Scripture can be found here…
Do you remember your baptism? I was just a baby, so I don’t remember mine.
I have always been just a little jealous of people who do remember their baptisms. From time to time in our deacons’ and elders’ training, people have shared stories of their baptisms—those who remember, of course. Stories of wading into a pool or maybe a river, the water dragging at their white garment. Maybe a little excited, maybe a little scared. The unsettling feeling of the minister taking them into their arms and leaning them, backwards, into the water, and then, coming up, gasping for air, soaked but elated. But how marvelous to have been able to make that choice, to take that step, to claim your place among God’s beloved.
Then again, I think of how my baptism as an infant depended, not on my faith, but on the faith of my parents. And I came to understand, much later, the sheer beauty of the fact that God loved us long before it even occurred to us to love God.
As Presbyterian author Frederick Buechner put it:
Baptism consists of getting dunked or sprinkled. Which technique is used matters about as much as whether you pray kneeling or standing on your head. Dunking is a better symbol, however. Going under symbolizes the end of everything about your life that is less than human. Coming up again symbolizes the beginning in you of something strange and new and hopeful. You can breathe again.[i]
Either way, we know we are beloved.
Jesus presents himself to be baptized by John in today’s passage from the gospel of Matthew, and John’s reaction is pretty much: wait, hold the phone, why on earth do you need to be baptized?
And, you know, he has a point. Another gospel tells us that John’s mother and Jesus’ mother are cousins, which makes them, I don't know, first cousins, once removed? And Galilee isn’t huge, so they know each other. I’m betting the stories of both of their astonishing and very unlikely births are well-known throughout the family.
John has every reason to wonder why his cousin wants to be baptized. Isn’t he the Messiah? God’s anointed, chosen one?
John balks. Our translation says, John “would have prevented” Jesus, but it’s actually a little stronger—more like, he prohibited him, he forbade him. “I should be baptized by you,” John says. This feels backwards.
Jesus is not in the least concerned. He speaks of righteousness. He speaks of bringing things to fulfillment. He says, “Let it be.”
Matthew tells us that all kinds of people were coming to John to be baptized—people from Jerusalem, from all Judea. Fishermen and Pharisees. Priests and prostitutes. Subsistence farmers and shopkeepers. Everyone, it seems, wanted what John was giving away—a dunking in the Jordan River and a new lease on life.
Jesus jumps in the pool along with the rest of them. Along with the rest of us. And this is the point, you see. Throughout Advent and Christmas we heard scripture and song that reminded us that Jesus is Emmanuel, which means “God-With-Us.” At the same time, Jesus comes as one of us, and he doesn’t want us to miss that. He is in it with us—everything, womb to tomb. His baptism signals his firm commitment to doing what he came to do—sharing life with us, his life and ours.
So John dunks Jesus, and as he comes up—the skies open, and a dove flutters down, only it’s God’s Spirit. And the voice of the Lord is over the waters:
My Son. My Beloved, with whom I am well-pleased.
And now, his work begins. Now that the Christmas and Epiphany stories are behind us, Jesus is an adult, and this baptism is the beginning. The beginning of his proclaiming, “The kingdom of heaven is near.” The beginning of his healing all who present themselves to him. The beginning of his parable-telling, loaf-and-fish-multiplying, demon-casting, plain-speaking ministry.
The beginning of his ministry among us.
And for us, baptism is the beginning of our taking part in that ministry.
Remember your baptism? Whether you were a month or a couple of decades old, the parson who poured the water on you said something along the lines of, “By water and the Holy Spirit, we are… joined to Christ’s ministry of love, peace, and justice.”
In truth, the church pounces on you—whether you are one month or one hundred years old. Now, because of your baptism, you are joined to Christ’s ministry. You are a part of it.
In a few moments we will be welcoming our deacons and ruling elders to be ordained and installed to active service. We gathered together yesterday, and shared breakfast and lunch, and prayed and shared scripture and sang. We talked about everything from the Essential Tenets of the Reformed Faith, to what a vital congregation looks like, to the hymns that grab us by the heart and squeeze. Together we shared our hopes for this congregation we all love. Together we prepared for this moment, for work that is ours by virtue of our baptism and God’s and this congregation’s call to service.
Remember your baptism, friends. Remember that, sprinkled or dunked, you emerged from the water filled with the beginnings of something new, and strange, and hopeful. Take a deep breath, and remember—always—you are Beloved.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2004), 33.