The problem was, no one had asked my Granny if she was cool with seeing me learn to swim. She was NOT. The first time they asked us to put our faces in the water and make motor boat noises I heard One Granny screaming to “get that baby out of the water!!!!!” Meaning me. There was no dang way I was putting my face in the water with all that going on. My instructor tried a new tack: they told me to lay back in their arms and try to float on my back—No face in the water necessary.
And so I did, and she told me to relax and inflate my chest with air, and tilt my head back. I was fine—until my instructor dropped her arms. One Granny screamed again, I tensed up like a coiled spring, and, having absolute zero body fat at the time, I immediately sank butt first to the bottom.
That trauma took a while to get over. And that’s why I flunked Polliwog class three times that summer. I didn’t trust the water to hold me up.
I was thinking of this when I was contemplating this week’s gospel, and about how much baptism varies across Christianity nowadays. I don’t remember my own baptism at Southern Hills United Methodist Church, but I do remember those of my siblings. No immersion required. Water was poured over our foreheads and tops of our heads. Invocations of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were said. A little dab of fragrant oil was applied to our foreheads. babies were patted dry and handed back to their parents. And just like that, we were members of the Universal Church, the Body of Christ.
The baptism John offered in the river Jordan was for the repentance of sin, but it was not a “one and done” act back then. It was more like a ritual bath that people took to be purified, or to be healed. It was also an act the purified priests for ministry and kings for governing.
Especially since we practice infant baptism, we don’t emphasize baptism as solely a way to wash away sins—although it is certainly in the baptismal covenant, and it is good that it is there, because when we repeat those words we acknowledge that sin and evil are very real—as if the last many years haven’t reminded us of that already.
We emphasize that the action that washes really away our sins, instead, is true repentance to God—turning away from the easy sins, like complacency or pronounced powerlessness in the face of evil, and determining instead to deliberately choose life and witness that God is greater than human contempt and selfishness. In other words, baptism is NOT a “get of jail free” card. It is instead a covenant and commitment to a way of life in which we take very seriously our sinfulness, yes, and commit to frequent admission and repentance of those sins, but in which we are also assured of God’s grace.
Yet there are still some parts of the Christian Church that teaches that baptism washes away one’s sins. And you know, a question arises: if Jesus is without sin, why does he undergo baptism? This was a question that plagued the early church.
Maybe that’s why the actual baptism of Jesus in our gospel appears offstage. But what Luke does say is that Jesus goes to see his cousin, who is pointing out that the people who are coming to him are society’s marginalized, because they are scorned by those around them, Even Joh has just spent a pretty long while calling them “broods of vipers” and accusing them of living lives that did not tend to others. Of being selfish and self-centered and relying on their descent from Abraham rather than on making a real effort to encounter God through prayer that fuels action, action that makes visible he wonders of God without fancy signs from God.
And so it is fascinating that Jesus turns up here, and that he calmly takes his place in line with these acknowledged sinners. But this is actually Jesus’s very first step into his public ministry—and he does it by taking a step into the midst of human frailty and imperfection. Here is the Son of God, taking a common stand with us flawed human beings.
Thus on a 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.
We are called as Christians to follow Jesus into the waters of baptism, and to ourselves be opened to the power of the Holy Spirit within our own lives. It’s an amazing journey parents commit their children to when they are baptized, and not to be taken lightly. It will require the remainder of our lives to be shaped by, and it’s one that lays out for us the requirements for living a fully human, fully God-directed life—a life of integrity. A life of resistance to evil. A life described in our baptismal covenant as requiring faith, a commitment to learning and intellectual rigor, a determination that the good of community and the protection of the vulnerable within that community is the greatest obligation of the command to love God.
It is seeking to serve Christ in all persons, especially those the world despises, and that we might be prone to despise ourselves. It is a reminder for us all about the power of prayer, and how vital it is for our spiritual life to engage in a practice of prayer, of conversation with and listening to God. The heavens open- releasing the Holy Spirit to guide Jesus’ ministry. And when we pray, we enter into that sacred space too between heaven and Earth.
The problem for many of us modern Christians is that the stories of Epiphany are chock-full of the kind of experiences that we modern Christian do not experience—and maybe we long for them, or maybe we like our lived neat and tidy in which most days we give God a passing notice, but on our own terms.
Most of us do not experience theophanies or epiphanies very often. I mean, the only burning bush I have ever seen was in a garden store, and that name was just an allusion to the brightness of the shrub’s leaves—no actual bursting into flame required. Most of us, except my mother, do not admit to hearing the voice of God. But that voice is there. We just need to be willing to listen. And remember that the story of Jesus’s baptism reminds us that God has shared in all our experiences, and calls to us in love to BE an Epiphany for other people—all by the power of our baptism and our prayer life.
We can trust that the water will hold us up.
Amen.
Preached at St. Martin's Episcopal Church on January 11-12, 2025, the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.
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