Jesus is Baptized

Jesus is Baptized

Luke 3:21-22

Here’s something to consider:  Jesus never baptized anyone.  Let me repeat that: Jesus never baptized anyone.  He preached.  He told parables.  He fed hungry people.  Somehow, he healed the sick.  He was a prophet who stood on the side of the overlooked and the ignored, who stared down those in power.  He walked on water, stilled storms, and turned plain old drinking water into some fine red wine.  However, the man never baptized a single soul.

Understand, there are huge groups of Christians who believe that the most important thing that any Christian can ever do is to get someone to pray that Jesus will accept them, “just as I am without one plea” as we sometimes sing.  Then, the deal gets sealed when that person Is baptized.  Some branches of Christianity are so convinced that an unbaptized soul is unloved by God that they will perform emergency baptisms for a baby who is near death.  Other branches of Christianity insist that every time you wander from God’s path, you need to be re-baptized.

I’m going to be as honest, this morning.  The God whom I know is right there with a child whose life is in danger, long before someone arrives with some water:  loving that child; loving those parents; loving the doctors and the nurses who are doing everything they can to save a life.  If a baptism brings comfort to heartbroken people, well…comfort them, then, I suppose.  However, don’t tell me that God won’t love that child no matter what, baptized or not.  That’s not the God that I know and love.

And as far as “re-baptizing” goes, I always think about Peter when Jesus is washing the disciples’ feet at the last supper.  At first, Peter says, “No way are you washing my feet, Lord.”  When Jesus says that refusing isn’t going to cut it, then Peter says, “Okay, then Lord…wash me all over.”  Jesus looks Peter in the eye and shakes his head and mutters, “You’re feet will do just fine.”  Honestly, if we had to get “re-baptized” every time we had a broken moment, well, then there ought to be showers running in the sanctuary all the time.  Again, if the ritual helps someone remember that God is loving and forgiving even when we are struggling to forgive ourselves, well…maybe that’s okay.  I just don’t imagine the God that I know saying to us, “If you’d only showered one more time!”

Last week, I told you that I think that John the Baptist and his followers were way more important to the formation of Christianity than we acknowledge.  In our text for today, John is front and center.  John and his followers are woven into other moments in the Gospels, too.  Before Jesus was ever arrested, John died for what he believed.  And at the end of the risen Jesus’ time between his death and his ascension, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus specifically instructs his disciples to go and make disciples and baptize them—again, something Jesus never did but John did all the time.

That has always seemed like a huge nod to John and his followers.  Here’s more honesty…I have always suspected that after Jesus’ death and resurrection, after Jesus ascended and was no longer with them, when the Spirit came and the question was, “What do we do now,” John’s followers had to be a part of that conversation.  What if the central place of baptism at the end of the Gospel of Matthew was an “olive branch,” an invitation to John’s followers:  “Come with us.  There’s not that much that divides us.  We’ve stronger together than we are apart.”

Honestly, I have never baptized a baby and thought, “Thank God the stain of original sin has been removed!”  I have never sat with someone who is coming to grips with their regrets and bad choices and thought, “I have to get you baptized!” Nope, I hold the baby in my arms and think about original grace.  This is about what a blessing this child is for us all! In another moment, I sit with a person who is facing a hard truth and I think, “How can I bring an even greater truth to life: that you are loved, that God chooses forgiveness over vengeance and grace over judgment? How can I embody God’s grace for this person?” 

Baptism means a great deal to me but not the great deal that it means to a lot of other Christians.  And, since Christians have a history of killing one another over such issues, I’d like to talk to you about what baptism really means to me before the people with the burning straw come to set the heretic on fire.  While what I say may not answer the question, “Why didn’t Jesus baptize anyone,” it may suggest an answer to the equally interesting question of why Jesus, himself, was baptized, at all.

Let’s start here.  If Jesus as you know him is really only divine, then our discussion is probably over.  If Jesus is only kind of “faux” human, then when he arrives at the Jordan River, he’s just going through the motions.  Maybe there were prophecies to fulfill.  Maybe he needed to show some solidarity with the masses from the start.  Whatever…the deal was sealed when he entered this world, lock, stock and barrel.  He was just fully God but wearing a body suit. (Can you tell I don’t think this?)

I believe that Jesus was fully human.  I believe God was present in and through him in the clearest way that I have seen him shine through any human being.  I’m willing to stand in the paradox of him being fully human and fully divine and nod because the paradox isn’t really as much about Jesus “composition” as it is about the confounding experience that is there for those who met him in person and those who have met him through Scripture.  Somehow, there is a profound sense of the “something more” of God’s presence in him and a profound sense of how much more the world could be if we would only follow him.

I think it is the fully human Jesus who shows up at the Jordan River.  The fully human Jesus had probably heard the stories from his birth about huge expectations and strange events.  He’d probably had a sense all along that there was something different about him, that there was something more in store.  However, in between those moments was a lifetime of being like us.  He had brothers and sisters.  He played with them and fought with them just like we played with and fought with ours.  He loved his mother and his father and realized that they had loved him first.  He was good at things—like building chairs and doors—and he liked how it felt to be good at things.  He also clearly loved nature—just listen to his stories about the birds, the fox, and the lilies of the field.

I honestly believe that he loved the people around him and his work so much that it pained him when he woke up one day and realized that he had to leave.  Not only did he realize that he would miss everything that was familiar but he also had to know that doing what he was called to do was going to cost him, big times:  he was leaving his work undone; his family was not going to understand; he was never going to feel comfortable again, not the way that you do when you’re in the one place you call home.  The minute that he left, life as he knew it would be over.  He knew this.  Still, he left.

I think that as he left Nazareth, Jesus had to be feeling that pain.  He had to be asking all the questions we would ask:  “how am I going to take care of myself; when am I going to eat my next meal; if I have my doubts, then how am I ever going to convince anyone else to follow me?”  If Jesus was fully human then he didn’t really know exactly what was coming.   If Jesus doesn’t have doubts, and doesn’t see and feel the costs of responding to his calling, then he wouldn’t understand the central thing that stands between us an following him: our own fears.

Taking faith seriously is a costly undertaking.  One of my favorite theologians, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote a book called, “The Cost of Discipleship.”  Then, he died in a Nazi prison camp, days before it was liberated.  He wrote the book and then he paid the price.  We know that following his calling will eventually cost Jesus his life. To me, though, it feels incredibly important to understand that he was dealing with the cost of discipleship from day one. 

 That’s how it is for us, too.  As soon as you realize that your God given job is to love your enemy, to feed the hungry, to care for the sick, to visit the prisoner and to honor those who suffer injustice, you realize pretty quickly that doing that work is going to be cost you.  Living your faith is going to break your heart.  Things that mattered so much to you aren’t going to matter in the same way.  No one is going to understand you. People are going to try to talk you out of living what you believe. What’s worse, you’re going to question your faith yourself:  “What if I’m wrong?”

What does baptism mean to me? Baptism is an act of anointment.  In the Hebrew Scriptures, a person is set aside to be king through an act of anointment by a prophet.  The prophet was appointed by God to find the right person and announce, “This person is going to be God’s king and do God’s work in this world!” Oil would be poured over that person’s head. Of course, almost everyone who became a king turned out to be a knucklehead.  Still, what if John is the prophet and Jesus is the anointed one?  What if all the other people who were baptized before Jesus were also being set apart for God’s work in the world?  What if Jesus being baptized last is an act of solidarity rather than separation?  Everyone who is baptized will participate in doing God’s work.  The baptized people’s response isn’t, “Thank God we’re not going to hell!”  Rather, after baptism, the changed rich people and the changed tax collectors and the changed soldiers ask John:  “What then shall we do?”  John tells them, “Live differently!”

Jesus doesn’t show up to be baptized to be made clean.  Jesus shows up because he’s been called.  He could have ignored the calling.  He could have chosen differently but he didn’t—which is an encouragement to all of us who have ever ignored or distorted our callings and wondered, “Is it even possible to show up now.”  “If…Jesus did then maybe we can show up, too!”

So, when I baptize a child maybe I’m a little like John.  After all, a black polyester robe is kind of like a hair shirt. I have questionable facial hair and always kind of look like I need a haircut.  I occasionally make people a little uncomfortable with the things I say. But what I’m really trying to say to the world is this:  “There is hope!” 

 Together, when we baptize a child, we declare two things.  First, God already loves this child and that love will never be broken.   Second, God has something special in mind for this child: people to love; work to be done; moments to be lived in which God will shine through.  What we recognize is that this child is already doing that work by melting whoever so much as look into their eyes. The mere presence of a baby can make cynical, jaded, world-weary people come to life again.  Just when we think this whole “love thing” is overblown…

So, without hesitation, we anoint a child.  We delight in their presence.  We celebrate a God who so loves the world.  Then, we do God’s work by preparing them for a God-filled life, one Sunday school class, one conversation, one Work Trip at a time. We invite them to join us asking the great questions, again and again:  “Who is it that God is calling us to be now? What is God calling us to do?  Who is Jesus Christ for us today?”