For the last couple of weeks, we’ve celebrated the birth of the baby Jesus. In this Sunday’s Scripture readings, we find the Jesus all grown up and ready to begin his public ministry. And as an adult, Jesus’ first recorded act is to be baptized.
Through his baptism, Jesus takes his place with humanity. He identifies with the crowds of people coming to John to be baptized. We see that Jesus is truly Emmanuel, God with us. God has entered our world, offering grace, hope, and love.
Today’s Scripture readings are Isaiah 43:1-7, Acts 8:14-17, and Luke 3:15-17, 21-22. I found helpful Dan Clenendin’s essay He Knows My Name at Journey with Jesus.
Here’s the worship livestream from Christ the King and the sermon audio podcast from Living Hope.
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
Did any of you see what the welcome picture was today? I don’t know exactly what to call it. If we had bulletins, it’d be the picture on the bulletin cover, so instead we put them on the screen.
I don’t pick these—they come with a set of resources we subscribe to that includes some of the liturgy and prayers we use to connect with each week’s lectionary readings. And honestly, some weeks I roll my eyes a little and wonder what whoever picked them was thinking. (Pay attention – some weeks they’re really a bit cheesy, or just odd.)
Anyone remember what today’s was? Put it up there.
As I thought about today’s story of Jesus’ baptism, this picture’s grown on me.
It was taken in Alberta, Canada, by a photographer named Genessa Panainte, and it’s titled Water Refreshes Athlete and the idea of baptism refreshing us is great.
As Lutherans we believe baptism is a one-time thing God does for us. Once God’s called you by name in the waters of baptism—whether you were an adult or an infant, whether you remember it or not—once God’s claimed you, there’s no need to ever get baptized again, but we are always invited to remember our baptisms.
When life gets tough and you wonder if God is with you, or if you ever find yourself wondering if God loves you, go back to those promises spoken over you at your baptism. Return to the waters of baptism and be refreshed.
This is one place where I think our Catholic siblings get it right. They have the baptismal font right inside the church door with water there, so when you enter the sanctuary, you can dip your finger in the water and trace the sign of the cross, remembering your baptism, remembering God has claimed you.
It’s the promise spoken through Isaiah: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”
Perhaps God chose water as a means of claiming us, as the element in baptism, a means of grace because water carries that meaning of refreshment. Water keeps us going. We need water to live, in the same way we need God’s grace to live. So I like the image of water as something refreshing.
But where I really think this photo connects for today is in the meaning of baptism for Jesus in particular.
We’re done with the Christmas story for this year, but the point of what we’ve been celebrating the last few weeks is God entering this world and becoming one of us; God being born as a human.
When I pick images to go with Scripture, I tend to go with religious art, so I wouldn’t have picked someone wearing a modern sports jersey.
By the way, I’m not 100% sure what jersey this is. Number 23 for Los Angeles is LeBron James (and yes, I had to look that up – I don’t follow basketball at all. I know who LeBron is, but I couldn’t have told you his number), but I’m not sure this is a Lakers jersey. (Or maybe there is and it’s a “King James” contrast to King Jesus. Probably too much of a stretch.)
Anyway, Jesus didn’t need to receive John’s baptism “for the forgiveness of sins.” Jesus didn’t sin. In fact, in Mark’s version of this story, he tells us John objected when Jesus asked to be baptized. Shouldn’t Jesus be the one doing the baptizing? But Jesus isn’t there to hear that God forgives his sins; he’s there to join with the sinners.
Dan Clendenin writes, “Jesus’s baptism inaugurated his public ministry by identifying with what Mark describes as ‘the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem.’ He allied himself with the faults and failures, the pains and the problems, and with all the broken and hurting people who had flocked to the Jordan River.
By wading into the waters with them he took his place beside us and among us. Not long into his public mission, the sanctimonious religious leaders derided Jesus as a ‘friend of gluttons and sinners.’ They were right about that.
With his baptism, Jesus openly and decisively stood shoulder to shoulder with us in our fears and anxieties.”
What does it mean to follow a God who has come to live among us? What difference does it make to have a savior who is one of us?
Hebrews 4 says we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.”
You can go to God knowing that God understands whatever you’re going through, because God knows what it is to be human. Jesus has experienced hunger. Jesus has experienced sorrow. Jesus has experienced betrayal, fear, doubt, as well as joy, hope, and laughter. Jesus is God with us, God living among us. As that ad campaign says, “He gets us.”
If I were picking art for this story of Jesus’ baptism, like I said, I tend to go with more religious art for church, so I’d probably pick something more like this, something abstract. This one’s from 2005, by an artist named Dave Zelenka.
Or maybe this one from about 1470 from Andrea del Verrocchio and his student, Leonardo da Vinci. It looks pretty religious, right?
This one’s a little more contemporary, from Jesus MAFA, a series from a Christian community in Cameroon produced in the 1970’s, where they illustrated stories from the New Testament in a style that fit into their culture.
Or this one—I don’t know where it’s from but it’s what comes up if you search on online on Canva for baptism, and it looks pretty religious, but the people are frozen in glass.
I think in some ways, it’s easier to look at this story from a distance, to limit it to quote-on-quote “religious” art. Sometimes we want that separation. We want Jesus at a safe distance from us, accessible if needed, but not interfering too much in our lives when we’re happy with the way things are.
An athlete in a modern jersey feels too modern, too normal, crossing the boundary, not religious enough.
But God doesn’t stay locked in the church box, in the stained glass window. God is not content to stay at a safe distance. That’s the point, right? God insists on entering our world.
The unique claim of Christianity is not that there’s a god out there somewhere, not even that God created the world, but that God came to be with us. Our unique claim is that Jesus Christ, a real flesh and blood human being who lived in Palestine 2000 years ago, raised as the child of a carpenter, born to an unmarried mother, this guy is God. God has entered our world.
And God didn’t just show up abstractly, 2,000 years ago in a far away land; God shows up in our lives.
If you are baptized, God has claimed you by name. And if you’re not baptized, let’s talk, because this promise is for you too.
God wants to interfere in your life! The Holy Spirit comes into our lives and changes us. You are part of Christ’s body, part of God’s family. Do you believe that? You belong to God.
Baptism is not just sprinkling some water on a baby, baptism is being joined to Christ. In Jesus’ baptism, God identifies with us, and in our baptisms, we are claimed by God for all eternity.
Baptism is the Holy Spirit’s entry into our lives, not necessarily in bodily form like a dove, but entering into your heart, changing your life, giving you a new identity.
You are God’s work of art. You are God’s beloved. God looks at you with love, declaring “You are my child, and with you I am well pleased.”
Thanks be to God. Amen