12 Jan Sunday, January 12, 2025
Today’s story about Jesus’ baptism begins by setting a tone among the people there on the scene. The people were filled with expectation. All were questioning in their hearts concerning who might be the Messiah.
In other words, the people were inspired to seek and find one person in particular: the Messiah or anointed one of God sent by God to not only save them, but change their very way of being, including how they understood God in relation to themselves, how they viewed other people and the entire world around them.
Let’s begin with the first clause: They were filled with expectation. We get that, don’t we? After all, who isn’t filled with expectation about seeing our nation swear in its 47th president? For better or worse, we are filled with expectation, the anticipation of things changing, improving or declining, depending on who it was you voted for.
Second, all were questioning in their hearts concerning who might be the Messiah. We get that too, don’t we? Concerning the 47th president, many are questioning whether this is the person really chosen by God to lead our country or not. Is this whom we should lend our support and potentially back or should we look elsewhere to expend our efforts and potentially oppose what this person says and does?
If only God had sent someone like John the Baptist prior to the most recent presidential election to make things clearer, to answer everyone’s concerns with definitive answers and point to the one and only one worthy to yield awesome presidential power and to make such weighty judgments for our future. Instead, we were left to figure things out and cast votes on our own after being led to draw conclusions by a veritable host and cacophony of internal and external voices.
I set this scene in modern times to show how clearly John answers the crowd, speaks with surety and clarity. To show you that this is a scene where conclusions are drawn and meant to inaugurate a new supreme leader of the people. According to Luke, Jesus came to lead not only the Israelites, but the Gentiles. If we say that John the Baptist was Jesus’ campaign manager, God gives Jesus his very first, most influential endorsement.
Not unlike the billionaire Elon Musk, God offers a million dollar reward for expressed loyalty. He’s willing to give the Holy Spirit to anyone who believes wholeheartedly in his Son. In fact, in a paragon social media moment which would have made an awesome TikTok clip or SuperBowl meme back in the day, God himself writes and delivers the first big check at Jesus’ baptism in the form of a dove descending from heaven.
I don’t draw these analogies to be crass, but to show you that I find favoritism in any form distasteful. What I mean is that I don’t believe God does show favoritism. I believe that God views each and every one of his constituents (and I use that word because human beings represent part of a whole, an entire body of people under the care and responsibility of God who claims to have created and formed them as uniquely precious and beloved.
Listen to this poem by John O’Donohue from his book entitled, Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings.
May you recognize in your life the presence,
power, and light of your soul.
May you realize that you are never alone,
that your soul in its brightness and belonging
connects you intimately with the rhythm of the
universe.
May you have respect for your individuality and difference.
May you realize that the shape of your soul is
unique,
that you have a special destiny here,
that behind the facade of your life
there is something beautiful and eternal happening.
May you learn to see your self
with the same delight,
pride, and expectation
with which God sees you in every moment.
Other important things to note about the scene that Luke paints today are these: In the second set of verses, the performing actor is not John the Baptist, but God. Luke links several things together convincingly. The first: that it is God’s will and desire for all people to be baptized. Second, it is God’s will and desire for Jesus to be baptized as an act of solidarity with people. Third, prayer is the appropriate response to baptism, an act which prompts the heavens to open up and the Holy Spirit to descend.
It is no small detail, but a huge one, for Luke to suggest that God offers Jesus, John and perhaps all of the people present that day to witness/experience a visible and audible sign of the Holy Spirit’s presence. It’s why during a modern day baptism, a pastor doesn’t just make the sign of the cross on the forehead using his or her thumb, but anoints the forehead with scented oil sanctified by a bishop specifically for that use.
The words of John O’Donohue, an Irish poet, priest, and justice advocate not unlike the gospel author named Luke remind us that words of encouragement and blessing from God are given as needed and are necessary for every human to experience. They can be and must be claimed in order for us to see ourselves accurately and to identify our true worth.
Reassurance from the prophet Isaiah quotes God as saying, “He who created and formed you has redeemed you; do not fear. I, the LORD, have called you by name, you are mine. You are precious in my sight and honored. I love you and am with you. You are called by my name, created, formed and made for my glory.” These things were said of God’s people, and could not apply to God’s son, since his beloved son was never created, formed or made, but begotten of one and the same substance as God’s self.
A long time ago, a pastor gave what I’ve since considered a very accurate appraisal of our basic human condition. In our minds, we tend to esteem ourselves and err in either one of two directions: Thinking too little of ourselves or thinking too highly of ourselves. We aim to either feel pride or gain the approval of others. These cause us to either become arrogant, feel unloved or unworthy.
The bottom line is: our esteem comes directly from God’s opinion of us and God’s opinion of us is really what matters. Respect, reverence and honor belong to God, but God mirrors these same attributes back to us in the form of assurances that we are God’s beloved and in us, God is well pleased. This isn’t blasphemy: that is, claiming an attribute of God as though it was our own, it is God claiming to love his people in the very same way that he loves his only begotten son.
A few weeks ago we heard Paul say in his letter to the Ephesians 1:3-14 that the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people is this: God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, chose us before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of glorious grace freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace lavished upon us. With all wisdom and insight he made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure set forth in Christ, a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit.”
Do you see the unbroken circle of logic here which explains how and why Jesus wishes to have his own followers become one as he and the Father are one? Therefore, we are instructed to not withhold; to bring sons and daughters –everyone called by God by name, whom God created for his glory, whom he alone formed and made according to John 1:13 as children “born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.”
An overview of what was called Herod’s Temple during Jesus’ time showed it to be full of columns, courtyards, exterior and interior walls. A map of the entire flat-roofed complex made it appear like a modern shopping or outlet mall full of individual stores and booths. The only thing missing on the exterior to distinguish it from them was the absence of a giant parking lot.
There were measured spaces everywhere, each barricaded and designated for certain groups allowed to only enter so far. There were priestly buildings and chambers made to accommodate specific functions, limited viewing areas, and trumpet shaped treasury depositories.
In contrast, John comes along baptizing people in the open and preaching repentance. He has come from the wilderness to stand on the banks of the river Jordan for all to see, as is Jesus, the Messiah, baptized in plain sight, for all to see.
For all to see and hear from every angle at every distance, the Holy Spirit descends. Through prayer and the laying on of hands, everyone present receives what is offered by God, not only a select few born into privilege, nor educated by scholars, nor versed in history or literature. Just those who believe, who seek and who wish to be claimed by God. Let us pray.
Thanks be to God for his eternal plan to save and to claim all people as his own, to dwell within their flesh and to inhabit their lives through the power of love and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Thank you for the grace to believe, the desire to belong, and the will to please you as you have been pleased to adopt us after creating, forming, naming and making each of us for your glory. In you holy name we pray, Amen.