Baptism of Our Lord

Sermon for Sunday Baptism of Our Lord, Year B, January 8, 2012

Sometimes when you are watching TV or reading a book something happens that grabs your attention. A TV announcer says - "We interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin" - or - maybe you see something that strikes you as significant and you pause in what you are doing. Something similar to this happened to me a number of years ago when we I was reading a newspaper - it was just a before Christmas that year.

In the paper was a picture of a young man sitting on the steps of his high school. He was bald, and all around him were his classmates, and they were bald. The Headline read: TRUE BLUE PALS and the caption said:

Mark Busse, 16, of Reardon, Washington, poses with classmates from his high school in this eastern Washington state town. His friends shaved their heads to show support for Busse after his hair fell out following chemotherapy for inoperable lung cancer. His buddies said that they didn't want him to stand out in the 180 student high school.

I was struck at the time - thinking as I was of the coming Christmas Service – that this is so much like what God has done in Christ Jesus, he has come among us - and identified with us. He has taken on our flesh and our blood - our experience, our joys and our concerns, our trials and tribulations, so that he might help us, so that we may know that we are not alone, so that we may know that we are loved.

God often gives us signals that say: "Stop and Listen: this is a very important event - this is full of meaning and significance for you. Today - in the story of the baptism of Jesus we see something highly significant about how God deals with us - and how we, when we are moved by the Spirit of God - should deal with others. Today we see God's process of identifying with us - so that he can save us. We see the ministry of Jesus begin - with an act - and a sign. An act of love, and a sign of God's compassion....

Mark Busse of Reardon, Washington, despite his illness, despite his troubles, was a very lucky young man - he had the best kind of friends anyone could have - for they, although they were not sick, although they had no reason in the world to shave their heads and experience some of what their friend Mark was experiencing did so anyway. They identified with him. They walk so to speak in his shoes and showed him that he was not alone.

We are loved this much, and we are not alone. Jesus in his baptism did the same for us as Mark Busses’ friends did for him and much more. Our Gospel reading for this morning begins with John the Baptist preaching the need for repentance and ceremonially washing clean the sins of all those who come to him.

Jesus did not have to be baptized. He did not share in our broken human nature. He was not a sinner. He had no cause for repentance. He had no need to undergo the baptism of John. Yet he did. Jesus was baptized to set an example for us of what is involved in getting right with God. His act of being baptized leads us toward a good relationship with God. But it is far more than this.

The baptism of Jesus is an act in which Jesus takes upon himself our burdens; an act by which he shows how complete his identification with us is, an event by which he demonstrates what the saving love of God is like, much like the act of Mark's Busse's friends demonstrates their love and care for him, by taking on the burdens he must bare.

The baptism of Jesus is the act which begins his ministry – the event which commences his process of proclaiming the good news of salvation, the start of a career which ends in our redemption. It is worth our attention for this very reason. Jesus’ baptism is so significant, so monumentally important that it is found not in one or two or three gospels but in all four. But only in the Gospel of St. John do we read the powerful words that come just before the story of Jesus’ baptism. Words that explain so succinctly the significance of what Jesus did:

"And the word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. John testified to him and cried out: "This is he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me'. From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

In the seemingly simple act of Jesus’ baptism we receive from him his fullness, his dwelling and indwelling spirit, and his identification with us. As St. John said through Jesus’ baptism we have received grace upon grace.

Jesus began his ministry among us by identifying with us -by doing as we are commanded to do -by taking upon himself the sign of repentance and righteousness that we are to take upon ourselves. And when he did so he received the power of the Holy Spirit - which descended upon him like a dove -and he goes forth from that point to teach and to heal – to forgive and to empower - until, at the end, he does as he does in the beginning, as he did all during his ministry, he takes upon himself the identity of every person and offers himself to God in their place.

Our ministry, our power, our ability to heal and be healed begins in the same place as did that of Jesus. When we identify with Jesus when we believe in him, and see ourselves as his and he as ours,- when we move past the stage of the disciples in who were only baptized with John's baptism of repentance and reach out instead for the baptism that is in Jesus, we receive the same power that Jesus received, the same abilities. I am speaking of mysteries of faith. There is power in the sacrament of baptism that is beyond our ability to explain.

There is power in doing as Jesus did, and more, there is power in believing in him, and that power is the power of the Holy Spirit. By it we are made part of Jesus, and he is made a part of us. His life and his death, and his resurrection - become ours -and by it we are made able to be a healing part of the lives of others. The baptism of the Lord, his identification with us as lost and lonely sinners, began his ministry - a ministry in which he took upon himself our yoke and our burden, and returned to us God's love and his concern.

Our baptism into him, our acceptance of his healing love and our desire to be as he was, begins our ministry:- a ministry in which, we are called to do as he did, and identify with those who are lost and those who cry out for wholeness and proclaim the word that Jesus has given us.

Our new year together can be full of the power of God, if we believe in and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savoir and our brother and if we heed the cry of those around us, if we sit up and take notice of those signals that God sends us, and learn the lessons that they teach and walk as Jesus walked - as Mark Busse's friends walked - with one another as friends, as helpers, as ones able and willing to share the love of the Lord that already exists within us.