January 11, 2009 Sermon
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Epiphany 1 - B 2009
January 11, 2009 Allan Conkling
We have barely put away the costumes from the Epiphany Pageant and cleaned up the parish Hall after the magnificent feast last Wednesday when immediately we enter a new season in the church year. Today Jesus is a grown man being baptized in the Jordan River. It seems strange to go from the Manger to the Jordan River but that is what happens. If Christmas is filled with awe and admiration at the birth of Christ, Epiphany season always draws us in to the story by inviting us to be present, as it were, at his baptism, at the calling of the disciples, at his miracles...and then to consider what these events of long ago have to do with us here so many years later.
We can surmise that Jesus was raised as a typical Jewish boy of his age. He likely attended some form of public education receiving teaching in the Torah and learning by memory the Psalms and Proverbs. As a teenager he would have made his Bar Mitzvah and been taught a trade. At about age 30, some inward drive led him to the desert to find a wandering preacher who was also happened to be his cousin, and from that time forth the life of both would be forever changed. At that moment Jesus both had an epiphany and was an epiphany. From that time on he took up the mantle of teacher, healer. And like the ancient prophets before him he also became the center of controversy for the rest of his short life.
Did Jesus need to be baptized prior to beginning his work? No, although the Acts reading indicates it wasn’t long before Baptism was the way to become a Christian and be a part of a church. By Paul's time baptism had become the entry rite into the Christian community. Baptism came to be seen as the door one must pass through to become a citizen of heaven. But to turn baptism into a ritual is to miss the point.
Barbara Brown Taylor in her book Mixed Blessings, says that Christ’s Baptism in the Jordan presents us with every bit as much reason to explore the mystery of the Incarnation as the Christmas Story. She writes:
"Why did he become human when he could have stayed God? Why was Jesus baptized with us when he could have stayed on the banks of the Jordan and supervised? Why does he come to us where we are, over and over again, when he could save himself the grief, the pain, the death, by insisting that we come to him where he is?"
Her answer is simple: Because God loves us, that is why.
These days when life seems particularly difficult, so challenging for so many people, we can take comfort in God's amazing and unconditional love for us. We put our trust not in the transient things of the world, things so easily washed away, but in things eternal. Baptism is the outward and visible sign of God's love for us--our "walking papers," our "marching orders". It is as if God says to us,
"You are my Son, my Daughter with you I am well pleased. Now, get going!"
I read somewhere that, for Jesus, baptism offered three points for consideration...for his consideration and also ours:
First this was a moment of decision. For 30 years Jesus had stayed in Nazareth--but a point of decision had come: either you act or you don't. Nazareth was no less troubled than it is now. Someone had to step up to do God's will.
Second, it was a time of identification. There was a movement going on; a movement of people back to God. With that Godward movement Jesus was determined to identify himself. We can also take this as an opportunity to identify with the One who identified himself with us.
Third, this was moment of empowerment. By the very Spirit who hovered over the waters at Creation, who descended upon Jesus like a dove, our hearts can be quickened, infused, empowered to serve others in Christ's name. How we serve will be unique, but everyone is called to be all they can be in God's sight. One thing is for certain, sitting still is not an option. Imagine what this church, our families, our relations with our friends at school, etc., could be if we were to be empowered by God!
Some time in the course of his adult life, the son of a carpenter, born not in royalty but in a stable in Bethlehem, made the move from private life to public. He stepped forth into the limelight. He was shown forth...he appeared...he was made manifest. At every turn God is with us. And rest assured God calls us to walk a better path than anything that we could ever blaze by ourselves.
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Revised: 01/18/09