Praying in the words of the Psalmist:
May the Lord give strength to his
people.
May the Lord
give his people the blessing of peace.
+ In Jesus’
name +
Welcome
to Epiphany!! The season of Light, The
season of Illumination – The season of Revelation – The season of
Transfiguration! The season in which to contemplate the wondrous love of God!
Today
we also commemorate the Baptism of Jesus. So I want to use this opportunity, to examine the
Sacrament of Baptism in in the light of Jesus’s baptism.
In
the Gospel of Mark this is where the story of Jesus begins, at his baptism, and
with the words “You are my son, my beloved, with you I am well pleased” ringing
in his ears the story continues as Jesus is sent/driven by the Spirit into the
wilderness; that place of temptation, testing, and trial.
What
I would draw our attention to is that these words of our heavenly Father are
said to Jesus before he enters the wilderness, before he enters his ministry, before
he is tempted, tested, and tried; not after he resisted temptation, passed the
tests and the trials. They were said
before.
Why? Because Jesus succeeding in all these things was a foregone conclusion?
I don’t think so.
Jesus could have failed. That was definitely in the realm of possibilities.
I don’t think so.
Jesus could have failed. That was definitely in the realm of possibilities.
What
I believe happened is that when Jesus submitted himself to God in baptism and
heard the voice of God declaring him to be his son, Jesus was enabled, emboldened, and en-spirited – inspired to go into the
wilderness of life, to find himself, to find his true Father, our true Father,
and from there to minister to others, to do the will of God; knowing the faith
God had in him.
Baptism in
this sense is not so much about our faith in God as it is a declaration of
God’s faith in us.
We
are all God’s children, Christian and non-Christian alike; baptized and
unbaptized alike. We all bear the image of God. We are all loved by God. We are
all the face of God in the world and God has a role for all of us to play in it.
Baptism
is God’s graced blessing on us as individuals, God’s open declaration of his
faith in us as his daughters and sons.
Baptism is one’s initiation into the ministry of Jesus, one’s entry into
the very life of Christ, receiving the same Spirit that descended upon Jesus at
his. Baptism is being sent by that Spirit into the wilderness of life as a
member of Christ’s resurrected body in the world, the Church.
Wouldn’t
it be wonderful if after a person is baptized the officiant looks the person in
the eye, whatever the person’s age and declares, “You are God’s daughter, you
are God’s son, God’s beloved. In you God
is well-pleased.” Those words should be ringing in our ears of our hearts as we
enter the wilderness of life, as we enter the wilderness of Jesus’ ministry. These words should be ringing in our ears
right now.
God
has faith in each and every one of us to carry out the ministry left for us by
Jesus. In the Gospel of John, (John 14:12 to be exact) Jesus says this:
“I tell you
the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He (anyone) who has faith in me will do even
greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”
Think
about that for a moment. We’re capable
of doing greater things than Jesus. But the statement begs the question of
faithfulness. How faithful are we in our
commitment to continue the work Jesus left for us to do as individuals and as a
community of faith, as a congregation?
Like
Jesus we are driven by God’s Spirit into the wilderness, into the wilderness of
life to minister in the various capacities given us by God’s grace, as
individuals and as a congregation. Is it
a given that we will succeed? I don’t
think so.
People
of faith can lose faith. People who love God can lose their trust in God and so
can churches. Churches close every year.
They dwindle to nothingness for various reasons – some because of
demographic changes – but probably more often than not; more than we’d like to
admit, it is because the light has gone out and the Holy Spirit moves on.
As
a congregation, as a family of faith, we are continually faced with all sorts
of issues; all the things that can disrupt, tempt, test, and try us in this
wilderness, but in this wilderness, like Jesus, we can find ourselves, find out
who we are, and what we are made of, and we can encounter God’s ministering
angels along the way. It’s up to us to allow
ourselves to be driven by the Spirit.
It’s up to us to engage in the ministry that Jesus left.
God
has faith in us, but do we have the courage of faith, the force of faith to do
the work of Jesus, to enter fully into his life, into his ministry to work
towards its completion?
When
it comes to this ministry we have Jesus for our model. So let’s take a quick
review:
Jesus
prayed. He prayed a lot. When everybody else was done with their day,
Jesus would go off meditate and pray – for hours. Praying sounds simple enough,
but it takes commitment.
Jesus
was compassionate - quick to forgive without being asked.
Jesus
was kind – all were welcome. Jesus was fully present to every person who came
to him. He felt their touch, he heard their lone voice in the crowd, and
expressed amazement at God’s presence in their lives.
Jesus
was a healer; a healer of the soul, a healer of the mind, and a healer of the
body.
Jesus was a feeder. He fed the hungry with physical and spiritual
food and he embraced the outcast, the humble, the poor and the weak.
Jesus
was a preacher, a teacher, and a story teller.
Jesus
didn’t hold his punches either. He was
quick to challenge the entitled, quick to expose religious arrogance and hypocrisy.
Most
of all Jesus was faithful to his calling – completely trusting in his Father’s,
in our Father’s, faithfulness, to the very end.
And this all started with his baptism, and it all continues with us in
ours.
In
the past Fr. Jim (the rector of Christ Episcopal Church) has asked us during this season if we are having any
epiphanies. In contemplating today’s
gospel, I would like to share one. I
don’t know if it qualifies as epiphany so much that it is a suggestion:
In
this church we pray for the needs of others and we commemorate birthdays and
anniversaries, which are all good, but as a congregation we made a vow, a
commitment at every baptism to support each person in their new life in Christ.
We offer the newly baptized a candle and
suggest that they light it on the anniversary of their baptism.
I
don’t know how many of us actually remember the date on which we were baptized
much less remember to light a candle, if we received one at the time. Maybe it is we, the church who should be
lighting the candles.
Isn’t
it part of this church’s, this congregation’s responsibility to remind us that
we are loved by God; That God has placed his faith in us to continue the
ministry of Jesus and bring the light of Christ with us on our journey through
life? Isn’t it part of this church’s,
this congregation’s responsibility, to discern what our ministries are and to offer
prayers and support in completing the ministry entrusted to us by Jesus?
To
those ends I would suggest lighting a candle on a Sunday like today as a way of
reminding us of our collective responsibility towards each other and of our
individual responsibility to take up the ministry of Jesus, to be the light of
Christ, the face God in the world; to be mindful of the words whispered into
the ears of our hearts by God at our baptisms:
“You
are my daughter. You are my son, my
beloved. In you I am well pleased.”
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