Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
January 9, 2022
Somewhere in our house, there is a
picture – or a slide, if you remember what those are – of me next to the Jordan
River. And if I remember correctly, the picture shows me kneeling next to the
river filling a bottle with that river water. Somewhere in our home, I still
have that bottle of water. I think. I remember considering getting rid of it at
one point, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, because it was actually water
from the Jordan River, and when was I going to have an opportunity to get more
– ever.
Collecting that water happened on my
seminary trip to the Middle East, a trip that has given me many stories for
sermons ever since. But what I remember from our visit to the Jordan was not so
much the river or standing beside it or kneeling beside it to gather water, but
going back to the bus with the rest of my trip mates and going from person to
person, dipping my finger into the water, and blessing the other folks while I
made the sign of the cross on their foreheads,
I’m not sure what prompted me to do
that. That particular form of blessing was not something I grew up with. It
wasn’t, as the kids say, in my wheelhouse. But we had all been on the road
together for a while by then. And on an intense trip like that you bond with
people. There was also bombing happening in that region while we were there, so
maybe I thought we needed some extra sense of comfort and reassurance. Well, as
all this was happening, Hartley Hall made his way back onto the bus. Hartley
Hall was the president of the seminary, and he made that journey to the Middle
East with us. When we first started our travels, I was nervous around him. He
could be intimidating. He intimidated me. But by the end of the trip, I
realized that underneath that gruff, blustering exterior, he was a kind,
compassionate, endearing human being.
Thank goodness that we were in
Israel and at the Jordan River closer to the end of our trip. Because Hartley
got on the bus, saying in a loud voice, that water is not magic. He had been
watching many of us filling bottles with the water, so he wanted us to know,
“That water is not magic. It’s water. It won’t do anything supernatural for
you.” And so on, and so on.
That’s when another traveler piped
up saying, “Well, Amy has been making the sign of the cross on people’s
foreheads with it.”
Hartley looked at me, and I just
gave him a big smile. He shook his head, and we went on our way.
But Hartley Hall was right. The
water of the Jordan River is not magic. It is not made up of some supernatural
property. It is a river like the Mississippi or the Cumberland or the Harpeth.
It’s a river, a natural water formation, and as I recall, it was not the
prettiest of rivers. It was closer to the size of a creek, and it was muddy.
But even though I agree that it did not have magical properties, I understood
then and now that it was a sacred place. Maybe it was the sacredness of that
river that inspired me to bless my fellow travelers. Maybe I was trying to
preserve that moment in time, capture it somehow, so that it would be more than
just a memory, but part of us, part of our whole selves.
The Jordan River is a sacred place
for us as Christians, not just because Jesus was there, but because he took
part in a ritual that continues to shape and form our faith today. Jesus was
baptized in the Jordan. And as Jesus was baptized, so are we, whether as
infants or believers. It is one of our two sacraments. It is a sacred action, a
sacred rite, and we do it because Jesus did it.
We have reached the day on the
church calendar when we celebrate Jesus’ baptism. Honestly, when the Baptism of
the Lord Sunday rolls around, it feels like we’ve ziplined from his birth, and
the coming of the Magi, to today when he was approximately 30 years old, and on
the precipice of his ministry. But we are here, no matter how jarring it might
feel to be here, and whenever I preach on this particular Sunday, I can’t help
but think about the meaning behind baptism, and in particular why Jesus was
baptized.
To the early church leaders, Jesus’
baptism was an embarrassment. Why would the Son of God, the Lord incarnate need
to be baptized? This is a question that theologians still wrestle with? He was
supposed to be just like us but without sin. Isn’t baptism a cleansing from
sin. Didn’t people go to John because they wanted to repent of their sins, be
forgiven, and have that forgiveness sealed in the waters of baptism? And
although we don’t read those earlier verses today, it was only back in Advent
when we did, and we can still hear John calling the people, the sinners, who
came to him a “brood of vipers.” Was Jesus in that category? Did Jesus get
baptized just to model for us what we should do ourselves, even though he had
no need for it?
I don’t know the correct answer to
these questions. I can tell you the accepted answers, but I don’t think that
would add anything to our understanding today, to why we once again stop on
this Sunday of the calendar and remember that Jesus was baptized in the River
Jordan. But I do know that whatever questions Jesus’ baptism raises, it was a
significant enough event in his life, that all four gospel writers reference it
in one way or another. And each telling is different. Luke does not give us any
description of the baptism itself. There are no direct conversations between
John and Jesus. What we do read is this,
“Now when all the people were
baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was
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.”
Now when all the people were
baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized. From the way Luke tells the
story, it sounds like Jesus was just another person in the crowd, one of many,
who waited their turn to go into the waters of the Jordan and get baptized. And
yes, while Jesus was praying, he saw the Holy Spirit descend like a dove, and
heard God’s voice calling him his Son, the Beloved. I don’t know that others
who were baptized with him had quite that same experience. But, beyond his
experience in prayer after the baptism, his baptism itself was not unique. The
waters did not part. Others were baptized and so was Jesus.
Maybe this is just the way Luke
chose to tell it. Maybe Luke wanted to put more emphasis on the prayer rather
than the baptism, but the baptism preceded the prayer, so he quickly included
it. Like, oh yeah, the others were baptized and so was Jesus and then he prayed
and then it got really interesting!
But maybe it is in these quick words
about Jesus and others being baptized that we find our meaning, our own point
of reference. Debie Thomas from the Journey with Jesus blog, wrote that in
Luke’s telling, Jesus’ baptism was an act of solidarity. Jesus stood in those
muddy, cold waters with all the rest of the folks and was baptized. He was
there, with them, doing what they did, experiencing what they experienced.
And
when Jesus also had been baptized.
Yes,
Jesus modeled this sacrament for us. And it is absolutely vital that in a
moment of prayer, he heard God’s voice and saw the manifestation of the Holy
Spirit. This will prepare him and confirm him for the time to come, the time in
the wilderness. But also in this moment, he was with the people, one of them,
experiencing what they experienced. They were baptized, and so was he.
He
was with them. As we move into another year of this pandemic, as we struggle to
live in a turbulent present and wonder how much more of that the future will
throw at us, it is more than okay to find comfort in this knowledge. It is more
okay to see this sentence in Luke’s gospel, which reads almost like a throwaway
line, as actually being an inbreaking of grace – just as much of an inbreaking
as the dove descending and the voice of God speaking. Jesus stood in those
waters, those non-magical but sacred waters, with the people. He was with them,
and he is with us. He is the Beloved Son of God, but in these words, we are
reminded that we are also God’s beloved children. God created us out of love
and for love. God calls us back into relationship no matter how many times we
wander off the path. God became one of us, because we are beloved. And that
incarnate God, that Son, Jesus, stood in the waters with us. Jesus stands in
the waters with us now, not only to model what we should do and how we should
live, but because he is with us. God is with us, and we are beloved. And this
is good news indeed. This is the word of hope that we long for, that we cling
to, in these troubled and rough waters in which we live. God is with us. We are
beloved. Thanks be to God.
Let
all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”
Amen.
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