HERE's the part of the service with the sermon in it.
Baptism of our Lord (C)
January 9, 2022
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
INTRODUCTION
Today is the festival of the Baptism of our Lord. Each year on this Sunday after Epiphany (which was Thursday), we hear the story of how Jesus was baptized. Each of the Gospels has a slightly different take on how that happened – I’ll mention a couple things that are unique to Luke’s telling. One is that the voice from heaven speaks directly to Jesus – “you are my son” – where in the others that heavenly voice speaks to those gathered – “this is my son.” In Matthew, Mark and Luke, the Holy Spirit comes down like a dove, but where the other Gospels say this happens as Jesus comes out of the water, in Luke it doesn’t happen until later when he is praying. Speaking of prayer, no other Gospels tell us that Jesus prays after; in fact, the others send Jesus immediately into the wilderness after his baptism, where Luke takes his time with that, offering us Jesus’ genealogy before Jesus heads out to the wilderness.
However it happened, hearing about Jesus’ baptism invites us to reflect upon our own, and our other readings will help us to do that. Acts shows again the importance of prayer after baptism, and how the Holy Spirit comes to us in prayer. The Psalm describes the power of God and of how God works through water. Isaiah 43 is a beautiful text written for the Israelites who have grievously sinned against God, and yet still, God loves them and claims them and promises to restore and redeem them. Just like God does for us in baptism! As you listen today, hear and give thanks for all these marvelous promises of God that we receive in our baptism. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from the Light of the World, our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The past couple of years, we at St. Paul’s have used the festival of Epiphany, on January 6, to do an activity called Star Gifts. In honor of the wise men following a star to Bethlehem to find Jesus, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, we have handed out paper stars with gifts written on them, gifts that will help us see how God is manifest in our lives – gifts like laughter, time, goodness, joy, acceptance. Just as God was made manifest to the wise men, God is manifest to us through these gifts. The idea then is that the next year, a few people share their reflections on how they saw God manifest in their lives over the past year, through their particular gift.
Well, due to a number of factors, we didn’t get to share our Star Gifts reflections this year, but I do still want to make new stars available to you to take this year, and, I wanted to share some reflections on my own 2021 star gift, which was renewal, and I’d like to do that through our Gospel and the text from Isaiah.
Since today is Baptism of our Lord, let’s start with that text, in Luke, but I’m actually going to start just before the baptism, with John’s foretelling of Jesus’ coming and his mission. You may remember that we heard that part of the text during Advent. Turns out, that bit about the unquenchable fire is no more palatable in the new year than it was in Advent! All this talk of separating wheat (the edible, life-sustaining part of the plant) from the chaff (the stalk, which is not edible and fairly useless after harvest) can sound an awful lot like Jesus is coming to put us into two groups: those who are saved, and those who will burn in unquenchable fire. Yikes. But looking at it with a renewal lens helps us to see that this is not what Jesus intends at all. We are not all chaff, or all wheat, completely disposable, or completely worthy of salvation. No, we are, each of us, the whole plant, both wheat and chaff, and what Jesus is coming to do, with the help of the Holy Spirit, is burn away that useless chaff in us and leave the fruit, the wheat, that which brings life and sustenance.
Ahh, suddenly that image of fearful, unquenchable fire becomes an image of renewal. As I said, I have been watching all year for the ways God is made manifest through the gift of renewal, and I saw it many times… and I’m not sure even one of those renewals came easily. New discoveries about myself came after admitting embarrassing mistakes and shortcomings. Growth and healing in my relationships only came after painful encounters. Revelations in parenting came after loud, sometimes tearful fights. Improvement in all those areas came after the hard and painful work of letting go of things I had depended upon (like wheat depends upon the stalk to grow!), and developing new habits, new understandings, new patterns – ones that do bring life – even as the old ones are burned away. The wheat, if it was never harvested from the chaff, would be left to die. It would be fruit, but it would be useless, and never bring life to anyone. Part of the plant must go through the fire in order to bring life.
Yes, renewal is, more often than not, a painful process. We see this also in the Isaiah reading. Reading this chapter alone is a lovely experience, with its glorious and gorgeous poetry and imagery. But look at how it starts: “But now.” That is a hinge phrase, a shift, both in English and in Hebrew, and it urges us to look at what came before. From what are we shifting?
Well, it ain’t pretty – it’s all about Israel’s disobedience, which is what led them into their current mess, being in exile with their home destroyed by enemies and fire. Here, listen to the two verses immediately prior, from the Contemporary English Version of the Bible: “Israel sinned and refused to obey the Lord or follow his instructions. So the Lord let them be robbed of everything they owned. He was furious with them and punished their nation with the fires of war. Still, they paid no attention. They didn’t even care when they were surrounded and scorched by flames.” Yowzer. That’s pretty rough! Can anyone be redeemed from that?
But then… Isaiah 43 brings the good news: yes, they can. Yes, God does. Hear now again these words from today’s reading: “But now [there’s that shift], but now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, who formed you, O Israel: 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.”
Whew. That takes my breath away. From that first part I read, from chapter 42… Israel does not sound like a people worth the effort. That would be the chaff I would want to burn, the relationship I would want to let go, the habit I would want to eliminate. But God doesn’t. God doesn’t give up on them. God sees them for all that they are – all their failures and shortcomings and even their unfaithfulness – and He isn’t happy about it, but also doesn’t leave them there. God is committed to their redemption, to their renewal. God chooses to respond in a way that dispels their fear, creates belonging, and sees them as precious, honored and beloved. Indeed, God gathers up the broken pieces and remolds them into something that is for God’s purpose. They are renewed.
This, my friends, is what God does also for us in our baptism. Baptism is not just some Get-Into-Heaven-Free card, but rather, a channel by which God is continually re-calling, redeeming, and renewing us, just like God did with the Israelites. Baptism is the means by which God promises to keep that unquenchable fire burning, ready to receive all of our sins and failures, so that what is life and what brings life in us will be able to thrive. And furthermore, God felt so strongly about the importance of this promise, that God, in the person of Jesus, stepped right into the water with us, right into those promises, assuring us that God does indeed pass through the waters with us, making sure they shall not overwhelm us.
Thanks be to God for the gifts of baptism. Thanks be to God for the unquenchable fire that burns away what does not bring life. Thanks be to God that we are renewed, redeemed, called by name, and always belong to God.
Let us pray… Renewing God, in this new year, keep our sight on you and the many ways you renew us and our faith. Make us open to the new thing you are doing in us. You have created us, formed us, redeemed us, and called us by name; assure us that in our baptism, we belong to you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Zelenka, Dave. Baptism of Christ, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56385 [retrieved January 9, 2022]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baptism-of-Christ.jpg.
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