+Welcome to the Baptism of Christ…the day the adult Jesus is baptized and begins his ministry. It’s a bit confusing to celebrate this day so soon after Jesus’ birth. 2 1/2 weeks ago he was a babe in a manger, today he is 30 years old. The whole thing feels a bit disruptive to me...the incongruence a bit dizzying.
So how is it all connected—-the baptism, the incarnation and the Epiphany theme of manifesting Christ in all things?
Depending on what religious tradition you were raised in, your answer might differ: more mainline protestant faiths like Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterians would say that baptism is the bath which cleanses us and redeems us from the sin we will enter in life, the mistakes and missteps we’ll take. If we’ve been washed with the waters of baptism we have an assurance of forgiveness. Forever. If you were raised Roman Catholic or in the pre-liturgical renewal Episcopal Church the act of baptism was viewed as an admittance ticket of a sort. Once baptized you were on the road to being able to do things like receive communion and had the inside track to eternal life. Once baptized you were---yes even if you were baptized as an infant---returned to a place of purity, the stain of Original Sin washed away. You had your get out of purgatory for free card stamped.
Up until the aforementioned liturgical renewal of 1979, baptism was less a theological event and more a social one— a private occasion with a few family and friends, followed by some cake and punch—-the congregation as a whole didn’t play a role.
I’m not saying these reasons for baptism are wrong, but I do think they miss the main point of baptism as so clearly laid out on page 298 of the Book of Common Prayer: “Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body the church. The bond which God establishes in Baptism is indissoluble.”
There isn’t any grey area here folks. The bond we make with God and the bond God makes with us at baptism is forever. Nothing ….NOTHING can diminish, dissolve or destroy it. Nothing we think, nothing we do, nothing we fail to do. It’s indissoluble. It is forever.
It’s a wonderful, life-giving transaction: we promise God and God promises us.
Now, there is a certain logical order to celebrating Christ’s baptism a few weeks after his birth—after all that’s how baptism occurs for most of us. We’re born and then a few weeks or months later, we’re baptized.
But that’s not why we have the Baptism of Christ on our calendar today.
We commemorate Jesus’ baptism 2 ½ weeks after his birth because it is the next step in comprehending just what happened with his birth and life among us (that is, the incarnation) it is the next step in understanding how we are to be a manifestation of Christ in the world (that is, the Epiphany).
Jesus wasn’t baptized because he needed to be admitted to some religious organization. He wasn’t baptized to be washed of sin, He wasn’t baptized so he could wear a handsome white suit and eat cake afterwards.
Jesus was baptized because he was fulfilling all righteousness. He was fulfilling the act of the incarnation…he was being submerged in the muddy waters of the Jordan to emerge reborn, renewed and ready for his ministry. He was dying to his life as a regular young man and being born into his life as our Savior, our Teacher, our Lord.
Jesus’ baptism strengthened him, readied him, oriented him to his life of Faith.
Baptism—Jesus’ and our own-- provides the blueprint for a life of Faith.
It equips us to see Christ at work in the world and to be Christ’s eyes and ears, hands and feet, wherever we go.
Why do we commemorate Jesus’ baptism so soon after the celebration of his birth? Because Jesus’ birth served as the inaugural act of forming the Body of Christ here on earth. God came to live among us, as one of us, in an effort to bring God’s Kingdom to reign in this world.
God took on a human body in order to establish an impenetrable indissoluble Body of Love and Light, of Hope and Joy right here, right now.
And that Body grows, its reach lengthens, its impact increases, each and every-time a person is baptized.
The goal of our faith is to spread the Body of Christ, by being the Body of Christ.
We’re equipped to do that by virtue of our baptism, we are empowered to do that by the community of faith in which we live and worship and we are drawn to do that through the Love of God as given to us in that baby laid in a manger, that man baptized in the River Jordan and that Lord whose light shines on us in all that we do.
So yes, the baptism of the adult Jesus seems a bit disruptive so soon after Christmas but disruption is really the name of the Christian game. And it is what we’ve all been baptized into—-a life of holy disruption. Thanks be to God.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment