Happy baptism, Jesus! Don’t let that dove gliding down upon Jesus fool you, His baptism wasn’t a peaceful event. The sky tore open and the voice of God indeed cried out.
Ok, so maybe to those nearby it seemed run of the mill---just another of John’s baptisms….but for Jesus this was something all together different. It says it right there in the Gospel… While he was coming up out of the water, Jesus saw heaven splitting open and the Spirit, like a dove, coming down on him. Now I don’t know if John saw and heard what Jesus did, but he certainly knows that something is different with Jesus’ baptism. “I baptize you with water,” says John, “but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Hmm. OK…what the heck does that mean?
Well, John’s baptism was an act that symbolized a change of intention. John’s baptism granted people forgiveness for all they had done up until then and then, as long as they continued to live a God-loving, God-following life they would be granted access to God’s Kingdom. Yes it was a bit of a barter system. You apologize and promise to do good from now on and you get a prize…eternal life.
The baptism of Jesus was something altogether different…
it was all about that sky tearing open and that voice booming from above. And once that happened, once the veil between heaven and earth was dropped and the voice of God spoke, Jesus was ready, anointed as God’s Son and he, who was born full of grace and truth was set to begin a ministry that would change the world forever. Once that sky tore open and once that voice spoke, Jesus was, in effect, unleashed.
No longer was the Kingdom of Heaven something accessible only to the chosen few, the Kingdom of Heaven, the joys of eternal life, the wonder of being part of the Body of Christ here on earth, the gift of the Spirit, grace upon grace, was available to everyone. Always and forever.
John was right, his baptism was a corrective measure, while Jesus’ baptism, the baptism of the Church, was and is a transforming and transfiguring action. Our baptisms serve as the outward and physical sign of our status as beloved children of God.
Now while Jesus was born with a bit of fanfare, and was raised with episodic moments of intrigue and glory…. once he emerged from the waters of the Jordan, there were no more hints, there were no more glimpses…Jesus was ready to accept the mantel the Angel Gabriel had predicted would be his---Jesus, as this day in our church year commemorates was ready to begin the work that he was given to do.
Just like every baptism.
You see when we were baptized we (or our parents and Godparents) committed us to live our lives as Jesus taught. Lives of service, lives of compassion, lives of justice, lives of love. At the moment of our baptism, we are publically committed to being what God created us to be---beloved children working tirelessly to bring the reign of Christ, the Kingdom of heaven to our world.
Our baptism, every baptism unleashes the Spirit in and between each and every one of us. And our job, from that point on forward, is to follow where the Spirit leads us…into the wilderness of the world. Every time we baptize a new member we have one more foot soldier in this effort to tame the darkness of this world with the light of Christ, a light that is ours for the claiming as children of God, children whom God loves dearly and who bring God great joy.
And we need all the companions we can get! Because the reality is, defeating the darkness of This World, the darkness of injustice, the darkness of prejudice, the darkness of hate, is tough work.
This past Tuesday night, when we said goodbye to the building at 16 Linwood, reminded me of the struggle between darkness and light. There were a number of people missing from that grand celebration of what was and what will be----people who, 3 ½ years ago, told us that what we were trying to do at Ascension; offer Eucharistic focused, Trinitarian based worship done in a radically inclusive way at an unusual time and focused more on spreading the light of Christ rather than sticking with the status quo, would never ever work. People called Pete, Mark and me heretics. People who persisted in bringing their darkness of doubt and hate and fear into our midst were, for the most part, missing on Tuesday. There was too much light, too much love and too much faith in that space for them. So they didn’t come. Did our plan for Ascension, and this covenant with Good Shepherd work out like we had anticipated? Nope….but what is happening with our covenant is the work of the Spirit. And the Spirit doesn’t always do what we expect,rather she does what we need. The spirit isn’t always easy to take. The spirit often….always?....takes us into uncomfortable territory. The spirit often….always….pushes us farther than we may think we can go. The spirit often…always….has plans for us that simply weren’t on our bucket list.
But, and this is the thing, the Spirit, the spirit that descended onto Jesus at his baptism, the spirit that infused each and everyone of us at our baptism is always and forever with us. We just need to have courage, to have enough faith to trust that the Spirit will never leave us and then we need to accept the presence, the leanings and the nudging of the Spirit to take us places we never imagined we could go. For when we follow her when we respond to her, the sky tears open and the joy of our Creator God brightens our path and leads us home.
So on this first Sunday in the season of light, Epiphany, on this first Sunday of a new address for Ascension and a new step in our journey as covenant partners, let’s all take a few moments to listen for the Spirit. It may come to us as quietly as a dove, or as raucously as a voice booming from the torn open heavens, but let us listen, let us ponder and then let us follow in faith with thanksgiving. Amen.+
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