right? God is GOD. But if God really stepped into being human, and that was to be truly authentic, then what would the human aspect of God be thinking, feeling, doing in his time on earth? If he was fully able to perceive as God perceives, he wouldn t be human, would he? If he was fully able to look at just the macro view of creation and his redeeming part in it, he wouldn t be human, would he? If Jesus never felt doubt, fear, vulnerability, if he couldn t actually die, then he wouldn t really be human, would he? Let s go back to the scripture. It says when Jesus comes to the Jordan, John would have prevented him, and John says, essentially, shouldn t I be baptized by you? Jesus says, let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness. So John goes ahead with it, despite his awe. It describes Jesus as coming up from the water which means John would have fully immersed him. Think for a moment when you let yourself get totally under the water what it feels like all the noises of the world are hushed; you feel lighter, floating, maybe it is
3 3 dark and the light seems farther away. I know for myself, when I m immersed under water, I realize how vulnerable I am under there, unable to breathe, feeling how fragile my body and its life is when I am under the water. When you re fully submerged in water there is the shock of the cold, and our senses are expanded and enhanced, our hearing changes and our vision changes - our skin is fully activated by the touch and pressure of the water all around. For a people living in the desert, the chance to be fully immersed would have been uncommon, infrequent, something maybe seasonal only. It would be all the more shocking and invigorating, since they didn t get to do it often. Did Jesus feel these things as he went down into the water: vulnerable, surrounded by sensation, worried about not being able to breathe, just like us? Then he comes out of the water, the scripture says and suddenly the heavens opened! Now to be precise, it says the heavens were opened to him, and the he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. The scripture doesn t tell us if anyone else saw this. Only that Jesus did. And a voice from heaven said, This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased. It sounds like a pretty awesome, earth-shaking moment, intimate and mystical, between Jesus the human, and God. Could God have been calling Jesus to his ministry, in effect? The divine part speaking to the human part? It s time! You are cleared for take off. Well, to answer that question, let s look at what happens immediately after this text. The very next words in Matthew s gospel say, Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
4 4 For me, this may imply that Jesus went into a time of real trial, like when you know you feel called to do something and you are terrified to go out and do it. You agonize, you feel unequipped, unworthy, weak, afraid. This isn t me, is it? You might say to yourself. There s somebody else who would be better at this. I think it is possible that the wilderness Jesus entered just after being baptized means that the human part of Jesus quaked at the call of God to be the Son. In the Isaiah reading we heard earlier, God says, Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. And then, See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare. If Jesus understood himself to be fulfilling this scripture, no wonder he quaked. I think we hear this story right after Epiphany because the life and ministry of Jesus is so much more deeply powerful if we really get it that he was human as well as divine. By coming forth to be baptized, we see that the human part needed to conform with what all the rest of us have to contend with needing to be called before he could answer; needing to be commissioned and blessed in his frail body; to be given a promise first from God before he did anything else. In Jesus baptism, God was affirming him, reminding him that he was chosen, and God called him Beloved. God said, just as you are, you please me. The first part of discipleship: being chosen by God. Now, if Jesus quaked after he was baptized and commissioned; if Jesus entered a wilderness of fear and selfdoubt; then I think we are being shown that this is the natural order; we should not
5 5 feel like there is something wrong with us if we feel afraid. This is what it means to be human, and God in Jesus felt it, too. Remember, we know that Jesus fears and doubts didn t stop him from coming back out of the wilderness and launching his earthly ministry. He will feel fear again in stories to come, which we ll hear about closer to the crucifixion in Holy Week. And still it won t stop him. It is easy for us to distance ourselves from Christ and say, well he had a lot more going for him than I do. But if we do this, I think we miss the true core message about why Jesus came on earth at all. If what he did was so far from us, then there is no hope. But Jesus tells his followers much later, 12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.(John 14:12) In a few moments we will have a chance to renew our own baptismal vows, and I urge us all to take this week to really absorb what our own baptism means about our relationship with God, this first half of discipleship. God came near to us in Christ to tell us exactly this: that we are chosen by God, we are commissioned and we are blessed. We too, are called Beloved. Not somebody else, with more skill or talent, not somebody else who is better looking or has more money or is the right gender; not somebody else with the right education or who loves the right person; not somebody else who is braver or a better person it s us. We have exactly what God needs for us to bring to the world. We are chosen, and commissioned, and blessed, and beloved.
6 6 Let us move into this message more deeply with song and then prayer. Please join me on the chorus of this song as you recognize it. The words are in your bulletin.
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