Debris

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

January 8, 2017

The Baptism of Jesus

          Don and I have a cottage on the Ohio River in the little village of Ripley.  The cottage is on a hill overlooking the water and the river is endlessly fascinating.  Barges of varying lengths float by, sometimes empty, sometimes carrying large loads of coal.  Sometimes the water is clear and calm, and other times, particularly after a significant rainfall or the melting of a lot of snow, the water is high and turbulent.  On those occasions, the water picks up all kinds of debris along the way to Cincinnati, sometimes carrying whole trees including the roots, mats of plant debris and human trash, as well as other unidentifiable objects.  At times like that, the river seems angry, tormented even, cold and dangerous.

          When I think of the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, I think of a much more tranquil scene.  In my imagination, the water is clear and smooth, just the right temperature, with no sign of floating debris. Each year, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus on the Sunday after Epiphany, which was this past Friday, moving rapidly from Jesus as an 8 day old baby last Sunday to Jesus as a grown man this Sunday.  And we think our children grow up quickly! 

          When Jesus went to the Jordan to be baptized by John, the baptism John offered was for the repentance of sins.  Crowds of people were flocking to the wilderness so they could confess their sins and be baptized.  We understand that in baptism we are cleansed from sin and born again.  But why would Jesus, who we understand to be sinless, need to confess his sins and be baptized.  How would that even be possible for someone who was without sin?

          John the Baptist has the same question.  John says “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”  Jesus’ response is "Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Jesus’ baptism is a matter of fulfilling all righteousness. On the one hand, in the Hebrew scriptures, righteousness is a characteristic of God and the word is used to describe God’s faithfulness to the covenant with God’s people. On the other hand, with regards to humans, in the Hebrew scriptures, to be righteous is to do as God commands, which is to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. By offering himself for baptism, Jesus is committing himself to the life God calls him to lead, whatever that may entail. I imagine Jesus’ motive here is not a lot different that all the other folks in line, who are baptized because they want to live a more righteous life.

          So, Jesus goes down into the waters of baptism and comes back up, just like the thousands of other people before him. But when he comes out of the water, the heavens are opened, the Spirit of God descends on him like a dove, and a voice from heaven says "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." Jesus may have gone into the water like everyone else, but only for Jesus do the heavens open and does the voice of God claim him as God’s own.

After a baptism so glorious, a grand celebration would be in order. Jesus has just been claimed as God’s own, God’s beloved. Surely food and drink, dancing or at least a cake should follow. But immediately after Jesus is baptized, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. We will hear that story a few weeks from now on the first Sunday of Lent.  Any thought we might have that being God’s beloved means the conferral of special protection and privilege comes to a grinding halt. Jesus will spend the next 40 days and 40 nights without food or shelter and alone in the wilderness with the devil.

Our reading from Isaiah this morning is often referred to as the First Servant Song.  Isaiah describes a servant who will bring justice to the nations, not by force or violence, but by faith.  Hebrew scholars disagree as to whether this passage refers to a person, who Christians often understand to be Jesus, or Israel as God’s chosen people.  But certainly by pairing this servant song with the baptism of Jesus, the creators of the lectionary want us to think of Jesus when we hear the words of Isaiah this morning.  The work described in this passage from Isaiah-the work of bringing about justice, of opening eyes that are blind, of freeing people from the variety of prisons in which they find themselves-is the work Jesus will do when he emerges from the wilderness.  This work is the work of righteousness-to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. 

Back to those choppy waters on the Ohio River. While the Holy Spirit does not drive most of us out into the literal wilderness after our baptism, baptism does send us out into the world to do the work God gives us to do.  Jesus’ baptism reminds us that we, too, we have been claimed by God in our own baptisms and that God will never abandon us.  But just as Jesus’ baptism was not a promise of health, happiness, popularity or success, neither is ours.  Jesus’ baptism also reminds us that we, too, are sent us out into the world to be a light to the nations, in the words of Isaiah, and engage the wilderness of poverty, disease, and injustice as God’s own beloved children.  And when that work is hard, and looks and feels less like the calm, clean water of baptism and more like the choppy, cold waters of the Ohio River, dangerous and full of debris, the story of Jesus’ baptism reminds us that we, too, have been claimed by God as God’s own and God will always be faithful.      

     

                                 Amen.