I’m going to let you in on three little ministry ‘trade secrets’ related to the sacrament of baptism:
1. First, one of the
very best parts of being in Ministry is the experience of holding a child in
your arms, having them snuggle right in, and baptizing them in the name of the
triune God. As I administer the age-old
blessing and welcome a child into the household and family of faith, that holy,
intensely personal experience at the font is incomparable.
2.
The second secret
is related to the first: nothing jolts a
child into loud distress like three ice-cold dollops of water on the forehead,
so an infant baptism goes quite a bit more smoothly if you warm the water a bit!
3.
The third secret
is that adult baptisms are right up there with infant baptisms when it comes to
a holy moment, because of the element of personal decision involved. For an adult being baptized, something has
led you to this decision: an aha! moment, a turnaround, a transition, or a
desire to be more organically connected with a local community of faith. Whatever it is, it is holy ground.
Here is what our United
Church Song of Faith, written in 2006, has to say about baptism:
Before
conscious thought or action on our part,
we are born into the brokenness of this world.
Before conscious thought or action on our part,
we are surrounded by God’s redeeming love.
Baptism by water in the name of the Holy Trinity is the means by which we are
received, at any age, into the covenanted community of the church. It is the ritual that signifies our rebirth in faith
and cleansing by the power of God.
Baptism signifies the nurturing, sustaining, and transforming power of God’s
love and our grateful response to that
grace.
I appreciate the way that the
Song of Faith starts its words on baptism by acknowledging the brokenness of
this world…the presence of God’s love which can restore/redeem us to wholeness…and
the way in which baptism answers our desire to be bathed in God’s love amidst
the ongoing brokenness of life. From the
early days of Christianity, baptism has had a deep symbolic connection to the dying
and rising of Jesus, and in these words of A Song of Faith I perceive our dying
to the brokenness of what is, and our rising to a new outlook of hope – a
washing away of hopelessness, if you will. The ways in which we relate to one
another, person to person, nation to nation, religion to religion, do not at
present have the fullness intended by God, so in the sacrament of baptism and
in our awareness of God’s place in our lives, we invite the grace of God and
the power of the Holy Spirit in a tangible way, and express a deep desire for
God’s love and light to hold us and shape us and guide us toward wholeness.
So, on this “Baptism of our
Lord Sunday” this all makes me wonder: what was Jesus’
self-understanding as he came to be baptized? He was roughly 30 years old at the time, and it
would be helpful to know a bit about his early life in order to ascertain his
mindset… but the information we have is minimal. Following the Jewish faith
traditions at the time of his birth, he was brought as an infant to the temple for
the ritual circumcision (Lk. 2:21), and there is that wonderful story of Jesus,
age 12, visiting Jerusalem with his parents and worrying them sick when for
three days they could not find him: they thought he was lost, whereas he was
merely deep in religious conversation with the teachers (Lk 2:46). That’s all that the Bible tells us. Oh, there are lots of stories from apocryphal
writings that did not make the cut when the Bible was being formalized, such as
stories of the child Jesus forming pigeons out of clay, clapping his hands and
having them fly away, or a particularly nasty story of a boy knocking young
Jesus to the ground and falling down dead.
For good reason, these stories didn’t make the cut.
What we can surmise is that
Jesus grew up in Nazareth, in the high country above the Sea of Galilee. His father, Joseph, was a Tekton, often
translated carpenter but in reality “craftsman” or “builder” would be better
words, as there was very little wood in the area to build things, but copious
amounts of a black rock known as Basalt.
The gospel of Mark (6:3) indicates that Jesus might have followed his
father into that line of work, though in the gospel of Matthew (13:55) he was
referred to as “the carpenter’s son” so that’s a bit up in the air. Based on
his knowledge of scripture and that little story of the adolescent Jesus in the
Temple, I’ve always wondered if he was in training to be a Rabbi.
So what was it that drew this
young man to follow the crowds to the banks of the Jordan River, to be baptized
by John? Was he giving a visible
endorsement of his cousin’s ministry? Did he feel a need to be ritually
purified before taking up his ministry? Or was he simply guided by the spirit
to do this, following that urging without knowing exactly why?
We may be given some insight
into the mind of Christ in our other scripture reading this morning, from the
43rd chapter of Isaiah, a message from God conveyed by the prophet
in a tumultuous time some 600 years before Jesus. These words, and other similar writings in
the prophets and Psalms, describe how God relates to those who turn to God in
times of difficulty, uncertainty and transition:
“Do
not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine.
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers,
they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be
burned, and the flame shall not consume you”. (Isa 43: 1-2)
On the cusp of his
life-changing, world-changing ministry, reaffirming a connection to this God
who does not abandon us in our trials was essential for Jesus, and the water
baptism of John shaped that reaffirmation. Jesus must have known that he was going to
experience some really hard stuff, and indeed, he would regularly encounter
people with horrible diseases, people whose lives were terribly diminished by
enslavement or by hardships imposed by the Romans, and people without
hope. His message of a new Kin-dom of
God would be fiercely opposed by the religious establishment and by some of his
neighbours, who thought his new ways were arrogant and blasphemous. Entering such a life, Jesus was going to need
assurance that God loved him completely and unconditionally, and confidence
that God’s supportive presence was not going to fade away when the going got
rough. Surrendering himself to the
waters of baptism, re-enacting his commitment to the God of his ancestors, and
being gifted by a heavenly vision immediately thereafter, set the stage for
these hard things he was called to do.
Note that these words from
Isaiah do not say “if” you pass through the waters and walk through fire, but
“when.” Being in relationship with God,
being called by name by God and claimed as God’s own beloved, does not, sadly,
make us immune to life’s difficulties.
That has been all too evident for many in this family of faith through
the holiday season– it’s not “if” we go through heartbreak, but “when.” And in the midst of those “when’s”, as the
waters crest, as the heat is on, God is steadfast. That does not guarantee that the pain or the
chaos or the sense of endlessness will be lessened when you’re in the midst of
hard things, but the holy and unshakeable presence of God and those who hold
you in God’s loving care is something to lean into. And
perhaps it’s just me, but the sabre-rattling south of the border has caught my
attention, giving me a whole new sense of affinity with Panamanians and
Greenlanders, and in my unsettledness, I hear once again that God’s sturdy
presence is not limited to our personal challenges. Whatever worries or aggrieves us is within
the scope of God’s strong support, whether that anxiety is amidst gunfire in
Palestine or Ukraine, amidst the flames in Southern California, amidst our prayers
that January 2025 in the Okanagan does not have a cold snap like last year’s
did, or amidst our experiences of personal grief, loss, or worry.
As we imagine Jesus coming to
be baptized… as we think of all that it means to go under the water and come up
again, the dying to old ways and rebirth to new ways, the release of
hopelessness and the welcome of the Spirit…as we hear the words of the prophet
promising God’s presence, come what may, and imagine what that means for our
lives, for the life of this congregation, for the life of our towns, province
and nation… we are invited to be people of renewed faith. While it is not
printed in your bulletin, you will find on-screen the words of our United
Church Creed, words which strike me as the best way to conclude this sermon. So please join with me in the words of our
United Church Creed.
We are not alone; we live in God’s world.
We believe in God:
who has created and is creating,
who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new,
who works in us and others by the Spirit.
We trust in God.
We are called to be the Church:
to celebrate God’s presence,
to live with respect in Creation,
to love and serve others,
to seek justice and resist evil,
to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,
our judge and our hope.
In life, in death, in life beyond death,
God is with us. We are not alone.
Thanks be to God.
References consulted/cited:
BBC News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0khfym3
Christian Publishing House. https://christianpublishinghouse.co/2017/03/10/what-amazing-information-do-we-learn-about-jesus-in-the-temple-at-twelve-years-old-2/
https://udayton.edu/imri/mary/c/childhood-of-jesus.php
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/the-baptism-of-jesus/
Regan, Helen et al, CNN. https://www.cnn.com/weather/live-news/los-angeles-wildfires-palisades-eaton-california-01-09-25-hnk/index.html
United Church of Canada. “A Song of Faith.” https://united-church.ca/community-and-faith/welcome-united-church-canada/faith-statements/song-faith-2006
© 2025 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge.
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