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Sermon preached by the Reverend Patrick T. Gray at
The Church of the Advent,
Sunday, January 13, 2008 And a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” There’s something in the water, or perhaps something in the communion wine, for those folks who attend the 9 o’clock service. Because if you’ve been there recently, you will have noticed there is a new crop of babies, besides all of the many toddlers. Naomi and I are guilty of this, by adding our baby Eleanor to the mix. Ryan and Emily Bagley have given us Annabelle Maeve, Darcy Montaldi and Tony Pulsone have given us little Daphne, and Andrea and Bryan VanderLugt have given us not one, but two new additions, William and Annalise. And when there are babies, there are baptisms. Besides my own daughter’s, there was the recent baptism of Lesli Suggs’ baby Michael, and next week will be Lawrence Donald, the sweet little boy of Steve & Irene Eide. Now I think this is a good thing. Because baptism is one of those profound moments in the life of a child, of an adult, of parents and godparents, one of those fundamental sacraments that we as priests have promised to administer faithfully. And our job is made all the easier to administer faithfully because of the faithfulness of these good parents, who desire to raise these children in Christian homes, in houses where faith matters, where God matters. This caused a problem for three-year-old Timmy, whose little brother was baptized at the church across town. After the baptism of his brother, little Timmy sobbed all the way home in the backseat of the car. His father asked him three times what was wrong. Finally, the boy replied: “That preacher said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, and I wanted to stay with you guys.” We too want to see these children brought up in Christian homes, we too want to see the lives of these children flourish in the life of God, we want to see the lives of the parents flourish, so we need, as a community, to support and encourage these folks in this tremendous task. I need it, they need it, we all need help figuring out this thing called the Christian life. And it starts with baptism. Not surprisingly, the baptism that gives all other baptisms meaning, the baptism that makes it possible for us to imagine raising our children in Christian homes, is the baptism of Jesus the Christ. And with the Epiphany season upon us, the season that is all about how the full deity of God is manifested in the full humanity of Jesus, we are given an opportunity to look at it. But of course, the Epiphany season starts with the Feast of the Epiphany, which we celebrated last Sunday, but the focus there is not the baptism of Jesus, but the story of the Magi, the three Gentile Wise Men come to worship the child born King of the Jews, the first manifestation of just what was in store for this child, the first manifestation of his importance for the people of Israel, and for the life of the world. But from last Sunday until today, Jesus has done quite a bit of growing up, for we find Jesus on this Sunday having come from Galilee to the River Jordan to John the Baptist, to be baptized by him. It seems slightly odd that the one who as a child received gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh from three kings of the Orient, would now come desiring to be baptized by John. Shouldn’t he be the one doing the baptizing? The last thing you would expect is that he would be baptized by this rather strange prophet. John thought the same way, for he tried to prevent Jesus from being baptized, saying to him, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” In the preceding verses of Matthew’s Gospel, John had just gone on record as prophecying that someone was coming who was greater than he was. “He will give you God’s wind and God’s fire, not just water!” he said. “He’ll sort you out – he’ll clear out the mess – he’ll clean up God’s farm so that only the good wheat is left!”(1) After that prophecy, we would expect quite a bit of pyrotechnics, of the living God himself entering in a blaze of glory, transforming everything in a single blow. So how could that very same person come seeking baptism from John? “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” In other words, Jesus is saying that he indeed has come to fulfill God’s plan, to bring about the promises which God made ages ago and has never forgotten. Jesus was saying that, because of him, God’s spirit would indeed blow through the world, and that the fire of God’s just judgment would be brought on evil wherever it was found, and would rescue God’s people once and for all from every kind of exile to which they had been driven. Yes, he would do all of this, but this is how he needed to do it; he needed to humbly identify himself with God’s people, by taking their place, sharing their penitence, living their life and ultimately dying their death.(2) And so Jesus came seeking baptism from John, and John consented. Now this is all very interesting, but it’s certainly not an unfair question to ask what good all this will do. How does the baptism of Jesus start to bring about what John the Baptist and the people of Israel had longed for? Why did it matter, and what good would it do? Well, certainly we would have to read the rest of the Gospel to see why Matthew thinks it matters. But we are, even here at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, we are given a glimpse of why it matters, of what the answer will be. For any self-respecting Israelite would know that there was a connection between baptism and what happened to the people of Israel, how they came through the water of the Red Sea as they fled Pharaoh out of Egypt. But any self-respecting Israelite would also know that that’s not the end of the story, that something happened to Israel after crossing the Red Sea; something big happened, something that confirmed the status of the Israelites as God’s son, God’s firstborn. They were given the law, the Torah, for the nation of Israel was God’s son. So it may not have been as surprising as we might think for Matthew’s audience, it might not have been completely out of the blue for this to happen, not if this truly was he who was to come. For when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him. It was confirmation of who he was. And just as Israel came out of the waters of the Red Sea and received God’s spirit in the law, so Jesus came out of the water of baptism and received God’s spirit, God’s wind, God’s breath, in a new way, showing him to be God’s son, Israel in the person of Jesus Christ.(3) And if there was any doubt about what was going on, there came a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” This is the one who is to truly show you what it means to be one of my children. This is the one who will show you what it means to be a light to the nations. This is the Son of God. But what is God’s son to do? Again, all very interesting, but what’s going to happen? What is he going to do now that he’s received the Spirit of God? Well, I don’t think it’s an accident that the Spirit of God descended upon him like a dove, for it shows that the coming judgment will not be achieved through a warlike or vindictive spirit, but instead will mean the making of peace. Judgment itself is judged by this spirit, just as Jesus will at last take the judgment upon himself and make an end of it.(4) This is why we are able to live as Christian parents, to raise our baptized children in Christian households, to live in the world as God’s children. We are able to accomplish this because all has been accomplished in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has taken the judgment upon himself, who was sacrificed for us, and has taken away the sin of the world; who by his death has destroyed death, and by his rising to life again has won for us everlasting life. So we are free, my brothers and sisters, we who are baptized are buried with Christ in his death, share in his resurrection, and are reborn by the Holy Spirit; we are free, we are free to serve him whose service is perfect freedom. So let us give thanks for the baptism of our Lord, that he humbled himself so that we might live with him. And let us go forth from this place and live the life worthy of God’s Son, for we are found in him, and he in us. Amen. (1) Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part I ( London: SPCK, 2002), 21. |