The Rev. Anne MacNabb
How many of us remember our Baptism? Why do we get baptized? A proclamation of our faith? Our joining of a covenant? To wash away sins? How does our baptism benefit us?? We receive the Holy Spirit and have God to lead us throughout our lives.
This morning’s Gospel is Luke’s version of the Baptism of Jesus… an event with huge significance. People often asked why Jesus bothered to be baptized as the beginning of this ministry? After all, he’s the Son of God, He IS God, why would God need to be baptized? What would the benefit to him be? Or would there be a benefit?
I don’t think it’s a matter of Jesus as a person needing to be baptized as much as what that event signified. First, this is Luke… the reason Luke wrote his gospel is to show that the grace of God and salvation of God are extended to all people. That is why Mary, the mother of Jesus speaks in Luke’s gospel, we have the names of other women included in Luke’s gospel. We also have the story of the good Samaritan in Luke’s gospel – showing us that even the most unlikely of people can be considered “good” and included in God’s plan for salvation.
Second. Let’s talk about the Jordan River. The Jordan River runs from the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus walked on water, where the fishermen were called to be disciples, where Jesus calmed the sea, down to the Dead Sea, where almost nothing can survive due to the saltiness of the water. But the Jordan River has a long history. It was along the banks of the Jordan River that Lot and his family made their home. It was the Jordan River that the Israelites had to cross to enter the Promised Land - it literally was the divider between the wilderness through which they had wandered for 40 years and the land of milk and honey that they were to inherit. You may remember that Moses was not allowed to cross the Jordan; he turned over leadership of the Israelites to Joshua and stayed in exile, so to speak. As Christians, every time we celebrate communion we remember that Jesus is our Savior who brought us out of the land of exile and slavery to sin, into the promised land of forgiveness.
So let’s think about the Jordan river from a 1st century Jewish perspective. The Jordan river is a significant river. It is the river of ancestral homes. If you can picture Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God walking into this river, He is literally standing between life on one side with the Sea of Galilee and death, in the Dead Sea on the other. He is standing between the land of exile, and the land of promise. All of these things come together in him. The beginning of Jesus’ ministry was not just a symbolic act of ritual cleansing and preparation, but it was an act of salvation in and of itself. It said that all things come together in him – death no longer has any power – it stops at him. There is no place for exile, because through him we enter the Promised Land. Jesus literally is standing in the center of this cross between the Sea of Galilee on his left and the Dead Sea on his Right. The Land of Exile behind him and the Promised land in front of him. He begins his ministry in the center of this cross, and ends his earthly ministry hanging on the cross.
What does this act of salvation mean for us? It means that our baptism is also much more than a ritual cleansing. It means that by our baptism we are no longer subject to death, but have eternal life, we are no longer in exile for our sins, but are forgiven, renewed and established as residents of the promised land. Our baptism, like Jesus, is the beginning of our ministry on earth. Through it we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus was; we are made the sons and daughters of God. This is what empowers us to be the Body of Christ, this is what sustains us in our daily lives. This is the power that rely on when we are facing troubled times.
Whatever our lives bring us… joy, sorrow, success, failure, wisdom, confusion, wherever God calls us, whomever we meet, whatever we do – in our schools, workplaces, and everywhere we go, we have God Himself with us and within us. To guide us, to help us make good decisions, to follow God in all we do. The good news for us this morning is that we are not left to our own resources in this world, but by our baptism we have been made followers of the Most High. The more we seek Him, the more we will find Him. The more we pray and seek his guidance in our lives, the more He will lead us into truth and guide us in our every day living. Thanks be to God for His lovingkindness towards us and that he is with us every day in all we do. Thanks be to God that we don’t have to live this life on our own… we have each other, and we have God. Amen.