Baptism of our Lord (A)
January 11, 2026
Matthew 3:13-17
INTRODUCTION
On this first Sunday after Epiphany, we celebrate the Baptism of our Lord. We jump from the baby being visited by kings from afar, to a 30-year-old Jesus at the river Jordan, asking his eccentric cousin John to baptize him. Christians have long had questions about this event – why would Jesus have to be baptized if he is without sin? One reason is that by being baptized himself, Jesus ties himself closer to us and our own experience. And so, as we observe Jesus’ baptism, we can learn something about our own.
The other appointed readings for this day set up this story nicely. In Isaiah, we will hear one of what are called the Servant Songs – poems about God’s “servant” who looks to us an awful lot like Jesus, but whom we could also interpret and understand as “servant people.” As you listen to Isaiah, I encourage you to think about it that way: as referring not to Jesus, or not only to Jesus, but to servant people, those who claim faith in God – that includes us!
In Acts, we will hear another baptism story, though we don’t actually hear the part about the baptism. We will hear Peter’s speech before the baptism, in which he declares that “God shows no partiality” – he says this because Cornelius and his family are Gentiles (non-Jews), and in fact are the first Gentiles to believe in Christ and be baptized. In this story, we will see how the love of God is not limited only to those who are like us, but is for everyone. An important message in these divided times!
As you listen to these texts, watch for any baptismal connections. Water, voice, call, washing – any images at all that help you to reflect on the continuing meaning of your baptism in your life of faith. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
In Bible study a few weeks ago, we were talking about the story of Balaam’s donkey striking up a conversation with Balaam (yes, there is a story in the Bible about a talking donkey!), and then Balaam sees an angel of the Lord blocking his path. As we discussed the story, someone lamented something that I have heard and felt myself many times before. He said, “I have never had an experience like this, like people so often do in the Bible, where God speaks clearly to me, or an angel shows up right in my path. Why doesn’t God communicate with us like this anymore – or at least, why doesn’t God communicate with me like this?” My guess is that most if not all of us have had this same thought at some point in our life of faith! Certainly, all of us there that day had felt that way.
Today, on the Baptism of our Lord, we read yet another story of a miraculous revelation of God in a way that seems foreign to us now in the 21st century. The beginning seems ordinary enough, but then the heavens are opened, and the Holy Spirit descends like a dove alighting on Jesus, and then there is what we imagine is a booming voice from heaven, introducing Jesus as God’s Son, the beloved. It all sounds so magical and mystical.
I want that. Why have I never heard a voice like that from heaven? Why do I never encounter God in ways like this?
This question seems even more at front of mind during this season of Epiphany. The very word, epiphany, means “revelation,” implying what is sometimes called a “thin place,” where the veil between heaven and earth is less opaque, and we can get a little closer to witnessing and experiencing or at least catching sight of the living God. And yet… I am still not hearing any voices from heaven, are you? I’m lucky if I hear even a whisper.
As I’ve reflected on this this week, I’ve also been watching the news, with a continually breaking heart. The news from Venezuela. The news of a woman shot and killed in Minneapolis by federal agents, and then two shot in Portland. And worst of all, the way people comment on these events, full of the assumptions and presumed know-how of an armchair expert, but without a bit of human compassion, as if the people involved are not human beings at all. I find myself begging God, “Now would be a good time to show up, God! Now would be the time to bring out that voice from heaven, and send down your Holy Spirit to bring peace and comfort to an aching and broken people! Where are you, God?”
My friends, it is one of those weeks where I entered my sermon-writing process with more questions than answers. I would love to have some words of hope for you and your broken hearts, whatever is making them feel broken today, which may or may not be what breaks mine. The best I can do, is take you along on my own journey of grappling with all this with what I hope is a faithful heart.
So, where my mind went as I began wrestling with what to say was to our Star Gifts from last week. If you were here last week, you picked up a star gift, with the charge to watch for ways this coming year that God is made manifest or visible through the gift written on your star. As I thought about this, I wondered if our stars can guide us in finding and experiencing a thin place – a place where we can see God more clearly, where we may not hear a booming voice from heaven, or see the heavens torn open and the Spirit descend, but we may, nonetheless, witness God speaking or acting in the world. That appearance may not make for such a splashy story that it would be recorded in scripture to inspire future generations of the faithful, but is nonetheless a real way that God showed up.
I’m feeling this possibility as a balm and a lifeline this week. It is guiding the way that I look for God, even in the midst of heartbreak and fear. My star gift is appreciation. So as I was grappling with the news of the week and trying to make sense of it, I sought to pull myself out of despair, by looking for things I appreciate. I appreciate when our elected leaders speak up for the vulnerable. I appreciate when people are able to speak with nuance, such that, even if I disagree with their outcome, I can still respect their viewpoint as one that sees the world in more shades than two. I appreciate people who are willing to be far braver than I think I could be, like a white, male pastor I read about who literally stood beside a Hispanic female protester in Minneapolis who was being harassed by agents, and said, “Leave her alone and take me instead,” literally putting himself on the line to protect someone more vulnerable than him. As I took notice of the things I appreciated, rather than the things that cause me to despair, I started to see God, and feel God’s presence in the mud.
My mom told me her star gift was “speaking,” and so I also looked at the week through that gift. As I prepared for this sermon, I watched and listened and read lots of words about the week’s events, and it was fairly easy to discern which ones revealed God, and which ones revealed human brokenness. I knew I was hearing God speaking when my heart was moved toward courageous love of neighbor. In those cases, my mind returned to the words we heard today from the prophet Isaiah: “I have called you in righteousness; I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind.”
This beautiful passage from Isaiah made me think of our own baptismal call. I asked one of my colleagues whom I saw on Thursday, how the week’s events were informing her preaching this week. She said, “I’m preaching about how Jesus was baptized into a revolution – and so are we.” That got me thinking: baptism is pretty revolutionary! Look at our liturgy: the pastor asks the candidate for baptism, “Do you renounce the devil, and all the forces that defy God?” And they answer, “I renounce them!” “Renounce” is a strong word, not to be taken lightly! It’s a rejection, a refusal to participate in anything that goes against what is of God – that goes against what is love. In addition, in baptism we promise to “care for others and the world God made, and work for justice and peace.” That’s a quote from the baptismal liturgy. And working for justice and peace can indeed be revolutionary! That work tends to upset those who crave power.
So what does that revolutionary baptismal call look like in this moment in history? What does it look like in your social circles and daily life – to “work for justice and peace,” to “care for others,” to “renounce the devil and the forces that defy God?” Well, I do not think it looks like turning a blind eye to pain and minding your own business, much as we may like to. It does not look like sadly shaking our heads and saying, “Well that’s an unfortunate consequence of their decisions,” blaming victims for their own suffering. But it does, I think, look like speaking out when something looks fishy, or what we’re seeing with our own eyes doesn’t match what we’re being told, or it just doesn’t feel right. It does look speaking love and compassion more loudly than human brokenness. It does look like approaching a complicated situation with curiosity rather than assumptions, and remembering, before making judgments, that no one but God knows the whole story. It does look like listening to and learning from people with a different life experience and perspective, knowing that when we better understand another human, we can better understand the God in whose image every human is made. It does look like the servant or “servant people” Isaiah describes, who frees those who are captive, and establishes justice on the earth, who is a light to the nations.
I am still thinking about that desire to see and experience God in the same sort of revelatory ways we see in the Bible. I think God is showing up all the time, if we have eyes to see. God is showing up in the ways we are inspired to work toward goodness rather than hate, toward understanding rather than division, toward love rather than fear. God shows up whenever we see glimpses of those new things God promised would spring forth. If a thing looks like love, it is of God. If a thing looks like mercy, it is of God. If a thing looks like liberation from fear and death – it is of God. We, as a people baptized into that same revolutionary love that Jesus was, are called upon to be a light to the nations, declaring that love and that divine presence in any and every way we can. May God be with us, and visible to us and through us, as we do!
Let us pray… God, we long to see you, see you breaking in through the cracks of our broken world. Give us the eyes to see you revealed. And give us the courage to reveal you to others, through our love and care and pursuit of justice. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
