Beloved Members of St. Martin’s,
Every year when we encounter this 1 Sunday after Epiphany, which centers on the Baptism of Christ, someone ends of up asking me this very good question: If baptism is for the wiping away of sins, why does Jesus insist on being baptized on orders from God?
Even in Jesus’s time, baptism was not a one and done kind of thing. In fact, people underwent ritual baths for all kinds of reasons, as is alluded to in various places in the gospels. Sometimes they engaged in baths for healing, like the faithful today going to Lourdes. Women underwent a ritual bath every month to purify themselves after their monthly cycle or after childbirth. And kings underwent a ritual bath and anointing at their coronation. Last week we saw Jesus proclaimed King by the Magi.
The baptism of Jesus is a turning point, and it inaugurates Jesus’s public ministry. Jesus would be a king unlike any other—so much so that even John would later have his doubts. This kind of king, baptized on the margins, would remain with those who are marginalized, even today.
But on a more personal level, the story of Jesus’s baptism reminds us again that Jesus stands alongside us, just as we stand alongside him in those waters, and we too, through baptism, hear God’s powerful, loving voice proclaim us God’s beloved, precious children, in whom God is well pleased. Through the story of the baptism of Jesus we hear today, we hear a story of being named and claimed by God.
No, Jesus didn’t go down into those waters for repentance. Jesus did go down into those waters so that WE could remember how important it is for us to seek to repent and the renew our commitment to walking with Jesus in the Way of Love. In seeking baptism, Jesus models for us the obedience of discipleship. In going down into the same waters to which we are all drawn in baptism, Jesus leads the way. Not just leading the way, actually, but standing alongside us in solidarity with us.
Now, it’s true that most of us do not remember our own baptism. But it’s important to note that we begin to live into this truth: Baptism formalizes a relationship with God in which God too, declares us God’s children. In which God too names us as beloved and precious. In which God too declares God’s delight with us. Several times a year we repeat the baptismal covenant, and in doing so, we recommit ourselves to that ongoing relationship with God, and I hope and pray that each time we do that together, that we all take seriously the renewal and conversion to which we are called in our baptism.
But I also hope that you remember that those waters anointed you, each of you, as God’s precious child. As Beloved. As someone in whom God takes great delight in. In the waters of baptism, all hurtful names that have been attached to us are also washed away, and instead, we are reminded of our worth and our preciousness in the sight of God. I am convinced this is a message the world is desperate for, a message that offers regeneration and renewal for those who are willing to believe that God loves us that much.
In Christ,
Mother Leslie+