Sermon 1/13/13, Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Clean
Slate: Refresh
You
often hear people comment on how quickly children grow up. Blink, and you’ve
missed it, and your baby is a teenager, or suddenly an adult. I feel a little
that way when reading the accounts of Jesus’s life: just last week, we were
talking about the Christ-child, maybe a toddler when the Magi visited him. And
suddenly, we’re meeting the adult Jesus. The Bible only gives one account of
Jesus between birth and adulthood: Jesus at age twelve, in the Temple, in one
brief scene. It is left to our imaginations to picture Jesus at 7, or 16, or
25. Today, though, we find ourselves turning back to another character we
haven’t seen since his birth, as our scene opens on John the Baptist. People are
gathering before John, preparing to be baptized. Earlier in this chapter, John
preached to the crowds about bearing fruits worthy of repentance. He called
them a brood of vipers, which apparently did not offend them enough to make
them leave, but instead prompted them to ask John what they should be doing, and
so he instructed them in ways of living that would prepare them to be good
fruit. He baptizes them as a sign of their repentance. Today, we pick up with
the tail end of his comments. We read that the people are filled with
expectation, and they are wondering if John is the Messiah. But John says, “I
baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not
worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit
and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and
to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with
unquenchable fire.”
Then,
suddenly, we read: “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had
been baptized . . .” Again, it seems like we’ve missed something while we
blinked. The passage doesn’t tell us anything
about Jesus coming to be baptized. No verses of conversation with John. No
explanation of why Jesus would need to be baptized. Just, “When Jesus also had
been baptized . . .” Here in Luke we read that after the baptism, while Jesus
was praying, heaven opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove,
and a voice came from heaven saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am
well pleased.” The other three gospels give us a little more detail, though all
four accounts together are hardly ten frustratingly short verses total. This is
an important scene – Jesus’ baptism is one of a few events recorded in all four
gospels. But it raises for us some important questions. If John was urging
people to be baptized as an act of repentance, if he meant people to come to
him to receive a symbol of forgiveness for sins – why was Jesus there? Why did
Jesus need to be baptized at all? Surely Jesus didn’t need repentance, or
forgiveness, right? What is this scene all about?
In our
United Methodist traditions, we practice infant baptism. In fact, we will
celebrate today the baptism of an infant, James Ethan McGuire. As long as
churches have existed, though, those within the church have disagreed on
whether or not infants and children should be baptized, or whether individuals
should wait until they are old enough to be baptized at their own request
before receiving the sacrament. Our United Methodist understanding is that
baptism is primarily a symbol of what God is doing for us, not what we are
doing for God. Baptism, as we understand it, is an outward symbol of God’s
grace working within us. So this grace is working in us before we are even aware
of it. From day one and before day one, God is already working grace through
our hearts and souls, calling us into a relationship with God. We call that
prevenient grace, something you’ll be hearing more about next month. When we
are ready to accept God’s grace on our own, with our own voice, we go through
confirmation, our public acceptance of the grace that has been at work within
us, our public declaration that we’re going to do our part in this relationship
with God.
This
understanding of baptism as a symbol of God’s grace helps answer our questions
about why Jesus comes here to see John, to be baptized. Why does Jesus need to
be baptized? Obviously, he doesn’t need to repent in the same way we do, but
“to repent,” in its literal meaning, means to turn around, to turn back, to go
a new direction – God’s direction. Jesus doesn’t need to turn a new direction
in the same way we do – he doesn’t need to get off a wayward course. But his
baptism does mark a change in
direction for him, in that now he begins his ministry of preaching and
teaching. Before he calls disciples, before he reads from the scroll in the
temple, before the crowds start following him, he comes to be baptized. Now he shifts
his identity from Jesus, child of Mary and Joseph, to Jesus, Son of Man and Son
of God.
I think
that Jesus, like the crowds, was filled with expectation and anticipation. He
was about to make a huge change in his life. For thirty years, we have
virtually no accounts of what Jesus was doing, what his life was about, what he
said, who he spoke with. Apparently the gospel writers did not consider any of
this significant, because it seems that the tasks Jesus was about, the
preaching and teaching he had to do, the road to Jerusalem he had to take
– all of this was to happen in such a short period of time. His baptism
represents the beginning, and Jesus himself seems to see it as the starting
point. So I believe that when Jesus came to be baptized by his cousin, though
he may not have come to repent, he was certainly coming to mark a change in
direction – a beginning. He was setting into motion a course of action for his
life where there would be no turning back. No un-doing it. Here, Jesus was
signaling he was fully ready to follow God’s call, God’s claim on his life. And
as he comes to the waters, as he makes this commitment through baptism, he
hears God’s voice: “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”
There, at the start, Jesus has an affirmation, a reminder, a confirmation of
what he knows – he is God’s beloved, and God is well-pleased with him. With
this heaven-opening proof of God’s love for him, surely Jesus is ready to begin
his ministry with all the certainty he needs that God is with him, in him, and
working through him in everything he will face over the next three years.
What
stands out to me when I hear God’s words to Jesus in this text is that God is already well-pleased
with Jesus. It’s a pre-existing condition, you might say. Jesus is at the start
of his ministry. He’s about to do a lot of wonderful things.
But he hasn’t begun yet. But these words from God don’t come at the end of
Jesus’ journey. They don’t come during Jesus’ arrest and trial and crucifixion.
They come at the beginning. At the start. Something that is already true.
God is already well-pleased with Jesus, Jesus is already God’s beloved – just
because. Because Jesus is the child of God.
And that
is what we celebrate in our baptism. It’s symbol, a sign, a reminder, a way God
speaks to us and says, “You are my child, my beloved, with you I am
well-pleased.” Maybe our relationship with God, our parent-child relationship
with God is different than how Jesus related to the one he calls Abba – but
some things are just the same. God’s love for us is a pre-existing condition.
It is an unshakable reality for us at the beginning of our days, not something
God says to us only at the end, after determining whether we’ve measured up for
not. We are God’s, beloved. With us, God is well-pleased, simply because of
love for us. Simply because God created us. Already, God loves us.
Today’s
theme word in our Clean Slate Series is refresh.
Fresh means literally “having its original qualities unimpaired.” In other
words, “still in original condition.” So, to refresh is to return something to
original, unimpaired condition. Maybe, there are a lot of things about our
lives that we can never “return to original condition.” Maybe I won’t ever make
it back into the dress I wore for my senior pictures in high-school. Maybe you
will never come close to the record you set for the track team when you were a
teenager. Maybe your reflexes aren’t as good, and maybe your vision will never
be 20/20 again. But baptism – baptism is God’s promise that God’s love for us
is still in original condition! Always! That’s why instead of “re-baptizing,”
we simply renew our baptismal
covenants, remind ourselves of the promises of baptism. Because God’s promise
to us of unconditional love is still in mint condition – no do-over required.
You are already God’s beloved, a
child of God, made in God’s image. And with you, God is well-pleased.
Today,
we will celebrate a reaffirmation of our baptismal vows. Today, you have an
opportunity to remember, if you’ve forgotten, the love that God has for you.
You have an opportunity to remind yourself that you are God’s child, that God
pours grace upon grace out into your life, and into your heart. You have an
opportunity to commit yourself again to God’s plan for your life. You have an
opportunity for a beginning, a change of direction, a parting of the heavens as
God smiles upon you to remind you that you are Beloved. May God’s love bless
you today, this year, and always. Amen.
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