There are a lot of television shows that I just don’t understand these
days. There is actually a reality show, that if you win, the big prize is being
named Paris Hilton’s best friend.
I can’t imagine how bad second prize must be. But one station I do enjoy watching is the
American Life TV network, especially on Sunday and Monday evenings because they
re-run many of my old favorites, St. Elegious, Hill Street Blues, Mary Tyler Moore and The
Bob Newhart Show. Several times a week
they show
The gospel accounts agree that when Jesus was baptized. The heavens were ripped
open, God's spirit descended, and as he came up out of the water, Jesus heard
what the Jews called the bath qol, the voice
of God: "You are my Son, my Beloved; with you I am well pleased"
(Mark 1:11). God was quoting scriptures Jesus knew. The
coronation language from Psalm 2 and the suffering servant image from Isaiah
42. Taken together these texts guided Jesus towards his unique messianic
destiny and mission. In essence, they said, "You are the Messiah;
suffering servant is the kind of Messiah you will be." What the voice of
God adds to these scriptures at Jesus' baptism is the word "beloved."
It was an epiphany because, Mark says, the heavens were ripped open and the Spirit of God descended. For
the Hebrews, the heavens ripping open was a fearful thing. In Genesis 1 God
created a firmament separating heaven from earth, God from humanity. In Genesis
6, the heavens were ripped open and the earth was flooded, creation barely
saved by the grace of God with an ark which carried Noah and company safely
through the waters. In Genesis 9, when proud humans tried to build a tower
breaching the heavens, God confounded them. Breaching the separation of heaven
and earth was a dangerous thing. But in Jesus' baptism, God ripped open the
heavens and came down to us. Mark used the same verb to say the veil of the
temple separating the people from God's presence was ripped in two when Jesus
died on the cross. From baptism to cross, Christ breaches the separation
between God and humanity.
Baptism was the beginning of Jesus' mission for God, his answer to God's call
to give himself for the world. And where did he begin?
With death and resurrection. Buried
with him in the
Marcus Borg says Jesus had a conversion, not in the sense of changing religions
or being lost and saved but in William James' sense of a "process, whether
sudden or gradual, whereby religious impulses and energies become central to
one's life." The innocence of childhood long past, the adolescent search
for self completed, the young adult career begun, Jesus turned to the ultimate
quest: "Who am I and what does my life mean?" He answered: "I am
a child of God, and I am about God's work." And God approved. In other
words, Jesus' baptism was his wholehearted immersion into his messianic
mission, the acceptance of his vocation.
What does baptism mean for us … repentance and
forgiveness … cleansing and renewal? A remembrance of the death and
resurrection of Jesus and the prospect of our own, for this is where we also
begin and end - dying and rising with Christ. If we are baptized as adults, this
is also where we come to put childhood and adolescence behind us, when we get
serious about who we are and what our life will mean. Here we willfully choose
and accept the destiny God gives us, to be God's children and about God's work
in the world. If we are baptized as
infants, this is where our parents and sponsors and the members of this church
promise, with the help of God, to love, support and care for us. The promises that we make are
astounding. We
promise to help these children
to renounce the powers of evil and to receive the freedom of new
life in Christ.
We promise teach them that they may be led to profess Jesus
Christ as Lord and Savior. We promise to
show them how to follow in the way of our Savior, to resist oppression
and evil, to show love and justice, and to witness to the work and word of
Jesus Christ. We promise to grow
with these children in the Christian
faith, to help them to
be a faithful member of
the
For us, as for Christ, the baptismal font is a symbol of sacrifice,
where we lay down our lives for God and take them up again to live according to
God's purpose. We are somebody in the world. We are here on a mission. We are
the baptized.
But Jesus' baptism is not just a sign of his unique divine identity; it is also
a word about his common human identity, about our mission and God's presence
with us, God's love for each of us. And if you are one of the baptized, every
time you witness another baptism, every time you walk into the sanctuary and
see the baptismal font, you renew your baptism. This is who you are, where you
began, where you are headed, what you are doing in the world. We are the
baptized.
In most of life endeavors we get affirmation only as a reward, after we have
worked hard to succeed. But Jesus receives God's blessing right from the start,
and everything he does comes out of a heart beloved by God. We, too, have God's
blessing right from the start. I baptize people with the traditional
Trinitarian formula derived from Matthew's gospel: "On this profession
of faith, I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit.” Those are important words, but the words I wish I had
been using all along, are "You are God's beloved child; God is well
pleased with you."
As we are named at birth, so we are given a new name when we are born again in
the waters of baptism. God names us "child of God." God names us
"Beloved." For this is our destiny and our mission from the day we
are baptized: to be daughters and sons of God, to know we are God's beloved,
and to serve the world by carrying God's love into everything we do.
Martin Luther King called his ideal vision of the church "the beloved
community." The church is the place where people experience the
unconditional love of God regardless of their race or gender or orientation or
economic class or past mistakes or present condition. The church is the place
where the great commission (Matt 28:19-20) is accomplished through the great
commandment, that we love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and
strength, and our neighbor as ourselves (Matt 22:37-39). What did the beloved
Son of God say to his disciples? "I give you a new commandment, that
you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one
another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love
for one another" (John 13:34-35). The love of God is our destiny and
mission. The love of God is our beginning and our end. The love of God is what
makes us right from the start.
Was there ever a time when the world needed God's beloved community more? There
is not enough love in the world today. There is too much fear and hatred. Love
is risky. Love is costly. People are hard to love. Loving the
stranger. Loving the poor, the crippled, the blind, the
lame. Loving our enemies. Loving the people we know
really well. Believing the people who know us really well will love us.
Sometimes it seems God has given us an impossible mission. Martin Luther King
called an early collection of his sermons Strength to Love. In this day
of terror and violence and deep division, we are not strong enough by ourselves
to love the world the way God so loved the world. The mission is only possible
if the Spirit of God descends upon us and dwells within us and we remember that
we are God's beloved children - and so are they. And that is what happens when
we are baptized. And that is what we remember when we share the Lord's supper.
May we pray?
Holy God, untamed by the names we give you, You have named us. Today let us remember who we are: Children of
God, Beloved, called to love in Jesus' name. Amen.
Mary Anne Biggs, Pastor
Nekoosa United
Nekoosa