Scripture can be found here…
First, there was the visit of Mary and Elizabeth… two extraordinary women who answered the call of God to mother two extraordinary men.
In that same moment, we witnessed the first encounter of John and Jesus, in utero though they both were. John was leaping and dancing in his mother’s womb, to have his Lord so near.
Today, the men meet face to face, though whether it’s for the first time, we can’t say. If Mary and Elizabeth were kin, doesn’t it make sense they’d have run into one another at the odd Passover dinner, or a family wedding?
But here they are. First, we have John, responding to what he senses in the crowd: a question. The people who have come out to the River Jordan for his preaching and his dunking in the water have come, not as passive listeners, but as active participants. And one of the ways they are participating is to consider John. There is something about him … a kind of light that shines from him, only enhanced by his wild ways of dressing and dining. Who is he? What does his ministry mean? The first word of this passage in the Greek is “Hoping, Expecting.” Hoping, expecting, the people wondered about John. Might he be the long-awaited Christ, the Messiah, God’s chosen and anointed one?
John sets them straight. He is not the Messiah, but he knows the Messiah is coming. John compares himself to the Messiah and puts it like this: I dunk you in water; the one who is coming will immerse you in the Spirit and fire… I can’t possibly be the Messiah. Look to him.
In Jesus that light shines out even more brightly. There is a yoga pose—one of the easier ones, I can do it for you right now. It’s called Five-Pointed-Star. It’s a beginner pose, no extraordinary flexibility required. In class, my teacher often talks about the heart—how open the heart is when we are standing in this pose. Sometimes she asks us to imagine our hearts shining as a light. She suggests that we choose someone for whom we would like to shine.
Jesus shines. God light comes through him. After he is baptized, the heavens open—so the gospels tell us—and the Spirit descends looking for all the world like a dove. A voice is heard. Luke, our gospel-writer, is unclear about who hears it, exactly, but someone does. Maybe both John and Jesus hear it, maybe all those hoping, expecting people hear. Maybe Jesus alone. “You are my Son, the Beloved,” the voice says: “with you I am well pleased.”
John’s understanding of the baptism he shared was similar to ours, but not entirely. John’s was a baptism of repentance—turning your life around. We too believe there is a “fresh and new” component to baptism, that God makes everything right, spiritually speaking. But our baptism includes something that is not really articulated by John in the gospels. Our baptism is also—perhaps primarily—about welcome, about being grafted into the body of Christ, which is our most beautiful and challenging understanding of the nature of the church. We are one body, which is an appallingly intimate relationship to have with the people we wave at as we come in the door. But it’s also a relationship that reminds us of the great dignity which God has bestowed upon us. We are one body in Christ. I don’t pretend to understand fully how that works, but I do believe it means we are bound to one another in ways we can’t fully comprehend. It calls us to ever greater love for one another, respect for one another, and care for one another.
When I look out at you on Sunday mornings, do you know what I see? I see hopeful, expectant people. People who are here, not to rest, or to watch passively, but to participate, to be active. Now, normally, on the day when we celebrate the Baptism of Jesus, you would see standing before you a number of individuals who are also hopeful, and expectant, as they have agreed to serve on our board of Deacons and our Session, the board of Ruling Elders. We’ve postponed the ordinations and installations due to the weather, but you will see them here soon. Like Jesus and John, each of us has our “Christian origin story.” Each of us has a family of origin that steered us toward faith or away from it; that raised us to believe what we believe today or something quite different; that nevertheless sent us out into the world on our own path, to leap and dance for joy when we recognized our Lord, or to find our way here by study or accident. They released us into the world to arrive at our own conclusions. Some of us have arrived here by truly circuitous paths. But here we are, hopeful, and expectant.
No matter how any of us has come to be here in this sanctuary, or watching from home or the road, I have good news for you: Like John, none of us is the Messiah. None of us can fix everything or make anything perfect. Like John, our calling is, in many ways, to point to Jesus, not to try to do his job. And I remind us all that, as this reading shows us, whether we are tiny babies being held over the baptismal font, or we are stepping forward to take part in God’s work, or we are enjoying a sabbath season, God’s commitment to us is clear and total: “You are my Beloved Child: in you I am well-pleased.”
So do not be afraid. God is with you. Hopeful, expectant people, God’s love shines out from you. You are radiant with it. And God has claimed you as God’s own.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
References: Shively Smith, Commentary on Luke 3:15-17, 21-22, Working Preacher, workingpreacher.org