9 January 2011

“Soaked”
Baptism of our Lord
Isaiah 42:1-9 / Matthew 3:13-17
9 January 2011


Each and every year … in the liturgical churches who follow the Sundays and seasons of historic Christianity … each calendar year begins the same. On a dark and cold January morning, liturgical, sacramental Christians gather to mark, observe and celebrate the Baptism of our Lord.
I say “sacramental” Christians because Baptism – right from the start – means two distinctly different things for followers of Jesus – depending on whether or not you believe Baptism is a Sacrament …
… on the one hand, there are those followers of Jesus who believe that Baptism is a means of God’s grace, a vehicle for the work of God’s Spirit, coming through a concrete sign … here, water; this is the statement of Catholic Christians … Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, United Church of Christ and so on;
But on the other hand, there are a whole lot of other Christians – Baptists and Pentecostals chief among them - who accept baptism not as a Sacrament but rather as a sign, an ordinance, of God … something God wants people to do but it is merely a recognition, a “believer’s baptism,” a mark that the one being baptized has already “accepted Jesus into their heart.”
So I will make the bold assumption that, because we are here this morning, as Catholic followers of Jesus; yes, traveling the discipleship road under the banner of Reformation, in company with Martin Luther and the other church reformers … I will make the bold assumption that we all fall under that “Sacramental” category, of believing what Baptism is about and signifies for us.
But then … were I to actually ask each of you individually the question, “What does Baptism mean to you?” well, I would likely get as many answers as there are the number of us here this morning.
Some answers would sound like the “memory work” that the Lutheran confirmation experience reinforced for those who have gone through it … using Luther’s words in the Small Catechism …

“Baptism is not merely water, but it is water combined with God’s Word … it brings about forgiveness of sins, redeems from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe it, as the Word and promise of God declare.”

Others would sound more personal … “it was the day I was born anew” … “I became a member of the Church” … “I was claimed as Jesus’ brother or sister.”
All valid answers. All good answers.
But here today, this Baptism of our Lord, we have these texts before us, these Scripture readings, and most especially, the Word from Matthew’s gospel which describes the actual Baptism of our Lord.
So this got me thinking … how would those who were gathered there that day … particularly, the only two mentioned in Matthew’s word for us … John, and Jesus … how would they have described Baptism? What did it mean for them?
Our text indicates that they gave two very different answers.
For John … for starters, well, Jesus had it all wrong. Here, this Jesus, he was the all-powerful one, the one John himself told the crowds about just a few short verses earlier, in these words:

I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

Why would such a one as this Jesus want John –who was obviously inferior to him – to baptize him? And so John tried to block Jesus’ request. The sense of the words behind that sentence, “John would have prevented him,” would have been like this conversation:

“I’ve come to be baptized, John.” “But I won’t do it.” “I’ve come to be baptized.” “I won’t do it.”

John saw an all-powerful Jesus, a scorched-earth Jesus, coming to baptize with fire and burn with fire, Rambo Jesus come to blow things up and set the screwed up world right – to end the rule of the “brood of vipers” John so roundly criticized just a few verses earlier, the religious leadership of his day – John saw Jesus’ coming as the Lord, the Judge, as the only way It Could Happen.
But Jesus threw water on John’s thoughts, his hopes, I think it’s not going too far to say, John’s dreams … with his request of John to be baptized.
And then Jesus dealt the final blow, gave the final complete soaking to John’s plans and ideas, with these words:

“Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

Then – and only then – did John consent, and baptize Jesus.
What made John give in?
I think it was that one little word, “righteousness.” Basically meaning, that this is the way God’s going to put things back in sync, make the world all right. Starting right here, right now, with you – John – baptizing me – Jesus.
John would have heard this as Jesus’ call to him to “get with the program.” And that would have appealed to John … because his baptism was also all about getting the world back in sync – his baptism being one of repentance, and repentance … turning around … was the only hope John saw for the world … the coming of God’s righteousness to the world would, could only happen if enough people “turned around” and turned to God.
Of course, Jesus didn’t need to repent … maybe John knew this, maybe he didn’t, but he knew enough about Jesus to know that if he- Jesus – wanted to do something, and backed it up, defended it, by calling it “God’s righteousness,” then, it was all Part of the Plan, God’s plan, for the world.
But does that mean John “got it,” got in sync with what Jesus believed, believes baptism to be all about?
Well, our only clue comes much later, in Matthew’s chapter 11 – verses we have also heard, not long ago, on the Third Sunday in Advent – when John, who was now in prison, sent some of his own disciples to Jesus to find out “if he (Jesus) was really the One, or were they to wait for another?”
So – no, I don’t think John “got it” about baptism … Jesus’ baptism … at all.
For what did “fulfilling all righteousness” mean for Jesus?
Certainly not the “scorched earth” reign of fire and terror which John expected.
John needed to have those flames soaked down with the words of Isaiah – which we also have before us today – words which are echoed in the words from the “voice from heaven” … words which accurately reflect where Jesus’ life goes after he comes up out of the waters of Baptism:

Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his teaching.

The only official “commissioning” act in Jesus’ life happens in his Baptism … the same Baptism, mind you, in which we share … these words, soaking into him, drenching him with God’s Spirit, fill him with what is enough as he is led from these waters … immediately following in the very next verses … as Jesus goes into the wilderness, the desert, where he is tempted and tested by Satan.
But that’s not the first temptation Jesus endures … the one in the desert which follows … the one we will hear and read on the First Sunday in Lent to come … is it?
John … standing there … obstructing him … preventing his baptism … indeed, that’s the first one.
The first temptation of Jesus.
Yeah. It is.
It would have been easy for Jesus to give in to John’s wishes … to acknowledge the desires of his inferior, and take the role of the superior, to build on the scorched earth campaign of John, and start flinging the fire around … but the point is, he didn’t. He doesn’t.
Jesus began his earthly ministry by being baptized by John … assuming the mantle of the “suffering servant” of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke centuries before … not crying, not lifting up his voice, not breaking a bruised reed or quenching a dimly burning wick … the way Jesus chose to go forth from his baptism … soaked in water, not fire … sent in the Spirit … is as the humble servant, who in this very moment, in this moment of his baptism, began to empty himself, and take the path to the Cross.
And there is one more difference between the way John saw baptism – and how Jesus defined it.
It’s … community.
John was a loner … the “voice of one crying out in the wilderness” proclaiming a baptism of repentance – calling to individuals, calling them to turn around, to avoid becoming that chaff he said would be burned with unquenchable fire … but Jesus, Jesus exemplifies what Baptism is really about … for him, and for us … and that is community.
Jesus started right out here, in and with community. He came to another to be baptized. Did he need to? No. Could he have achieved what he was sent to do without it? Certainly. But he was baptized … and in this baptism, he hears the voice from heaven saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
And so here is where this story of Jesus’ baptism soaks into us.
Because Baptism continues to call us, into becoming, and being, community.
We hear the Word of God in community, thorough others, speaking to us, showing us, how far short we all fall of “all righteousness.”
We come to the Word of God in the waters of Baptism, in community, and we are soaked in that word of forgiveness, grace, welcome, acceptance, love, peace, and joy … even as we are surrounded by it in the life and love of our fellow-soaked brothers and sisters in Jesus …
And then we live the soaked life, together, bruised reeds and smoldering wicks all, being made whole and full of the light of life through our working and humbly serving together, seeing and seeking God’s good pleasure as Jesus did, emptying ourselves so that others may be filled with the life which really is life.
And isn’t it interesting that here … in the humble emptying, serving, and pleasing God … here, is a place where we are drawn back to the beginning of our time together today in the Word.
For divergent and diverse Jesus-followers … we who hold Baptism as a holy sacrament, and those others, our brothers and sisters in Christ who see it as a sign of faith acknowledged … here is a place where we can come together and agree …
… instead of arguing over doctrine… calling each other chaff … flinging around the fire of condemnation … may we followers of Jesus come together as Soaked Community …
… soaked to serve … together joyfully living the soaked life of servanthood … walking in the wet footsteps of Jesus … for the sake of God’s world.
In that, surely, God would be … God is … well pleased.
Amen.