Loading...Sermon for the 1st Sunday after the Epiphany
January 8, 2017
Matthew 3:3-17
Audio Recording
The 1st Sunday after the Epiphany is known also as the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, and, along with the Easter Vigil, Pentecost, and All Saints, is one of the four days of the Church Year that the Book of Common Prayer teaches us is especially appropriate for administering Holy Baptism, and the liturgical customary of our diocese prescribes only those four days as occasions for baptism. We have no baptismal candidates today, but we will renew our Baptismal promises as a way of recommitment to following Christ as Lord.
It was just two weeks ago that we celebrated the birth of Jesus at Christmas, and now we have jumped ahead some thirty years to the day he was baptized in the Jordan River.
The significant leap forward in time corresponds to the small amount of evidence the gospels give about the earlier years of his life. It is not that those early years were unimportant, but that the three years of ministry that began with the baptism are so important as to demand the attention of the gospel writers, and also to demand the attention of gospel readers and hearers, as well.
That day was one of great surprise and confusion for John the Baptist. He awoke from his night’s rest, put on his cloak of camel hair, laced up his sandals, said his prayers, sat down to enjoy his breakfast of locusts and wild honey, then packed a lunch of locusts and wild honey to take with him down to the river for a new day of preaching the message of repentance and preparing for the coming of the messiah. The advent of messiah, John was convinced, would bring freedom for his people, who were subject to the harsh rule of the Roman Empire.
The river crossing where John held his preaching and baptizing mission was a place of great symbolism for the people of Israel. It was the place where their ancestors crossed the Jordan at the end of their Exodus journey from slavery in Egypt back to freedom in their homeland. It was a place of freedom, and John looked forward to the renewal of freedom that messiah would bring.
On this particular day, John’s message was heard by crowds of people, who listened, who examined their hearts, and found therein the need to repent, to change direction,
and walk with renewed faith in the ways of God, and so came forward to be baptized
in the waters of repentance. One particular man stepped into the water and presented himself to John for baptism. John looked at the man and was overcome with surprise and a feeling of unworthiness, for he recognized the man. It was Jesus, the messiah, the one who would bring freedom. John said to Jesus, “I don’t need to baptize you, I need to be baptized by you.”
John’s sense of unworthiness before Jesus was not groundless. Fully aware that he was face to face with the one whose coming he proclaimed, the one who came to bring freedom, the one with no need to repent, John thought it unfitting to immerse Jesus in the waters of repentance, he felt eminently unfit to administer any kind of sacramental rite upon Jesus, and acutely aware of his need to receive a sacramental cleansing from Jesus.
John was absolutely right. He was not worthy. Neither are we. Apart from being found in Christ, we are not worthy of fellowship with God. William Porcher DuBose, an important voice of the Episcopal Church in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, said, “We are to come to God with nothing that we are, and receive from him all the things that he is.”
Within ourselves, in what comes from us, we are not worthy, and need to be, as John said to Jesus, “baptized by you,” that all the goodness that was God’s original intention for us in creation may be restored in us.
Although John was right, Jesus insisted that there was a purpose for him to be baptized.
It was his expression of humble obedience and submission to God, and solidarity with the people he came to save, not only those at the river that day, but all people, including us.
When John baptized Jesus, he showed the world the answer to his message of repentance.
When John baptized Jesus, he was saying, “This is how you repent. Follow him.” Jesus is the answer. Jesus is the one who pours the healing balm of forgiveness, healing, and mercy
upon all that hinders our full communion and fellowship with God. Jesus is the one who leads us into freedom. Jesus is the one who makes us worthy.
I have a little mantra of prayer that I say to myself before I receive Holy Communion. It’s something I picked up from a priest I’ve known, but I can’t remember which one. The prayer is, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” While I’ve never heard an audible reply to that prayer, there have been times,
holy moments, thin places, when I have sensed the assurance that he has said the word that heals my soul. It has not always been the same word. The word I’ve probably most frequently heard is Love, as I’ve sensed his love poured out for me. Other times it’s just been yes, like, “Yes, your soul is healed.” It would not surprise me today that when that prayer crosses my lips, I might hear in my heart the word “worthy,” the assurance of Jesus that he makes me, who is not worthy to have him come under my roof, worthy to stand before his table, to stand before our God and Father, to stand in the midst of this congregation, all of you, God’s holy people, whom he has made worthy,
whom he has cleansed in the waters of baptism, whom he feeds in Bread and Wine, to whom he speaks in the sacred writings, and through whom he is present and active in the world in hands reached forth in his service, whose good news is shed abroad through lips that speak his praise, and whose cleansing and healing power continues to change the hearts of all who are open to his healing grace, his saving grace, which alone makes us worthy.
Matthew Rowe+
Emmanuel Episcopal Church
San Angelo, Texas
