Baptism of God's Beloved - Lectionary (RCL) Reflection for Epiphany 1C (Luke 3)

 

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” 

21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

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         My first baptism took place at St. Luke’s of the Mountains Episcopal Church in La Crescenta, California. That is, unless you take into consideration the rumored baptism by the nurses at the hospital where I was born (it was a Catholic hospital and I had a difficult birth). Years later, as a high schooler, I was immersed in a creek at a summer camp in Oregon. I’ve even experienced what Pentecostals call the Baptism of the Holy Spirit (marked by speaking in tongues as initial evidence). Therefore, I believe that I have all my bases covered. With so many possible understandings of baptism available to us, what does it mean to be baptized?

         The first Sunday following Epiphany offers us an opportunity to consider the question of baptism, as we consider Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. Jesus' baptism marks the beginning of his ministry, and it marks Jesus' first appearance in the Gospels of Mark and John. For this particular Sunday, the Revised Common Lectionary takes us to the account of Jesus' baptism in the Gospel of Luke. In his Gospel, this is the first time we meet Jesus after his visit to Jerusalem at the age of twelve. Now, all grown up, he goes down to the Jordan where he is baptized, assumedly by John, whose own baptismal ministry is understood by Luke to have prepared the way for the coming of the Messiah. The message here is that while John baptizes with water, the Messiah will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. 

According to Luke, John offered a baptism of repentance and forgiveness, while the Messiah offered a baptism of judgment and the Holy Spirit. In Acts 2, we read about the moment that the Holy Spirit came upon the believers with fire as they gathered in the upper room. This event led to Peter's sermon and invitation to those who would respond to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, a baptism that would lead to the reception of the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38). Therefore, in Peter's presentation, Pentecost brings together the two ministries: water of repentance and forgiveness along with the fire of the Holy Spirit. Later, in Acts, Paul encounters disciples who knew the baptism of John, but not the Holy Spirit. Paul then rebaptized them in the name of Jesus and laid hands on them so that they might receive the Holy Spirit. Perhaps both are needed—Water and the fire of the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:1-10). 

The question that has always troubled Christians concerns why Jesus went to John to be baptized. Did he need to receive the washing of repentance and the fire of purification? Our traditional theologies suggest that Jesus was not in need of such purification, so why does Luke tell us that when everyone else was baptized (after repenting so as to receive forgiveness), Jesus was baptized? Luke doesn’t tell us why Jesus was baptized only that he was baptized. So, perhaps when it comes to Jesus' baptism something else was going on. Maybe that has something to do with his call to messiahship.

Luke does say that after Jesus was baptized, while he was praying, the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him. It was at this point that a voice from heaven declares Jesus to be God’s son, with whom God is pleased. This word of heavenly assurance takes us back to the story of Jesus' adolescent visit to the Temple, where he told his parents that he was merely visiting his Father’s house (Luke 2:41-51). After he returned home, we're told that Jesus “increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor” (Luke 2:52). That is all we know about the intervening years before we hear this heavenly word of assurance in Luke 3. Now, it's not clear if anyone besides Jesus heard the voice of God in this moment, but whether it was heard by others or not, the message passed on to us is that  Jesus is “My Son, the Beloved.” 

The declaration we hear from the heavens which is spoken by God to Jesus, that “you are my son,” is rooted in Psalm 2:7. This is understood to be an enthronement Psalm that declared the king to be God’s heir and representative. Thus, as Ron Allen and Clark Williamson suggest, these words that are spoken over Jesus by God, “indicate that from baptism onward, Jesus is invested with power to rule as God’s representative. Luke-Acts explains the purpose and means of Jesus’ sovereignty: to bring about the final manifestation of the divine realm” [Preaching the Gospels without Blaming the Jews, p. 179]. Thus, Jesus is anointed the Messiah, who is called by God to baptize with Holy Spirit. 

The messianic kingdom that Jesus is empowered to initiate will bring with it both forgiveness and judgment. It brings about a new reality. The old creation has passed away and a new creation has come into existence. This can be a good word to hear as the new year begins, especially a new year that is overshadowed by the continuing presence of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Christ, the chaff of our lives is burned away leaving behind the good grain of the realm of God. While this is the promise inherent in Jesus' ministry, even as the new realm has been inaugurated, Jesus still lived within the world that was. The same is true for us as well. Thus, Carol Lakey Hess makes a good point in commenting on this passage:

Jesus was born from as well as into a world of systemic sin, and his baptism is a signal that he understood the full implications of the incarnation. He was not merely identifying with or showing solidarity with the human world; he was fully acknowledging its tragic structure. There are no innocent, no perfect, no unambiguous, no controllable, indeed no sinless choices in this world. All choices must be made within a context that precedes and impinges upon them. [Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 1, p. 238].

Therefore, we live in this "now but not yet" period of God's history. The realm is present but not yet fully present. We're called to live out of the values inherent to the realm, even as the world itself has yet to be fully transformed. Jesus understood this, and so in baptism, we live with this both/and reality. The good news is that by receiving baptism, we begin a new chapter of the story of God’s realm.

We who receive baptism are embraced by Jesus and his realm. We begin with water, the sign of our cleansing, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, the empowerment for service. Too often baptism has been the source of friction and division in the Christian community. Do we immerse or sprinkle? Should baptism be made available to infants and children, or only those ready to profess faith? I was born into a tradition that practiced infant baptism, assuming that baptism included such children in the covenant community. Later I became part of communities that assumed that baptism sealed one's confession of faith in Christ. There are theological rationales available for all of our practices, but the question for us here as we celebrate the baptism of Jesus is how our own baptisms connect us with the baptism of Jesus. 

I would like to suggest that whatever our own position on baptism, at least in terms of timing and mode, that we keep two things in mind. First, whatever the form or timing baptism involves a decision to enter the realm of God. The repentance and the cleansing that are symbolized by the water, remind us that in baptism we leave behind the ways and values of the old realm. Secondly, once we enter the new realm of God, God prepares us for the work at hand. We don’t go about serving God on our own. We go forth into the world empowered by the Holy Spirit. In the book of Acts, it’s clear that it’s the Spirit that moves the community of faith out into the world. Once they are empowered by the Spirit, they take on a new sense of purpose. As Paul shares in Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Ephesians (yes, I know that the authorship of Ephesians is disputed), God has gifted the church with spiritual gifts that enable the people of God to fulfill their callings (see my book Unfettered Spirit: Spiritual Gifts for the New Great Awakening, for more on this).

Epiphany speaks of light. It invites us to experience enlightenment as we follow the star to God's "perfect light" (Glory to God, 151). As we follow this star toward the light of God, it is appropriate on Baptism of Jesus Sunday to consider the meaning of our own baptisms. What does this event in our lives mean to us? Whether it occurred in infancy or at some other stage in life, how does baptism influence one's daily life? How are we made new so we can participate fully in God’s new realm? In what ways is the Holy Spirit moving in our midst, empowering us for service in God’s realm?  

Image Attribution:  Xačʿatur. Baptism of Christ, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56383 [retrieved December 29, 2021]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/medmss/8614784984.