The Baptism of Our Lord
Luke 3:15-16,21-22

Baptism is our call to vocation, the seal of our citizenship in the Kingdom of God, a blessing bestowed on us as children of the Creator -- and a misunderstood and abused concept about admission to heaven.

There is a moving story of baptism that comes from Scotland.  Years ago, several families with babies sat near the baptismal font.  A woman, Sarah, sat a few rows back.  Sarah, raised to believe that Sunday belonged to God, was always in church on Sunday.  Worship was a joy for her.  She would never miss without good reason but whenever a baptism took place, she had to make a real effort to come.  The reason was a secret that she had shared with no one, not even her late husband.  Her parents had known, but they were long gone.

Then on this Sunday, it happened.  Her heart skipped a beat, her discomfort grew to panic.  The priest was headed her way, carrying one of the newly baptized babies.  It was the custom there to have someone in the congregation hold each baptized baby during the baptismal prayer as a way of welcoming the young child into the family of God.  “It couldn’t be,” she thought, as the priest smiled at her and handed her the baby.

What was she going to do?  She couldn’t just hand the baby back to the priest and ask him to give him to someone else.  The child deserved better than that on his important day.  But it wasn’t right, it just wasn’t right.  If others had known her secret, they would have known she had no business holding this child during the celebration of a sacrament.  Sarah bit her lip and hung on to the baby, trying hard not to let her discomfort show.  She breathed a sigh of relief when, at last, the priest finished the prayer and took the baby back to his parents.  The worst was over.  But she was so troubled that when people stood for the hymn, Sarah quietly slipped out of church.  More about this in a moment.

In our Gospel reading we hear an account of the baptism of Jesus, one of the few places where we see the trinity in action.  Jesus, the Son of God, the word who became flesh, goes into the water.  As he comes out, heaven opens and the Holy Spirit, the living essence of the creator, the power behind creation, descends on him like a dove.  Then a voice comes from heaven, God the Father speaks.  You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.

There are two important details in this text.  First, affirmation is taking place.  The Father and the Spirit affirm the Son.  Yet, Jesus hasn’t done anything.  He hasn’t spoken a single parable or given a single piece of teaching or worked a single miracle and yet God is affirming him.  You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.

And more importantly -- Jesus affirms our humanity.  Here is God’s Son, the Word made flesh, undergoing a baptism of repentance.  Why?  Why was Jesus baptized?  One answer is, of course, Jesus was baptized to identify with and affirm our humanity.

Then Jesus goes into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan -- another example of his identification with humanity.  This is God’s nature -- becoming one of us, sharing the full range of human experience and suffering.

In 1966, Dr. Frank Lake published a groundbreaking book called Clinical Theology.  Lake was a deeply committed Christian who trained as a physician, served in the British army, and spent ten years as a medical missionary in India.  On returning to the UK he trained as a psychiatrist.  In his book he drew together his knowledge of scripture with his experience as a psychiatrist and produced an understanding of how the dynamics of the Bible relate to human experience and pastoral issues.

For Lake, the baptism of Jesus had special significance.  The words of the Father to the Son were words of grace and affirmation.  Lake drew on these observations to construct what he called “the cycle of grace.”

He recognized that in the world, people are affirmed and valued according to what they have done and achieved.  In other words, people need to achieve and succeed in order to prove themselves to one another, to earn acceptance.  This is the way of modern life; a way Lake viewed as unhealthy – as separated from God.  It tends to feed the ego rather than mature the spirit.

Never the less, deep in the human heart is one of the most basic and fundamental of human needs -- the need for love and acceptance.  In the world, this need is met is by striving to succeed, to earn people’s recognition and respect.  There are other ways as well.  Materialism is one way.  For many, the need is met through marriage and having a family.  But in the Church we have something deeper.  We have our creator, and his Son, Jesus Christ.

That our creator affirms us is what Lake saw as unique in the Christian faith.  What better way of meeting the deepest needs of the human heart, than from our creator?  God affirmed Jesus, Jesus affirmed our humanity; we too are affirmed by God -- for who and what we are.  We see the nature of God in the way he affirmed the Son and how Jesus affirms our humanity.  This is the cycle of grace by which we are affirmed and valued and loved and liberated by our creator, for who we are, not for what we can do.

There is no place for vaulted ego here, no room for judgment and comparison nor for self-condemnation.  It calls us to an honest appraisal of our unique personhood, an acceptance of our gifts and our limitations.

And this brings us back to the story of Sarah.  That afternoon, she phoned the priest for an appointment, determined to relieve herself of the burden of the terrible secret she had carried alone all these years.  The priest agreed to see her on Monday afternoon.  Sarah arrived promptly at the appointed hour.  She looked pale; her eyes were swollen and red.  “I couldn’t sleep at all last night,” she told the priest.  “I’ve been deeply troubled ever since the baptisms yesterday.  You may have noticed that I left the service early.”

“I’ll have to start at the very beginning,” Sarah said.  And then she poured it all out.  “I had a child out of wedlock when I was sixteen,” she said.  “My parents kept me home from school when they found out I was expecting.  Dad told the teacher I was needed on the farm.  In those days that was a common occurrence, so no one thought anything about it.  And no one ever found out about the baby.  My mother assisted me in the delivery.  That went well enough, but the baby was small, and he had difficulty breathing from the first day.  I should have sent for the priest and had him baptized, but I was afraid of what he might say.  So we never sent for him.  The baby -- I named him Edward -- died two weeks after he was born.  We buried him in the family cemetery behind the house.  I told my husband about the baby before we were married, but I have never been able to tell anyone about my failure to have him baptized.  I tried to put it out of my mind, but every time I see a baby baptized in church, I remember, and I wonder if my baby is all right.  I can’t imagine that God would keep him out of heaven just because he hadn’t been baptized, but I don’t know.  I worry about it, and even more now that I’m older.”

Then Sarah broke down and wept.  The priest got up, put his arms around her, and held her for a long time.  Finally, the priest asked Sarah if she would trust him.  Sarah said, “Yes,” and together they made some plans for the following Sunday.

The next Sunday morning the priest preached on the baptism of Jesus.  He preached about who God is and what God is like.  He preached about how we are God’s precious children, and how religion often turns God into someone and something else besides love.  He pointed out that sacraments, baptism included, are meant for blessings, not for bludgeons. 

He then announced that Sarah had something to share.  Sarah got up, walked hesitantly up the aisle, turned, and faced the congregation.  She took a deep breath and told them her story.

When she finished, the priest poured water into the baptismal font and invited the congregation to prayer.  Calling Sarah’s long lost child by name, he commended Edward to God.  When the prayer was finished, the congregation was invited to come and dip their hands into the water and remember their baptisms.  They all came.

Sarah was the last to come.  Her hands trembled as she lifted them up out of the water.  At that moment, from somewhere deep inside, she heard God’s voice speaking, saying that all was well: “You are my beloved child.”

That is grace -- the affirmation of who we are by our creator, powerfully demonstrated in the baptism of Jesus and that is the story of Jesus’ life.

He didn’t need to leave the glory of heaven and be born one of us, but he did.

He didn’t need to go through the agony of Gethsemane or endure the torment of crucifixion, but he did.

And the reason he did, was for us.  He did it to affirm our humanity, to open for us the kingdom of God, to reveal God’s grace.

There is much more to this.  Grace and affirmation are not stagnant, not things to be grasped but they are to be lived and seen and shared.  As we receive affirmation and grace from God, we are to pass it on to others in our vocation, in living into our baptismal covenant.

John Stendahl captured the idea well in his poetic statement:

Not every cry can be answered and not every call is from God.  So it is a blessing when we can thank God for the joy of purpose in our lives and for times when the call to a certain task seems clear.  Yet even when our callings seem hard to sort out or beyond our ability to fulfill, even in the day of failure and betrayal, I pray to remember again the calling that comes first and last.  The tasks and duties do matter, but what abides -- our identity, our belonging, our hope -- is heard here by the waters.  You are my child, beloved, delight.

-- John Stendahl, The Christian Century, 1997, at Religion Online.

The Rev. Dcn. John Burton

January 7, 2007

Return to St.  James' Home Page                                                                                                                                                01.07