Matthew 3:13-17
It
was just two weeks ago that we celebrated the birth of Jesus. Today,
just a few verses after the birth story, we remember another type of
birth. This is the day of remembering the baptism of Jesus, which in
Church liturgy is the symbol of a new birth. In truth, the Church has always had
a very difficult time with the accounts of the baptism of Jesus.
The writers of the four gospels seem very uneasy writing about his
baptism. Mark, the earliest of the gospel historians, simply says
in chapter 1 verses 9-11, “In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth in
Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was come
up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit
descending like a dove upon him. And a voice came from heaven, you are
my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Matthew elaborates on the account of
Mark and has John trying to talk Jesus out of it. Matthew writes “Then
Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him.
John would have prevented him saying, "I need to be baptized by you and
do you come to me?" But Jesus answered him, “let it be so now;
for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then
he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from
the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the
spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice
from heaven said, “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well
pleased.”
Luke is much less specific. He doesn’t
even mention whether or not it was John the Baptist who baptized Jesus.
Luke says in Chapter 3: 21 and 22 “now when all the people were
baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the
heavens were opened 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.”
John tells of the experience quite
differently. He writes in chapter 1 verses 29-34, “the next day he saw
Jesus coming toward him and he declared "Here is the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, After me
comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me. I myself
did not know him, but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that
he might be revealed to Israel." And John testified "I saw the spirit
descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself,
did not know him but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to
me "He upon whom you see the spirit descend and remain is the one who
baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I myself have seen and have
testified that this is the Son of God.”
This is an intriguing commentary. All
agree that however it happened, Jesus was validated as the beloved, the
one in whom God was well pleased. Now, if that is the case, why is
Jesus coming to the Jordan to be baptized? Here is John baptizing
people for the remission of their sins. There they are, a bank full of
sinners standing in line to be cleansed, and if you look carefully,
there, standing in line with the other sinners, is Jesus. What on earth
is Jesus doing standing in that line?
In her book, “Home by Another Way”,
Barbara Brown Taylor refers to a book written sometime in the mid
1990’s. Ann Patchett was the writer and her book was entitled "The
Patron Saint of Liars." It is the story of Rose Clinton and her
daughter Cecilia, who lived at St. Elizabeth’s Home for unwed Mothers,
in Habit, Kentucky. Rose was the cook and Cecilia was the darling
of the place, petted and mothered by all the young women who will give
their own babies up for adoption. One May day when she was
fifteen tears old, Cecilia mes one of the new girls who had come to St.
Elizabeth’s. Her name was Lorraine. She was skinny, with a head of red
curls, and she was about to have a nervous breakdown while she waited
to be interviewed by Sister Corrine, the nun in charge. Cecilia decided
to help her out by giving her some advice. ‘The guy, who got you pregnant,’ she
tells Lorraine. ‘Don’t say he’s dead. Everybody does that. It makes
Mother Corrine crazy.’ Lorraine
sat on her hands and was quiet for a moment. ‘I was going to say that,’
she said. ‘See?’ ‘So what do I tell her?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Cecilia said, ‘Tell her
the truth. Or tell her you don’t remember.’ ‘What did you tell her?’ Lorraine asked and
Cecilia was speechless. ‘I sat there absolutely frozen,’ she wrote
later. ‘I felt like I had just been mistaken for some escaped mass
murderer. I felt like I was going to be sick, but that would only have
proved her assumption. No one had ever, ever mistaken me for one of
them, not even as a joke. The lobby felt small and airless. I thought I
was going to pass out.’
It was because she had been mistaken
for one of them- one of the weak people whose bad decisions had
derailed their lives, who had done something so shameful that their own
families had packed them off to live with strangers until the evidence
could be put up for adoption.” Remember this was rural Kentucky. “In
theological terms, Cecilia was going to pass out, because she was being
mistaken for a sinner, when she had done absolutely nothing
wrong. It was not that
she disliked sinners. She had grown up with them. She was friendly and
helpful and gave them good advice. She never expected to be mistaken
for one of them, because in her own mind she was of another order of
being. She was a virgin, and she thought it was something anyone could
see.” (Taylor, Cowley Publications, Boston, 1999)
That’s the way most of us would feel,
I suspect. We in the Christian Church spend a whole lot of time talking
about God’s love for sinners, but we do everything we can not to be
associated with them or mistaken as one of them. Yet there, near the Jordan, Jesus was standing
in line with other sinners, waiting to be baptized. There were in that
line people feeling lonely and guilty, sorry and remorseful, sad and
hopeful. They were hoping against all hope that this experience with
John would clean them up, and make them respectable persons in the
community, but even most importantly respectable to themselves. They
were all there for one purpose; they came to be cleansed- and there was
Jesus! What did he have to be sorry about? Especially when it became
clear who he was- "my beloved in whom I am well pleased." Here is John preaching for a new
age, preparing people for the future, “repent, change your ways,
get washed clean." And there, standing in line with all the people
seeking a solution to the evils of their lives is Jesus, unashamed to
be identified with them.
That’s the problem the Church has
struggled with for a long time. Conservative theological believers say
Jesus was baptized to reveal to all the necessity of baptism, in order
to be included in the household of God. It is a validation that one is
saved from a destructive end.
More progressive thinkers hold that Jesus was modeling the Christian
life, where one has to die to one’s self in order to be resurrected to
a new way of viewing and living life. When Jesus was baptized, it was
the inauguration of his mission. Before all that stood in line, with
the best of intentions, Jesus also died to himself, in order to be the
instrument of God. Not
surprisingly, the very next section of the Bible had Jesus immediately
ushered into the wilderness, where he was tempted to use his powers for
selfish purposes for 40 days and nights. It is very significant that
only after his baptism and his successful overcoming of the huge
temptations set before him, that Jesus ministry begins.
Jesus went through the steps that you
and I must go through in our striving to be spiritually minded people;
namely, being baptized, and because of that commitment overcoming evil
while we stand along beside our brothers and sisters who are having
difficulty making those same steps. You see, this confirms what we have
known, a Church is not a port for the righteous. A Church is a haven
for sinners, and those who have experienced the love and forgiveness of
Christ are not ashamed to stand shoulder to shoulder with those who
have not yet found the way.
Throughout history, the Church has
chosen two methods of baptism to demonstrate this process. Thus baptism
is a sacrament; that is, it points to a reality. For the early Church, baptism was an
adult decision, sealed with a process that actually simulated what it
was about. A person made a decision, and then in the waters of baptism
was buried with Christ, that is a symbol of death, in order to be
raised from the waters to a new way of living, that is a symbol of
resurrection. This process was quite natural for the early Church,
since shortly after its founding in Antioch, converts were almost all
adults.
Later, dedicated Christian believers
said there are now children born to those of us who are believers; is
there nothing for these youngsters that conveys their allegiance to our
Lord. Thus paedo-baptism, or the baptism of infants was begun. In this
process, a decision is made in behalf of the child by the child’s
parents, to acknowledge their belief that from the moment of birth,
this youngster has been perfectly loved and accepted by God. That belief acknowledges that
baptism is a sacramental act, stating that we accept that which is
already done. It is to state that acceptance and forgiveness is a gift
of God through Christ. It cannot be earned, and there is no better way
to symbolize that fact than to baptize babies.
Sometimes, in baptism by immersion,
the sense is, now that I have accepted Christ, I will be accepted. The
truth is, you and I are accepted the moment we are born. Sometimes, in
infant baptism, the tendency is to assume, now that’s done, our work is
finished. In reality, infant baptism implies the beginning of work. In addition to the theological
understanding, huge promises are made first by the parent or parents
and family. Their promise is to raise that child in the Christian way
of life, so that he or she will grow up surrounded by the teachings and
grace of God and thus make a wise decision when they reach the age of
accountability.
The second promise that is made
is by the people who make up the Church where the baptism takes place.
When a youngster is baptized here for example, each of you makes a
promise to undergird the family and assist them in the task of rearing
the child in the household of God. That is why we have Sunday School
and youth programs, and why we pledge ourselves to make every effort to
have that child reared in an environment that will not wear off when
they are older. It is for
this reason, that I, as one minister, will not baptize infants of
people who are not part of a worshipping community. Without the support
of the beloved community, the act is irrelevant. Baptism is not a rite
of social passage, it is a profound religious act, and it must not be
trivialized, and I resent being asked by non-participatory people, “can
I have my child done?”
Baptism is important because for
Jesus, baptism begun in the Jordan culminated on Calvary. It is
self-denial to the fullest. Jesus referred to this when he asked his
disciples, “Can you drink the cup that I must drink or be baptized with
the baptism with which I must be baptized.” (Mark 10 38)
For you and me, no matter what the
process of baptism we shared, baptism is a sign and symbol of
discipleship. It is more than turning over a new leaf. It is more than
gradual moral information. It is daily, often painful, lifelong death.
Every day we consciously seek to die to ourselves, so that we can be
raised with Christ. In baptism we are wrapped up with other human
being; the well ones and the hurting ones, even the ones who can’t seem
to get anything right, and we step into the river with Jesus. Whether we arrived at this point in
our Mother’s arms or by our own initiative and response to God’s call,
we got into the river with Jesus and all his flawed followers and there
we know, they are us and we are them, Christ’s own forever- thanks be
to God.