After being gone last week visiting family over the holidays, it’s good to be back this week. Here at St. Peter Lutheran Church in Greene, we’re marking Baptism of Our Lord this weekend. Today’s Scripture readings are Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 and Isaiah 43:1-7.
I found helpful Debie Thomas’ essay One of Us at Journey with Jesus for this week.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
Did everybody have a good holiday week? This was a pretty festive week, right? Christmas just ended on Wednesday, and then Thursday was the holiday of Epiphany, so you all did something fun to celebrate, right?
We all know there are 12 days of Christmas, but by about the third or fourth day, I think most people have generally moved on. Even the religious Christmas radio station we’d been listening to went back to regular programing right away on December 26. And there are parts of the world where Epiphany, January 6, is a public holiday, but not in our culture.
So, since you maybe didn’t celebrate it, I’ll remind you today, the point of the epiphany holiday is to mark the arrival of the magi, the wise men, those travelers from the East who brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to honor Jesus. If you have a nativity set—and you haven’t packed it away yet—now is the time to get the three kings all the way into the scene.
But more than just marking the magi’s arrival, Epiphany is about recognizing who Jesus is. The word “epiphany” means “a moment in which you suddenly see or understand something in a new or very clear way.” If you’re a confirmation student doing a worship note, technically the day in the church year today is “Baptism of our Lord Sunday” but you can also write “Epiphany” if you want to.
So this season of Epiphany is about Jesus’ identity. As Luke tells the story, we know from the beginning who Jesus is going to be. The angels have told Mary before he was conceived. When he was born, angels appeared to shepherds to tell them who this newborn child was. Matthew tells us about the Magi, these wise foreigners traveling from the East following cosmic signs to worship him. John describes him as the Word of God made flesh, God’s light entering the world.
Two weeks ago in Luke, we got that lovely little story of the 12-year-old Jesus learning in the temple, in his Father’s house, a glimpse of who he is. Then, Luke jumps ahead another 18 years or so, to when Jesus is about 30, and tells the story we heard today, the story of Jesus’ baptism.
By this point in the story, we know who Jesus is. The child born to Mary in Bethlehem is God with us, Emmanuel. This is the Messiah, the King, the One who will announce God’s reign…which is what makes this next story of Jesus getting baptized by John so strange.
Because John’s been out in the wilderness, calling people to repent. He’s been bellowing about how ya’ll are a brood of vipers, fleeing from the wrath to come. Jesus doesn’t need to repent. It makes no sense for Jesus to come out to the river and be baptized as a sign of repentance, to be reconciled with God. He is God! In fact, in Matthew’s telling of this story, John the Baptist actually argues with Jesus about who should be baptizing whom!
Why does Jesus choose to come and be baptized? Why would he choose to go out there in the wilderness and associate himself with a “brood of vipers”? These are a bunch of sinners, tax collectors, Roman soldiers. Jesus hanging out in the temple makes sense. Jesus mingling in this wilderness crowd is strange.
And so, perhaps that’s exactly the point. The first public act of Jesus’ ministry, the first story we have of him as an adult, is him choosing to identify with the poor crowds in need of repentance, in need of saving. He comes and stands among the people who are most in need of God.
As Debie Thomas says, “The holy child conceived of the Holy Spirit, celebrated by angels, worshiped by shepherds, and feared by Herod, stands in the same muddy water we stand in. The Messiah’s first public act is a declaration of solidarity. God is one of us.”
I was listening to a podcast the other day that talked about the idea of “selling by association.” It’s a sales technique where basically, if you go stand next to someone your audience trusts, they’ll start to trust you. People will associate you with them. It’s similar to the idea of getting an endorsement, like when some athlete you like starts talking about a breakfast cereal, you start to associate the cereal with that athlete and your opinion of the cereal goes up.
By that sort of logic, you’d think Jesus ought to be spending as much time with the high priests as he can. Signing autographs outside the temple or something. But of course, Jesus does the opposite. Jesus chooses to come out into the wilderness and associate himself with these crowds.
These are not the cream of the crop people who have it all put together—he’s aligning himself with the people who are desperate enough to go out in the wilderness and get dunked in a river, people who are looking for something. This Epiphany moment doesn’t involve miraculous stars or angel choirs, but ordinary things like water and people.
This is a continuation of the Christmas story. Jesus is born a human, and joins in the human experience. God comes to meet us where we are. One Epiphany story is the human magi recognizing who the Bethlehem child truly is and coming to worship him as king. In this Epiphany story, Jesus’ baptism reveals that he is on our side, that he is truly with us, with the desperate, with the people seeking God. Jesus says “We’re in this together.”
That’s part of what baptism is, right? Baptism is the sacrament of welcome, joining us into God’s family, into the Body of Christ.
And out there in the wilderness, in the waters of the Jordan river, there’s another moment of Epiphany, another moment of revelation and realization. God cracks open the sky; the Holy Spirit enters in, and a voice from heaven labels Jesus as God’s Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.
We don’t get that voice at our baptisms, at least not that I’ve ever experienced, but the message is still there. In the waters of baptism, God claims us and tells us who we are.
Through ordinary, everyday water, God speaks and makes us children of God. Talking about baptism, Paul writes in Romans 8 that we have received a spirit of adoption. We have been made “children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.”
You are not God incarnate. You’re not Jesus. I hope you’re all clear on that! But you have been adopted into the family of God. God calls you beloved. You are a child of God. As the verses in Isaiah say, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine…you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.” Those words are first spoken to God’s chosen people Israel, but they apply to you and me too. The Holy Spirit has joined us into God’s chosen people as the Body of Christ.
This Epiphany baptism story is not only about Jesus’ identity; it’s also about your identity. In your baptism, God has chosen you, adopted you, claimed you. God calls you beloved. Even with all our failings and our weaknesses, and our sin and selfishness and the things we hide from everyone else. God knows all that. And God calls you beloved.
Happy Epiphany!