Today we celebrate the
Feast of the Baptism of our Lord. This is one of five days marked as
“especially appropriate” for baptisms. The other four are the
Easter Vigil, Pentecost, All Saints (or the Sunday following), and
the bishop's visitation. In other words, this is an “Important
Day” in the Church.
Today we celebrate the
baptism of Jesus. What naturally follows is, “What is baptism?”
Baptism is one of the two great sacraments of the Gospel given to us
by Christ, the other one being Holy Communion. And since we are all
good Episcopalians here . . . we know that a sacrament is an outward
and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. Or, in other
words, a sacrament is a sign of God's favor.
Baptism is also full
initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ, the
Church. One of the beautiful things about being an Episcopalian is
that our theology is under-girded with a sense of universality.
Baptism is FULL initiation into the Church (“we
acknowledge one baptism”). Once you are baptized you are eligible
to receive Communion. We no longer make you wait in a state of limbo
as a half-citizen until you are old enough to understand what
Communion is before receiving it. We don't make people wait to
confess “Jesus as my own personal Lord and Savior” before
allowing them to be baptized. And we don't make people get
re-baptized because they were baptized in the wrong church at the
wrong age or with the wrong amount of water.
Baptism is also public.
According to the BCP, Holy Baptism is “appropriately administered
within the Eucharist as the chief service on a Sunday or other
Feast.” We stand before the congregation, or we stand on behalf of
others, in a public worship ceremony and make several promises before
God and everybody about how we will live our lives from this time
forth forevermore. We may think our faith is private, but it begins
in a very public format.
Today we celebrate the
baptism of Jesus. Following the question, “What is baptism,”
most people generally ask, “Why did Jesus get baptized?” This
has been asked among Christians probably ever since the first gospel
story was read. We are baptized to cleanse us from sin, to bring us
fully into the household of God and as a public statement about how
we intend to order our lives. Jesus was free from sin, is an eternal
part of the household of God and ordered his life accordingly. Why
did he need to get baptized?
First, this was his first
example to his followers, just as the Last Supper was his last
example. At a bare minimum, for us to live a life like Christ
requires us to participate in these two events that bookend his adult
life. Baptism becomes the mode of how we are initially joined to
Christ. Christ, then, was baptized as a way of saying, “This is
where you start.”
A second reason is more of
a two-parter. In Part A, Jesus is baptized in order to show his
superiority to John. John is out in the wilderness preaching
repentance, baptizing people and collecting many disciples, Jesus
possibly being one of them. Jesus' baptism moves him onto center
stage while also being the vehicle for John's departure.
“How can Jesus be
superior if he submits to John?” you may ask. In all four gospels
John declares that “one who is greater than I is coming.” And in
Matthew we get a dialogue between the two. John tries to prevent
this from happening, but Jesus insists. It is not Jesus who submits
to John's baptism; it is John who submits to the will of Jesus.
Part B is that this
baptism was the vehicle to show Jesus as the beloved Son. So far in
Matthew we learn of Jesus' royal lineage and miraculous conception,
that he is the light to the Gentiles and shepherd to Israel, and that
his life is the story of Israel in microcosm. And now, with his
baptism, all of these individual parts come together and are unified
as God's beloved Son.
And third, this was a
public act. There were very few things that Jesus did in private –
personal prayer time, the episode of the Transfiguration and the Last
Supper come immediately to mind. Most of his time was spent in very
public forums. John is in the Jordan calling people to repentance
and baptizing them. Then Jesus shows up asking to be baptized. He
doesn't ask for a private audience. He doesn't say, “Come away to
a deserted place.” He does it right there in front of God and
everybody. His public baptism is the basis for our public baptisms.
What is baptism? It is a
one-time event to cleanse us from our sins that gives us an
opportunity to proclaim before God and everybody what we believe and
how we intend to live, and it welcomes us into the household of God
as full members.
These four or five times a
year are constant reminders of what we agreed to get ourselves into.
Will you align your life with the examples of Jesus and the will of
God? Will you respect the dignity of every human being, recognizing
that everyone is created in God's own image? Will you publicly
proclaim the Good News of God in Christ? These are things you commit
to as a baptized Christian.
The Season of Epiphany is
all about the manifestation of Christ to the world. May I suggest an
“Epiphany discipline” for you this year: this Epiphany season
take some time each day and read through the Baptismal Covenant as
found on pages 304-305 of the BCP and ask yourself, “How will I/did
I live into that today?”
Because if we are going to
make such a big deal out of baptism, both ours and Jesus', then maybe
we should get better at living into the vows and promises we made.
Amen.
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