Railton
Road, 11 January 2004
The Baptism of Christ
This Sunday, the
Church celebrates the baptism of Christ.
St Luke tells us how Jesus came to John to ask for baptism. Unlike some of the other Evangelists, he
doesn’t mention John’s making a fuss and saying “Oh, oh, it ought to be you
baptising me, not the other way round!”
But he does mention the voice from heaven, saying “You
are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
For
Jews, baptism was really a matter of washing.
They had – and still, as far as I know, have – a way of washing in their
ritual baths, which made them no longer unclean. But it was not, I believe, until the time of John the Baptist
that baptism was linked with repentance.
John had one or two things to say to people who wanted baptism without
repenting, baptism without tears, if you like, calling them “a brood of
vipers”, and reminding them that just because they were children of Abraham
didn’t mean they were excused from bearing “fruits worthy of repentance.” In other words, they had to show their
repentance by the change in their lives, and their baptism was to mark this
fresh start.
Now for
me, at least, this raises at least two questions. Why, then, was it necessary for Jesus to be baptized, and,
secondly, what about our own baptism?
Why Was it Necessary for Jesus to be Baptized?
Why did Jesus have
to be baptized? He, after all, was
without sin, or so we are told, so he, alone of all humanity, did not need, and
never has needed, to repent. But when
John queried him, so St Matthew tells us, he said “Let it be so now; for it is
proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.” In other words, let’s observe all the
formalities, don’t let anybody be able to say I wasn’t part of the religious
establishment of the day.
And, of course, one
other very good reason is that it was an opportunity for the Father to proclaim
Jesus to the crowds thronging the Jordan.
John probably baptised hundreds of others that day, I shouldn’t wonder, with
Jesus waiting his turn very patiently.
But it was only when Jesus rose up from the waters of baptism that God
sent the Holy Spirit upon him in the form of a dove, and said, out loud, “You
are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
God proclaimed
Jesus as his beloved Son.
And then what? No triumphant upsurging against the
occupying power, no human rebellion.
Not even a triumphal entry into Jerusalem. No, what awaited Jesus after his baptism was forty days in the
desert, and an almost unbearable temptation to discover the depths of his
powers as God’s Son, whom God loves, and to misuse them. And it was only then, after Jesus had
wrestled with, and conquered, the temptation to misuse his divine power, that
he could come back and begin to heal the sick, raise the dead, restore sight to
the blind and preach good news to the poor.
And gather round him a band of devoted followers, of course, and all
that.
Well, so much for
Jesus’ baptism; what about ours?
What About Our Baptism?
For many
Christians, baptism does seem to be very similar to John’s baptism, a baptism
of repentance, of changed lives, a signal to the world that now you are a
Christian, and plan to live that way.
But for a great many more
Christians, baptism is something that happens when you are a tiny baby, too
small to remember it. That’s usually
the case for Methodists and Anglicans, so it applies to us. I was baptised as a baby and so, very
probably, were you.
Now, some folk say
that being baptised as a baby is a nonsense, how can you possibly repent when
you are an infant in arms, and how can other people make those promises for
you?
I think it depends
very much on whether you see baptism as primarily something you do, or
primarily something God does. The
Anglican church – and thus the Methodists, who inherited much that is good from
the Anglican church and have given equally much back – the Anglican and
Methodist churches call baptism a Sacrament, and you may remember, from your
Sunday School days, that a Sacrament is the outward and visible sign of an
inward and spiritual grace. The other
Sacrament that both Anglican and Methodist churches recognise is, of course,
Holy Communion. The Catholic church
recognises at least five more, but as I can never remember all of them, I won’t
start listing them now! The point is,
that a Sacrament is a place where we humans do something and trust that God
also does something. When we make our
Communion, we believe that we are meeting with Jesus, communicating, if you
like, in a very special way during the taking, breaking, blessing and sharing
of the bread and wine. And in baptism,
we believe that God comes and meets with us in a very special way, filling us
with the Holy Spirit. Yes, even babies –
do you really have to be old enough to be aware that you are doing so in order
to love God? I don’t think so! You certainly don’t have to be aware to be
loved by God, and that’s really what it’s all about.
You see, baptism,
like Communion, is one of those Christian mysteries, where the more deeply you
penetrate into what it means, the more you become aware that there’s more to
know. You never really get to the
bottom of it. St Paul goes off in one
direction, talking about baptism being identifying with Christ in his
death. I’m never quite sure what he is
getting at, when he says in the letter to the Romans,
“Do you not know
that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death?
Therefore we have
been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised
from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of
life.
For if we have been
united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a
resurrection like his.”
I may not have
totally understood Paul there – who does? – but it’s nevertheless part of what
baptism is all about.
Another part of it
is, indeed, about repentance and turning to Christ. For those of us who were baptised as infants, someone else made
promises on our behalf about being Jesus’ person, and we didn’t take
responsibility for them until we were old enough to know what we were doing,
when we were, I hope, confirmed. We
confirmed that we were taking responsibility for those promises for ourselves,
we became full members of the Church and, above all, we received, once again,
the Holy Spirit through the laying-on of hands.
And so it goes
on. But it’s all very well me droning
on about baptism and what it really means, but what is it saying to us this
morning? For some of us, our baptism
was more than five decades ago, after all!
Well, first and
most importantly is that baptism is important for Christians, as important as
the Sacrament of Holy Communion. So if
for any reason you never have been baptised, and you know that you want to be
Jesus’ person, do go and talk to Cameron or Gavton or someone. The same applies if you were never confirmed;
again, go and see someone about being.
But for the rest of
us, for whom our confirmation is nothing more than a memory, and baptism not
even that, so what? What does it mean
for us today?
I think that, like
so much that is to do with God, baptism is an ongoing thing, not just a
once-for-all thing. Yes, we are baptised
once; St Paul reminds us that there is one baptism, just as there is one faith,
and one Lord. But when Martin Luther
was quite an old man, and the devil started whispering in his ear that he was a
rotten human being and God would cast him out, et cetera, et cetera, Luther
threw his inkpot at the spot where he felt the voice was coming from, and said “Nonsense! I have been baptised, and I stand on that
baptism!” Even though that baptism had
been when Luther was a newborn baby, he still knew that its effects would
protect him from the assaults of the evil one.
As, indeed, it does
for us. There are times when life seems
to go very pear-shaped, aren’t there?
Times when it feels that God has forgotten us, that we are stumbling on
alone, in the dark, totally unable to see where we are going. Whether that is true for us as individuals, or as a church, these
times are very hard to deal with and to understand. All we know is, they happen to all of us from time to time, and
we simply can’t see the reason from this end.
Of course, we know
intellectually that God hasn’t in the least bit forgotten us. Some folk say these times of darkness are
when God is testing us, but I’m not sure it’s even that. It’s some part of the pattern that we don’t
understand, can’t see what is happening, and tend to try to rationalise. I do believe that one day we’ll know what it
was all about, and see how it fitted in.
But when I am going
through one of these dark patches, it is to this lovely passage in Isaiah that
was our first reading that I most often turn:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by
name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over
you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you
ablaze.
For I am the LORD, your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.”
It’s a lovely
passage to learn by heart, to say to yourself in those dark watches of the
night when you are lying awake, worrying.
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are
mine.”
In some way we know
that our baptism was part of that. As I
said earlier, it’s what they call a mystery; we’ll never know the whole truth
of how it works, only that it does!
Jesus came for baptism to John, and from his baptism he was sent into
the wilderness to wrestle with one of his dark patches – the other, as we know,
was in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he was crucified. And if Jesus can have dark patches, then it’s
all right for us to, I reckon! Life
doesn’t have to be perfect, and nor do we, before we can remind ourselves that
God loves us.
Of course, that
love isn’t about warm fuzzies; sometimes it’s about going out there and doing
something. Christian love is something
you do, not something you feel. But in
the dark watches of the night, we need our warm fuzzies. And I think God knows that, which is why
there are those lovely passages in Scripture about how much he loves us, about
how he protects us and cares for us.
Let’s sing that
lovely hymn, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy” to affirm that love. It’s number 230.