FEAST OF THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD

[cappie]

Today, we commemorate the baptism of Jesus by his cousin John in the River Jordan. John’s the one we have been hearing about  since the beginning of Advent, and after today, he will drop into the background. John’s role is fulfilled with Jesus’ baptism today.  

From this moment—the moment of a simple ritual of living water—Jesus is changed.  He moves on from here to teach in synagogues. He will heal the sick, and make the dead live again. He will preach, and manifest miracles. He will astound people with his teaching and confound us even today by submitting to a shameful death on a cross. And he will appear again over forty days until he ascends into heaven, prophesying of his return in glory to judge the earth—a second coming we still anticipate, two millennia later.

One day people know him as that clever boy, Joseph’s son. And the next he is revealed as the Christ, the Messiah, the chosen one—God’s son, the beloved, with whom God is well pleased. It is as if the waters of his baptism have washed away what was hiding the true Jesus. The running water of a river has somehow changed him, made him manifest as who he truly is, and given him the power and inspiration to begin a mission and ministry that will forever change the world.

So, too, with our baptism: Each and every one of us was forever changed and transformed in our baptism. And each and every one of us continues to be changed and transformed—in ways big and small—throughout our earthly ministry.

Now filled with the Holy Spirit, we—like Jesus—are commissioned and sent forth to proclaim the good news of God’s favour, to proclaim release for prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the broken victims go free, to proclaim that the time of God’s favour is here.

That is our job: to live baptismally.

And, living baptismally: what is that all about? It is about knowing that we have been forever changed by the acknowledgment of God’s working in our life; that our true and holy self has been revealed by the washing away of all stain of sin;  that we are grafted into the body of Christ’s Church. We are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever.

Baptism is an amazing gift. By the waters of baptism, we are lead from death to life, from the bondage of sin into everlasting life. In it, we are buried with Christ in his death. By it, we share in his resurrection. Through it, we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.

And baptism is also an amesome responsibility. We are also no longer simply to live as ordinary people in the world. We are to confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour, to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to seek and serve the Christ in everyone we meet.

Those of us who profess and call ourselves Christians are called to live a different kind of life,  A life of grateful thanksgiving in the face of victory—and defeat. A life of forgiveness—in the face of bitter betrayal. A life of ongoing repentance—in the face of our chronic mistakes. A life forever changed—and forever changing—proceeding from strength to strength, from goodness to perfection, from death to life.

This Sacrament we call “baptism” is the means by which we declare: our separation from an old identity, our transition from being no longer one of the old order to not yet being fully one of the new, and our incorporation into the full life of the community we know and proclaim as Christ’s holy church.

It is now for us—the baptized, those grafted into the life of Christ, those sealed and set apart—to share in an eternal priesthood, to rejoice at our adoption as children of God, and to give thanks for the ineffable mystery of our salvation.

By baptism, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled—in Jesus, and in each one of us. God looks at us—the beloved, with whom God is well pleased—and says, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of God has risen upon you.”